On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Bob Sullivan <[email protected]> wrote: > Frank, > > I appreciate your reply and perspective. > I think people are responsible and knowledgeable about food, > more so than most folks give them credit for. > It's no real mystery that people do things that they like/enjoy, > even though those things are or could be bad for them. > (Think smoking or unsafe sex as extreme examples) > > You want people to change what their tastes are, their physical TASTE. > It's like trying to get folks to stop using butter when cooking. > We like the taste of things cooked with/in butter. > Perhaps you can begin to understand the conundrum. > We as a civilization have lived for generations on our current diet. > It's more affordable and available than it has been ever before. > Some of us are eating more of it than we should. > Is this McDonald's fault or my/the individual's fault?
I understand the conundrum very well, Bob. And before I go on, we certainly have ~not~ lived for generations on our current diet. I don't know about you, but my grandparents didn't eat many hamburgers, pizzas or Egg McMuffins. They didn't drink much soda pop and when they did it wasn't sweetened with aspertame. Very little of what they ate was deep fried or processed in a factory. None of their food was genetically modified. And I think that you may be confusing our "civilization" with "North America". I'm not sure that what passes for our "current diet" is eaten in too many places around the world outside of our continent. But here's the conundrum: We like fat and sweet. I'm not talking about Queen Latifah or Ricky Lake, I'm talking about food. Most of our evolution took place during times when we went through times, seasons or even years when food was scarce. Fat is a great way to store energy, so eating fatty foods when available helped us get through that nasty cold winter, blight, crop failure, whatever. When fatty food was available, it was in our best interest to gorge on it. That may have worked when we were hunter/gatherers, and we might go days or weeks between major kills, but now that fatty food is readily available for next to nothing, we have major problems. Because we're genetically predisposed to crave fat, many of us can't stop ourselves from eating it. That's the problem with the fast food industry. I'm not saying they're doing this because they're evil or bad; they're a business and (like someone craving a hamburger) they can't help themselves. They need to make a profit to survive and boy have they found a never-ending source of money! Listen, I don't want anyone to "change anyone's tastes", and I don't know what the answers are. I'm all for someone having a treat once in a while - we all need that. But eating processed fast-food daily (or more) is doing great harm. I'm not saying that the government can or should do anything about it. I guess at the very least proper labeling is a start, but even then, for the same reasons that some people smoke or over-indulge in alcohol or narcotics when they know these things to be destructive, many will continue to put "convenience" and taste over health and nutrition. There are no easy answers, but until something changes we will see health problems continue to rise. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
