Obese blamed for the world's ills

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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It can be cheaper to prepare your own foods in some cases, but I have shown many times, how it was actually cheaper to eat food that is bad for you as opposed to healthy nutritious foods. Also keep in mind, that bringing things home from the market like ramen noodles and bologna, is not any healthier than eating fast food.

reply to post by jackinthebox

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Oh i agree the stuff you bring home isn't as healthy, as i said i prepare everything from scratch, literally. The only thing i buy premade is probably tomato source and for half the year i make my own version of that when i grow the tomatoes.

Why do you say in some cases it's cheaper and in other cases it's not, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me so please elaborate.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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Well, one example of how to lower ones cost per serving is if you are buying and preparing your foods in bulk. But if you don't have family to feed, you risk wasting money on spoilage. Also, if you happen to be without refrigeration, as I am, this is not really much of an option either.

I like to make everything from scratch as well actually, when I have the means to do so. Pasta and meat sauce for example. I went about ten years never buying a jar of sauce. That actually takes a lot of time to make though, but there are many other things that can be prepared from scratch quite quickly and easily.

reply to post by jackinthebox

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Well i save a lot of money by doing something like this. I take a very cheap cut of meat and space it out. A small roll of meat costs around £1.59p, that's roughly $3.40c. I'll use that in a salad on day one, sandwiches day 2 and an omelette on day 2 as well (evening meal). It's padded out with cheap vegetables and fruits, and i even throw an egg into the salad. The cost of the ingredients on first glance is far more than a burger, but the ingredients spread over several days whereas a burger only feeds you for one meal.

I've had to cut back on the amount i'm eating, but my stomach got used to it, i'm far from undernorished and feel percetly satisfied food wise on most days. Now if i were a massievely obese person, well then i simply couldn't afford to fill my stomach and cancel my appetite.

I think it's down to personal choice and careful consideration of figures. It might seem cheaper to buy that burger, but when you really look at it, the ingredients i buy can last several days and that's what makes it cheaper, learning to string out what you have. I eat far less meat than most people and it saves me a ton of money.

EDIT

Oh another example, some chicken nuggets are aroud £0.80p here, some fries maybe £0.50p, and a milkshake £0.90p. I should say i don't know if these are perfectly correct becuase i havn't been into a fast food joint in maybe 10 years. However i recall teh figure from a news article i read not long ago.

So there you have a meal that will fill you up for maybe 1 hour, and it's only 1 meal, costing £2.20p. Now i can buy a whole chicken for that much money! A whole chicken will give me more than one meal, is far more nutritious and will keep me full unlike the burger. However not many people will consider those thigns, they just see the price.

A chicken is cooked, with some vegetables that's one meal, cold on sandwiches next day and in salads, then the carcass can be boiled up, mixed with veg and i have a stew that will provide 4 or even 5 meals.

Now imagine buying a burger for each of the meals the chicken gives me. the cost would be far greater for the fast food than my chicken dishes.

[edit on 22-5-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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Fruits and vegetables are not at all cheap here. I spent nearly two dollars on one single peach last Summer. Just today I spent $1.15 on a single tasteless, grainy tomato. The organic ones are three times as much, and really still a far cry from fresh garden tomats.

EDIT to add: If I am not mistaken as to the sort of meat product you are talking about, that stuff is terrible for you.



[edit on 5/22/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by jackinthebox

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A whole chicken is bad for you? Well i know it's not perfect, it is full of growth hormones and such but it's far superior to a chicken nugget. I wish i could afford organic but i simply can't.

So you havea choice if you're poor and i want to know which you'd choose. A fast food meal from your local place or a home made meal which might contain growth hormones in the meat. I know which i'd choose, despite your view on thigns the chicken does still contain more goodness than a chicken nugget.


The meat still contains minerals and some vitamins, the vegetables also still contain vitamins and minerals. therefore it's far superior to a fast food meal and as i've shown it can work out cheaper.



Just to clarify, why is a whole chicken terrible for you compared to a fast food meal?

[edit on 22-5-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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No, I agree the real chicken is better for you. I was referring to the "meat roll" you mentioned earlier, when I said it was bad for you.

reply to post by jackinthebox

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Oh no sorry teh meat roll i mentioned is simply a slab of meat cut from an animal and rolled up, it's a true cut it's just a very cheap cut, best suited to stewing to help tenderise it a little then chopped up very thinly for things like salads and sandwiches. Sorry i am sure there is a proper name for it i just can't think of it

My whole problem with people saying "i can't afford proper food", is they often mean they can't afford steak and other "good" cuts of meat.

[edit on 22-5-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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I used to buy packs of "pork trimmings" to put in my meat sauce. It was only 99 cents per pound at the time but has gone up to $1.29. They were just the random left over pieces of meat after they trimmed out all of the nice nice cuts. Not really good for much, fatty and tough, but good enough for my slow-cooked pasta sauce or a stew.

As far as buying a chicken goes, there are a few things that you are leaving out. First, that whatever you pair the chicken with is an additional expense, increasing your overall cost per serving. Then you also have to consider the costs of preperation, storage, and cleanup. With energy costs climbing so sharply in the past few years, the cost to cook something is certainly something that must be considered, which most people are not used to doing.

If I were to cook a whole chicken, the energy cost alone would be about two dollars. I have a suspicion that cost may actually be higher across the pond there. And running a refrigerator can cost $10-15 per month here. These are the hidden costs of eating at home, which are easily overlooked.

reply to post by jackinthebox

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Err i havn't overlooked them, i went through it a a while back. I just for the hell of it over 1 month ate fast food, not in the Morgan Spurlock kind of extreme but i greatly increased the amount i ate. Two things occured.

1. The amount of money i had left at the end of the month was reduced by nearly two thirds. That isn't an exaggeration either, literally two thirds.

2. I dind't put on much weight however i did feel very unwell, my skin went very greasy and i had me than a couple of people ask if i was ok.

I fully am keeping the costs of everything included, i pair the chicken with vegetables and it still works out far cheaper than fast food. I think you're looking for excuses to make eating badly ok, or to excuse the obese.

Maybe poor people do eat badly, but maybe that's because of the way they're raised. Maybe they're not taught about food, maybe they're parents just give them fast food becuase they don't look at the real cost or just can't be bothered. Once that is set into ne generation then it will keep happening t the next in that family line and the chances are they will be poorer due to ill health.

Does eating badly make you poor or does being poor make you eat badly? That's a simplified idea of the argument. Lets remember that being morbidly obese wil seriously impact your job chances.

[edit on 22-5-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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I think you are ignoring the real reasons why people have suddenly become so obese in the last twenty years, because it is easier just to blame them instead of society as a whole.

Fat people don't need excuses, they nead real answers to the problems.



Yes, there is truth in what you say here. But did the parents really intend to raise their children poorly, or were they simply too busy working all the time? And in the end, are you willing to punish someone through taxation, because they were not raised properly?



Well, I can tell you that I have put on a lot of weight in the past year or so since I lost my apartment, depsite the fact that I am actually more active physically. I attribut this directly to the fact that I am dependent on fast-foods, and foods that need little or no preperation.

So, being poor has made me fat and unhealthy.

My father is a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America, so believe me when I say that I was raised with an appreciation for quality food. I detest the diet I am forced to subsist on now, but I have little choice for the time-being.


[edit on 5/22/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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I challenge you to offer an entire meal, fully prepared, at a cost under two dollars US, or however that translates into Pounds.

I'm afraid in the end what you sove in your mouth, the amounts you shove in and the level of exercise you get are most usually down to your own choices. I will exclude children from that simply because the parents of the children are responsible for their diet.



Tax them? God no, i made the point earlier that they pay taxes already on many foods. Obese people are very often buying luxury foods which are taxed (at least they're taxed in the UK). Chocolate biscuits for example have tax on them. I think we need good education regarding food and it needs to start early with children. Maybe if we spent more tax money in that direction things would be better.

What shocked me the other day is the amount of fat and obese children around. I'm only 22 here and when iw as at school i only ever saw 1 or maybe 2 fat children in school, and that isn't an exaggeration. The other day whilst being driven past a school when they were all coming out, i noticed that many of them were very large and i felt rather sad about that. I would say every third child was on the very big side.

Sorry about your poor luck recently regarding your apartment and the poor food. I know existing on such meals can't be nice, I hope things improve for you soon.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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I have said, from time to time, that people should do all that they can to be healthy. But the thing that really scares me the most, is even the food that is supposed to be good for us, isn't anymore. If you are not getting proper nutrition, you will be hungry, and you will over eat. Then throw on top of that the food modifiers that actually induce hunger.

Pure meat, such as the chicken you mentioned, or beef which is extremely popular here in the States, has hormones in it that actually induce hunger. That's how they get the animals to grow more quickly, so that they can be slaughtered and sent to market more quickly. And of course, they no longer have the same nutritional value that was once provided by such flesh, because of this, and other cost related issues.

And produce? The humble potato has lost huge amounts of nutrition...

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint

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You can also reason that there are TONS (pardon the pun) of rail skinny people who eat five times their weight in a day. That MAY be an exagerration, but we all know these people who eat and eat and eat and stay skinny. We also know overweight people who dont really eat a lot. I know a few of them. They have no metabolism.
edited for a typo

[edit on 23-5-2008 by raven bombshell]

woah! You are courting a dangerous idea here- you cant lump obese people into these categories. Considering the percentage of US population who are overweight, they are most of our workforce, as well. You are effectively stating that obese people are parasites and that is not fair. They are paying into the insurance, too.

reply to post by BlasteR

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The AF now has PT, but I was already out when that started. I was put on "notice" for being 144 lbs at 5 ft 7. I had quit smoking and gained 15 lbs. I still looked fairly thin so they removed the flag on me. I starved down to 125 to keep out of trouble but I could barely lift my M-16. So which is better really: an anorexic who cant back you up in the foxhole or a fattie who can? Im 144 lbs again- my body seem to like that weight,

sorry if I went off topic

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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Actually many states do not impose a sales tax on unprepared food, so people who overeat (Im not even going to day "fat" because Redneck is eating all of the food) are not necessarily paying more tax.

Yeah its all the fatties' fault. Get on that tredmill, lardarse! Let's hear those thighs scrape! Don't give me no "its my glands!" excuses, its not like you absorb fat through airborne osmosis! Now run!

Deny ignorance, yeah right ! Here let me help you out a little bit. an obese person is 20% or more over thier ideal body wieght. Break it down a little more if a person's ideal wieght is 160 lbs and they wiegh 193 lbs they are classified as being obese. So depending on a person's frame and hieght they would be classified as being obese simply by being a mere 25- 30 lbs overwieght. The 100+ lbs overwieght that you speak of is classified as being morbidly obese. So people that wiegh 30 lbs more than they should should be taxed for that ?


Did you think before you posted ? Did you wake up and make the decision to purposely insult people ? Or do you just not care that because of something that you said someone could be sitting somewhere crying thier heart out ? You have no idea why some people are obese and quite frankly unless it directly effects you it's NONE of your business.


Are you aware of the fact that many poor people are overwieght because they can not afford to eat a healthy diet & survive mainly on carbs like rice, potatoes & pasta because they are affordable ? Some people's bodies do not metabolize carbs like others do and in turn they gain wieght. Are you aware that some people due to health problems take steroids like prednisone that make them gain wieght ? There are many things including stress that help to make people overwieght.


For you to come out and say some of the things that you have said only shows ignorance. I seriously doubt that morbidly obese people are proud of thier wieght. Are you aware of the fact that when a person starts limiting thier normal intake of food that thier metabolism naturally slows down because the body thinks it's starving ? Maybe you should do a little research before you speak about things of which you know nothing about.


You spoke of encouraging obese people to lose wieght. Do you really think that anything that you said could be be even remotely seen as encouraging ? Do you think that your words helped anybody ? Maybe they helped push an already suicidal person over the edge. You haven't tried to encourage anybody, you've done nothing but demean people.


I would like to encourage you and others like you to try and become better human beings.


I read some of this thread yesterday and chose not to respond until i calmed down. However in coming back tonight the callousness and cruelty that i see here would not let me keep silent. If i seem rude, or this comes across as an attack i apologize as that was not my intenet.