Is the West a society of addicts? Or: the change of food

a reply to: Itisnowagain

If what you said about the monkey is true then that's very worrying or us. Sad thing is also that in India the overweight may even be malnourished, like their starving/underweight counterparts... the junkfood doesn't contain many healthy nutrients. Weird thing to realise.

I did a lot of research into it for her as I grew tired of her reading diet books and failing.

The key issue was when I looked into why obesity was such a modern issue.

My grandparents eat real butter, gorged on fat and eat real, home made dinners.

I based our diets on that principle and everybody benifited. all of my grandparents lived long happy lives and ate plenty of carbs and fat.

a reply to: Pitou

While I'm sure there are many intertwined factors that are contributing to the obesity problem, IMHO one of the biggest issues is the vilification of fat, and it's result the infusion of sugar into almost every food product.

I've been overweight nearly my whole life, but was never a couch potato. I was active as a child, and then once I became an adult I went straight into the workforce doing labor jobs where I was doing fairly rigorous physical labor for 8+ hours a day, usually 6 days a week. The weight still remained, even when limiting food intake and increasing exercise outside of work.

I, like most people, were taught to limit their fat and meat consumption and told to eat grains, fruit, and veggies. I was always hungry, with seriously uncomfortable hunger pangs within only a few hours of eating a meal. I fell for that ruse my whole life up until the last couple years when I cut out pretty much all grain and added sugar from my diet.

Now my diet consists of large amounts of fat, meat, veggies, good amount of dairy (usually in the form of cheese or cream) and I've never felt better, and my weight loss has continued steadily since I changed my eating habits. I had to put up with people around me attacking my food choices because they were so brainwashed into thinking fat is bad. When the weight started coming off and my health improved some people I knew refused to believe that I wasn't making myself vomit, or taking drugs, or otherwise "cheating" because they just couldn't understand how I was loosing weight while eating tons of fat and delicious meat.

Once it finally sunk in to them that eating a high-fat diet can in fact help a person to loose weight, I had people around me go on and on about how my cholesterol must be high and even though I'm loosing weight I'm not actually healthy. It almost made them angry when I told them that both my blood pressure and bad cholesterol have gone down by a significant amount after I started eating a high-fat diet.

Aside from the health benefits, I eat absolutely delicious food, every single meal is a treat not a chore. And I'm never, ever hungry, if I'm busy doing something I can easily forget to eat and eventually I'll feel a bit dizzy or something and realize I haven't eaten in the last 10 hours.

People's bodies are different, but I know without a doubt that my body runs best on fat and meat, not carbs and grain. I strongly suspect that many people are the same but have been raised to avoid fat and replace it with carbs, giving us a society of fatties that we have today.

The mainstream doctors and diet "experts" continue to attack high-fat diets and push their "balanced" diet rife with grain, and then blame the person for not loosing weight.

It shouldn't be a chore to maintain a healthy weight, most thin people don't have to obsess over everything they eat and go out of their way to engage in physical activity. It's natural to be thin, and if it doesn't come naturally to a person with their current diet, or the diets suggested by mainstream sources, they need to consider something else.

I could not agree more, as I said after a lot of reading I changed my wifes diet, removed sugar including fruit and drinks and replaced it with meat based low carb high protien meals.

Cheese, eggs, meat, plenty of fish. The weight just fell off but because of the protien and fat she never has cravings and binges as you would imagine on a "diet"

Plenty ofr vegatables and she could not be in better health.

originally posted by: nonspecific
My mother in law is a dietican and she says that the fastest growing demographic for type 2 diebetes is Indians in the UK

Its a massive shock to the system.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

If you ask yourself, what are the reasons, for the rising weight and health problems around the world. Then list the problems of health in order. First a bit of weight goes on ,then the blood pressure rises, the heart has to work harder. More weight goes on and you don't feel as perky as you used to. You go and see the Doc. He says your at risk of a stroke or a heart attack. Prescribes statins , blood thinners, and Blood pressure pills. The statins cause diabetes, and upper back pain, the blood thinners can cause bleeds. You end up seeing the doc again, and he might prescribe pain killers. Which in time will stuff your liver. Over a few years your health gets worse, and you are still gaining weight. The next visit the doc says your eyes are showing signs of cataracts, that would be the stains as well, but more concerning is your blood sugar is getting higher and you are now a type 2 diabetic. He prescribes Metformin, which after about ten years you will then have to inject yourself with insulin. It will also give you bad leg rashes which may or may not require surgery at some point, in the cluster F&%$# that has become your life.

But wait, what was causing the problem in the first place? it was the build up of the triglycerides in your blood stream, all he needed to tell you that ninety nine per cent, of these fats that accumulate in the blood stream come from all the Dairy produce that is now consumed in excess. A food that should be a weekend treat at most is now part of the Westerners daily diet. So you cut out all Dairy except for the occasional piece of goats feta, cut out the sugar, consume acetic acid with your now low carbohydrate meals, ie.Cider vinegar, to gently dissolve all the crap in your bloodstream and within about four weeks, your blood sugar is heading for normal, and the waist size is falling fast, along with your blood pressure. After about two weeks you don't need any of the medication, which would have eventually have finished you off...It worked for me.

that is a very good point, I completley forgot to mention that we kicked cows milk out of our diet.

Adult humans are not very good at dealing with cows milk as we struggle to deal with lactose.

Cheese and yogourt is far easier to digest as the lactose is broken down prior to ingestion.

We also moved to goats and sheep milk which is far better for adults.

Another example of how big business is affecting the health of the general population

a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: nonspecific

Man o man - people in this thread have sure drunk the kool-aid~

First of all - obesity is NOT an epidemic. Epidemics are caused by infectious agents!
second of all - please provide PROOF of what human being are supposed to weigh. Not your general BMI - which is an absolutely useless piece of math with absolutely no meaning what-so-ever.
Third of all - food is NOT addictive - please look up the medical definition of addiction as it existed prior to the change in definition provided by the Surgeon General to "prove" that tobacco was addictive. The definition became so broad, its not clear that air is addictive. Look up the Surgeon Generals report and see what the definition of addiction used to be and there was only 5 things on the list - food wasn't one of them
fourth of all - examine the change in BMI catagories that happened in 1998 and how millions of americans became overwieght over night.

This is not a food or a health problem - this is a problem of the public health community screwing with language and definitions in order to create more work (and more funding for itself).

Tired of Control Freaks

This may sound a bit off-the-wall, but does anyone know if there is such a thing as reverse anorexia? I ask this because I see people, women especially, wearing attire that they have obviously had to use a gigantic shoe horn to stuff themselves into. Then they strut around like they are the sexiest thang on the planet!

When an anorexic looks in the mirror, she sees herself as fat even though she is emaciated. Do some people look in the mirror and see themselves as thin or normal when they are actually obese?

Maybe there is a new mental disorder out there.

You are correct in that it is not an epedemic. It is however a major problem.

As far as I am aware I never cliamed that food is addictive or discussed BMI.

I have to disagree with your statment that this is not a food or health problem as the two are linked closely and the notion that obesity is not linked to food and health makes no sense.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

a reply to: nonspecific

Really? The connection between food and health makes no sense? Now you are asking me to agree with a general statement to prove your argument about obesity being an epidemic.

The fact is that science still does not in any way shape or form know anything about the human diet. The only thing they have done is gotten paid for a massive number of epidimiology studies that can prove one thing and the exact opposite at the same time.

The food pyramid was developed as the result of lobbying and not science.

The FACTS are this: We have now gained control of infectious agents and are instead dying of chronic diseases at an older age. Instead of screaming "whooo hooo", we are being scared silly of chronic diseases.

Of course there are more chronic diseases - simply because we live longer and don't die of childhood diseases. So now the theory is that it is food causing the chronic diseases.

I guess public health has to keep the funds coming somehow and big pharma really wants to get into the diet business in a big way

Tired of Control Freaks

You may have misunderstood me I appologise I said that he notion that obesity is not linked to food and health makes no sense.

Obesity can only be linked to food and health surely?

I will agree that the so called food pyramid is nonsense but we know quite a lot about the human diet. We know what is wrong and that is a good start.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

a reply to: nonspecific

No - we don't know what is wrong! For instance: The theory of saturated fats causing heart disease has been debunked for many years.

Public health are the ones who espoused the theory and forced manufacturers to replace saturated fats with transfat - now, without even an apology for all the heart attacks they caused, they are off on a transfat witch hunt.

They thought sugar was the culprit and forced manufacturers to replace sugar with aspertame - if you fell for that one, its your own fault.

Public health as demonized salt. Now with our bodies composed of 78 % salt water and kidneys and organs designed to remove salt if we eat too much - guess what people are dying of ? oh that would be too little salt. Public health forgot that salt is necessary to sustain life, we can get rid of excess salt but we can't manufacture it if our salt balance is too low.

Some say meat is bad - some say dairy is bad.

The five a day mantra for veggies was based on political lobbying

If we listen to all the studies, we are down to eating organic lettuce but only if its grown on the north side of hill unaffected by air pollution and watered with the properly clean water.

Sorry - no - I don't think we know anything about diet at all - except if we don't eat, we die~

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: nonspecific

You haven't answer my question - what is obesity? how do you define it? Why is it bad?

Tired of control freaks

Sorry I did not realise you had asked me a question.

I can not answer the question because I do not feel my answer will satisfy your needs.

In my opinion too much sugar is bad for you, too much meat is bad for you, too many carbs are bad for you, too much dairy is bad for you, too much protien is bad for you.

I am 5' 10 and 9 stone. I eat real food, vegatables and some meat and fish. I think as I have stated that the food industry is killing people for profit and big pharma is keeping them alive for profit.

I do not know what you want from me in terms of answers, I am just a person?

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

originally posted by: nonspecific
that is a very good point, I completley forgot to mention that we kicked cows milk out of our diet.

Adult humans are not very good at dealing with cows milk as we struggle to deal with lactose.

Cheese and yogourt is far easier to digest as the lactose is broken down prior to ingestion.

We also moved to goats and sheep milk which is far better for adults.

Another example of how big business is affecting the health of the general population

a reply to: anonentity

I have the suspicion that all humans are lactose intolerant, but westerners have a gene that stops the spewing and bloating, but the intolerance shows up in an inflammatory way. Where you have populations that should be lactose intolerant and they have picked up western genes so to speak, they seem to have the worst symptoms, of diabetes and obesity, plus all the heart and other related problems.

a reply to: nonspecific

You are on a conspiracy site! I want you to open your mind and begin asking questions.

You say "obesity" is bad! But what is obesity and why is it bad. you have been told that obesity is bad because it causes heart disease and diabetes.

OK - that is a thought. Now the question that must necessarily follow is this:

Is every heart attack caused by obesity. Answer: NO Skinny people have heart attacks too!. Does a heart attack caused by obesity look any different than heart attacks suffered by skinny people? Answer: NO.

Question: So how do you know that obesity causes heart attacks. Anser: well they did a study in epidimiology. Guess what epidimiology was never ever intended to identify an association for diseases that can be caused by a number of factors.

Can a fat person have a heart attack caused by stress? Sure they can~ So how do you know if the heart attack that the fat person had was CAUSED by obesity?

Look at Japanese people - smallest people in the world, very little obesity but very high rates of heart disease.

whoops how did that happen? That kind of goes against the theory doesn't it?

I am suggesting that you had best start thinking with your head before public health takes control of the food supply and rations to you personally, only what they think you should eat!

Tired of Control Freaks

I cannot confirm this but I have seen several medical journals that state that adult lactose tolerance is a new thing, less than 5000 years. If you look at the modern dairy industry and the increase of dairy products it definatley has a possible impact on the "epidemic"

a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: nonspecific

Exactly - its just another theory and has no meaning. Guess what - people are pretty good at knowing what agrees with them. If dairy doesn't agree with you - then don't eat it! Why do you need public health, scientists and government in the business of deciding how much milk is good for you personally.

How exactly did manufacturers of milk CAUSE the "epidemic". Man has been drinking milk for a very very long time your know?

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: nonspecific

You are on a conspiracy site! I want you to open your mind and begin asking questions.

You say "obesity" is bad! But what is obesity and why is it bad. you have been told that obesity is bad because it causes heart disease and diabetes.

OK - that is a thought. Now the question that must necessarily follow is this:

Is every heart attack caused by obesity. Answer: NO Skinny people have heart attacks too!. Does a heart attack caused by obesity look any different than heart attacks suffered by skinny people? Answer: NO.

Question: So how do you know that obesity causes heart attacks. Anser: well they did a study in epidimiology. Guess what epidimiology was never ever intended to identify an association for diseases that can be caused by a number of factors.

Can a fat person have a heart attack caused by stress? Sure they can~ So how do you know if the heart attack that the fat person had was CAUSED by obesity?

Look at Japanese people - smallest people in the world, very little obesity but very high rates of heart disease.

whoops how did that happen? That kind of goes against the theory doesn't it?

I am suggesting that you had best start thinking with your head before public health takes control of the food supply and rations to you personally, only what they think you should eat!

Tired of Control Freaks

Stress is the worst thing for causing any illnesses, if your obese then your already stressed, the Japanese, have work stress. Stress to the body can take many forms. Even laying around all day can be stressful. Its all about balance.

I get where you are coming from, I really do and I thank you for wanting me to open my horizons.

But do you not see that my eyes are already open? You keep talking about "public health", this means nothing to me as an administration as I live in the UK. I Get your point i really do but please do not simply assume that I am in the wrong and need to be enlightened.

I never mentioned heart disease or heart attacks. I never said obesity was bad or wrong.

I have to the best of my understanding not been fooled by any of the lies that you think I have.

I commend your heartfelt need to promote your beliefs but please do so to somebody that needs to understand the implications and not someone that agrees(on the whole) with your viewpoint.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks