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To Eat or Not to Eat? That Ain't the Question.
Yesterday the LA Times posed a question to its readers: Why do we eat? More specifically, why do we overeat? Their answer, supported by several scientists and studies, was that the sheer ubiquity of food triggers an almost Pavlovian eating reflex.
Several recent studies, papers and a popular weight-loss book argue that eating is an automatic behavior triggered by environmental cues that most people are unaware of—or simply can't ignore. Think of the buttery smell of movie theater popcorn, the sight of glazed donuts glistening in the office conference room or the simple habit of picking up a whipped-cream-laden latte on the way to work.
In short, Americans are so divorced from the idea of food as nutritious that we don't even react to our bodies' physical cues, instead responding to subliminal environmental messaging. The fact that our environment is saturated with unhealthy foods creates the illusion that we have no choice but to eat them. The only solution, sigh the scientists, might be government regulation of everything from vending machines to portion size.
But if it's true that people have no free will when it comes to food, the message hasn't yet reached marketers. Far from subtle, the motivations behind ad campaigns are often brutally clear.
A Burger King ad currently running in Bay Area subway stations, for example, shows a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge with the caption, "Now You Can Eat and Pay Rent." Residents of the country's third-most expensive city will not miss the point: You'll choose Burger King because if you want to keep a roof over your head, there's no other choice.
It doesn't have to be that way. A new study in the American Journal of Public Health shows that, surprise! Low-income people—Burger King's target demographic—buy fresh, local fruits and vegetables if given the means to do so (the study gave participants $10 vouchers to use for produce at farmers' markets or supermarkets) The money might not buy as many calories, but it still helped study participants eat close to three extra servings of fruits and veggies per day. So forget eating and paying rent. Maybe we can thrive and pay rent.
—Casey Miner
We can run but we can't hide. We can try to avoid individual responsibility for our choices, but we will still end up paying the costs no matter how much we might want to put them on someone else. You eat too much and you die early ? and no amount of regulation on food businesses are going to change that central incentive on good behavior.
http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/01/stop-me-before.html
We can run but we can't hide. We can try to avoid individual responsibility for our choices, but we will still end up paying the costs no matter how much we might want to put them on someone else. You eat too much and you die early ? and no amount of regulation on food businesses are going to change that central incentive on good behavior.
http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/01/stop-me-before.html
Nevermind that lower income families may not get as many calories from fresh fruits and vegetables as at MacDonald's... they will be saving money in the long run in avaoiding the inevitable health care costs that would be incurred if they consistently chose to eat fast food vs. healthy food!
It's crazy that the price is the only thing people care about when we buy food. Quality or ethics have nothing to do with it. And we are spending less of our income (%) than any other society at any time in history on food.
"It's crazy that the price is the only thing people care about when we buy food. Quality or ethics have nothing to do with it. And we are spending less of our income (%) than any other society at any time in history on food"
Ethics?? Quality and ethics don't have anything to do with it, it is a very complex issue.
It is not crazy when you can barely afford a roof over your head and the ridiculously high heating/hot water/cooking gas/etc. costs we are ALL dealing with. When given the chance and the money to do so, most educated people would choose to eat healthier. However, when you grow up in poverty thinking that fast food is the only food because you haven't been educated in proper nutrition, that is what you are used to, and that is what you will eat. My partner and I make good money, above the median income, and we are STILL renting and STILL struggling to make ends meet, and we STILL have to eat lots of pasta, bread and potatoes to make up for how expensive fresh vegetables and meat are. The reason we spend less of our income on food is because we have to spend so much of it on housing. My Dad always told me never to spend more than 25% of my income on housing, and yet here we all are, paying sometimes more than half of our income on housing - because we have no choice. I'd love to own a house, but we simply cannot afford the higher mortgage payment we'd have to pay over what we pay in rent. Thank goodness we don't have any children to bring up in this environment, where we'd have to live in a better neighborhood in order to send them to better schools.
The American Dream continues to become less and less obtainable for all of us - I can't even imagine the neighborhood I'd have to live in if I made minimum wage!!
Very interesting because I am obsessed with food and eating. I am not overwight and I do not eat fast foods at all. When it comes to food, for me, price does not matter, especially if it's organic, natural or healthy . I think we eat because it's an oral fixation. From the time we're babies we are preoccupied with putting things in our mouths. Even with controlled portions we must eat for energy and to live.
Here again we have the problem with the fat selfish American. You eat meat. Beef cattle uses many times the amount of grains that a human would need to sustain them. On top of that, Cow farts are destroying the planet. I also notice that fat American people fart more, which contributes to to CO2 and global warming. I am thin and a vegetarian, unlike you fat meat eating American pigs. China rules.
We can run but we can't hide. We can try to avoid individual responsibility for our choices, but we will still end up paying the costs no matter how much we might want to put them on someone else. You eat too much and you die early and no amount of regulation on food businesses are going to change that central incentive on good behavior.
http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/01/stop-me-before.html
Watching my cat: He eats, then he goes out to hunt. He eats some more, then he hunts again:
What is lacking in Homo (not Sapiens but Americanus)is not the appetite, but the hunting part
(I don't mean with those telescopic rifles and all terrain vehicles). No doubt about it, the mammalian body is for enjoying exercise.
GPFrank, there are young children going to bed hungry at night in Los Angeles, and all you think about is your stupid cat.
Well, Lucy Lu - the vast majority of land on this planet is not arable (that means it's not suitable for farming). The only way you're ever going to get food out of it is to let some goats, sheep or cattle eat the useless weeds and grasses and then you obtain the dairy products from the girls and eat most of the boys. That's real life. At the rate that commercial agribusiness firms are exhausting and salinating the arable soil, meat and dairy products may well be the only viable options in the future. Your fantasy land of global vegetarianism is not even remotely realistic. Sustainable farms - even vegetable farms - require animal inputs of manure to function without toxicity buildup from petrochemicals, soil erosion, or dehydration. Get real.
I agree with this theory. I eat not because I am hungry, but because certain things in the environment trigger my eating. For example,computer use triggers coffee. Driving my car triggers granola bars.A trip to the bookstore means a latte. Watching television means a snack. Stress starts my grazing for food. I have been watching my weight since I was six years old. It is a miracle I don't weigh 400 pounds.
Shame on you Jane. Your overeating results in more CO2 fart gases and global warming. Where is your sense of responsibility? It is you fat selfish Americans that consume the world's resources that cause people elsewhere to go hungry at night according to the Lopez post. You should give money to the food bank, that way it will deprive you of the resources to overeat.
Everyones posts are fair and true. Unfortunetly, our government along with corporate America has found a way to keep all of us prisoners. They have helped to create a fast food nation that is so low cost that the poor grow up on it and everyone else is addicted to it. The cattle and pigs used for our addictions are inhumanly raised and killed....and they DO contribute to a large portion of Global warming (We are clear cutting the rain forest so WE can have more meat in our Big Mac or on the dinner table.) As for not being able to live because produce costs so much, well, I believe that is one's view point and hang up. If you believe that, then that will be your reality. I am a teacher living in Los Angeles (making nothing), yet all I buy is produce. One has to sit down with themselves and be honest............I do not believe many people are willing to do that. If buying produce is that difficult, find a planter or small plot of land and grow your own vegetables.
Don't let the American government fool you into believing that you have to be trapped by the meat and fast food industry. And if you feel they are, you are a robot to the government.
ahavah, the reason that so much land is unsuitable for farming is animal agriculture. it causes tremendous topsoil erosion and devastation to native vegetation, causing those "useless" weeds to sprout up. and the animal waste that you say is required for farming mostly ends up polluting natural waterways.
J. mach-attack, the animal factory farms are fueled by over indulgent Americans. You can see them walking around in your neighborhood. You spot them by their great girth, they are like large elephants. These big co2 fart making machines are responsible for global warming. They are over consuming. Go vegetarian.
Lucy Lu,
You should be ashamed of your manners. You may be skinny but you have embarrassed yourself by degrading Americans and calling us pigs. We eat beef because we have plenty of it and it is an excellent source of protein. China is over-populated and your government mandates how many children you can have. You are not free to criticize your government etc. Your comment suggested that you have a better society. Hellooooo! You are not free. I think that is the more important point and at the heart of your derrogatory comment. Why does the world hate America? Because we are free and have more opportunities to grow and prosper.
Bobby R. , you are a red neck. A meat and potato, cardial killing diet. Your choice dear. You die from your beef eating, that will free more land for us Chinese. We are moving east, across the sea to California and beyond. I got my H-1 visa.
I fart much more since switching to legmes & veggies.
figgypuddin, you can't even spell legumes. You must be the offspring of your mother's brother.
lucy lu you are pompus ass!
Thank you Tom. I keep it very muscular, so it does stick out and look pompus. You know that I am a vegetarian and thin as well as very pretty. American men really go for me.
Tom,
Don't feed the troll.
You will see in a short time of reading these posts that Lucy Lu is so repetitive that it's difficult to say whether there is actually a human typing these comments or a poorly written artificial intelligence program.
I've had more interesting conversations with old artificial intelligence programs from the 1960s like Eliza and Racter than I've gotten from Lucy Lu. I'm genuinely not exaggerating here. Some of those old programs were quite good.
This particular troll has consistently failed to pass the Turing Test.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Test
Cows fart methane, not CO2. Although methane is a stronger greenhouse gas so your point is still correct.
About 1975 someone treated corn starch with enzymes that made high fructose corn syrup (frook-tose, HFCS). It was a new thing, if not 'under the sun,' at least 'in the American diet.'
In the 1980's, the tobacco companies, accustomed to selling an addictive product that kills 435,000 Americans each year, year after year, took over the food companies. When the price of white, refined (fiberless) sugar, a volatile carbohydrate, increased in the 1980's, high fructose corn syrup was cheaper. You could use less and make a product just as sweet.
In their soda pop it accounted for a 300% increase in consumption. Ka-ching!
It wasn't just 'ubiquity,' although HFCS certainly fits the definition of 'being ubiquitous; it is in nearly every processed food product sold.
But it was addiction. HFCS makes you produce ghrelin, a hormone, a powerful substance, in the lining of your stomach. It tells you you're hungry. It decreases production of leptin, a hormone that tells you you're not hungry. A little sleep deprivation and you produce even less leptin. Who in America gets enough sleep? No one I know.
So the people who kill 435,000 Americans a year (Osama bin Laden would be so jealous if he knew) are feeding you this poison. In the last decade of the 20th century (1990-2001) diabetes, a diet-related disorder, increased 60%. But it ceased to be a disease of adults, adult onset diabetes. It became a disease of teenagers, and even toddlers. A company used a 3-year old to tout its testing device on TV, saying how it didn't hurt like pricking her finger used to. How did a 3-year old become diabetic? It's not a germ. It's not a gene. Something changed, threateningly, in her environment, specifically in her food supply.
Add MSG, (added when anything is hyrdogenated, citric acid added, other additives that don't say so) which is what labs inject into mice and rats to make them triple insulin production and become obese, get this, so they can study obesity, and your food supply is a cocktail of deadly poisons likely to make 63% of Americans overweight, and 34% obese. Some 69% of Saudi Arabian women are diabetic. Add fiberless white flour and you get the diet-related complex caused by these substances overstimulating production of insulin, a powerful hormone, which commands your liver to produce cholesterol to store fat, which it does throughout the body, which clogs in artery walls because insulin swells the cells there so (my theory) the nutrients can't penetrate to feed tissues outside the walls, so the tissues die and diabetics lose toes, then legs, then lives. The swollen walls close the opening so high blood pressure results from the heart trying to pump through blocked openings. Heart disease is part of the complex. But it's all one disease, with a source in your diet.
But neither the pharmaceutical companies, which train your American Medical Association certified doctor to put you on pills, not medicines to cure, just pills to 'treat' you, fooling the doctor that your high blood pressure is gone, your cholesterol down, your diabetes under control, your heart disease being 'treated' as best they can, and letting the disease complex continue until you die.
But then, that's probably all your fault. Just ask them. They'll tell you. Ka-ching!
I am vegan,but I can't stand when others get uppity about their choices and start hurling insults. For me, veganism is a lifestyle choice, and I know I am doing what I can for the planet and my own health. The way to encourage people to try my way of life is not to insult them: it is to make them tons of healthful, delicious food. No one can argue with a flavorful, home cooked meal. At least for that meal, they are lowering their impact on the planet and trying new things. It opens the mind and palate to know that meals can be more than just meat and potatoes.
jenny, who are you accusing of getting uppity? Anyway, Vegetarians have a right to get "uppity" because we show self control in not succumbing to the lusts of the flesh in eating meat. We also are concerned about our fellow intelligent beings in not "hogging" the food supply. Thereby they do not starve.
We eat for two reasons: One, there is nothing else to do. They have taken away free outdoor activity in the neighborhood. We cannot play baseball on the empty corner lot; there IS NO empty corner lot. If we want to exercise or play, we must PAY to do so. The other reason we eat, we are watching TV, playing video games, surfing on the computer and mindlessly stuffing our faces with pop, chips, and candy because our parents, who got pregnant and/or married too young are too self involved to learn about nutrition, how to cook, or how to buy food.
Cheryl, get off welfare, get a job, and you will be so busy working to support yourself you will not have time to watch TV and other foolishness. Don't blame other people. Take responsibility for your own life.
i feel it should have been more informative as my mom is overweight and she loves eating and always overeats. i think it is not a very big help by reading this and i expect something better from u guys as all your articles have always been a great help but not this for a change. do think about it.............your true reader..........radhika bajaj
Radhika, your mother contributes to global warming by producing CO2 gas from her overweight and overeating. She also contributes to global starvation. Hide fatty food from her after you lecture her about being a social parasite. I am glad to see that you are not a social parasite and are not only talking green but acting Green. Be vegatarian as well. Remember the higher ideal and practice brahmacharya.
The food industry in the U.S. is no different than any other profit oriented industry. It promotes consumption. And it promotes consumption of dietarily useless and dangerous products because that's where the greatest margin of profit exists. Packaged foods are loaded with the cheapest ingredients allowed by the FDA, and heavily spiked with salt, fat, or sugar to make them seem tasty.
After years of eating prepared foods loaded with salt, natural foods at first seem bland and tasteless. When taste buds have been weened from too much fat, salt or sugar, they become re-sensitized to the naturally salty or sweet taste of wholesome fresh foods.
With the exception of many small and medium-sized farmers, the food industry has no interest in the health of Americans, only the bottom line.
Most humans aren't used to plentiful food. They are used to feast and famine. Nor are they used to food on demand. Refrigerators are new and canning is relatively new. Cheap sugars, fats and proteins are all new. There isn't anything wrong with humanity. It's well adapted to a feast and famine existence. It's just that we aren't living that way any more. We'll adapt to this too. Probably not metabolically but culturally.
JCA, don't worry, famine is on the way. We will get back to our nature.
Why is it that if I buy a jar of peanuts, I wipe it out in two days, but if I buy six bananas they last me for six days? The answer is obvious: I love the taste of peanuts in my mouth, and don't love the taste of bananas in my mouth. This is obviously a result of human evolution. Were this not the case, there would be broccoli houses instead of steakhouses.