Still a Fast-Food Nation

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and incredible inspiration to folks in and interested in the movement towards a functional food system, published the afterward to his book on the Daily Beast yesterday.

In the afterward/article, Schlosser shares some saddening news about prevailing fast-food advertising and sales and still-rising obesity rates. While pleased that his book remains in print ten years later, he points out that the atrocities within its pages are unfortunately not yet out-of-date as he'd hoped they would be. Thankfully, Schlosser is inspired and optimistic about the powerful food revolutionaries working hard to change the food industry into something that wouldn't sadden Upton Sinclair. Read the full article here.

This Should Be Illegal

Somehow, a hospital-themed restaurant advertising free meals for patrons who weigh more than 350 lbs, milkshakes with the "highest butter content in the world," and selling 8,000 calorie cheeseburgers with four patties (listed as a "Quadruple Bypass" on the menu) has opened up in Las Vegas, Nevada, despite the fact that the flagship Arizona location closed in May following the death of the grill's spokesperson, 29-year-old Blair River, pictured in the video above. The owner, Jon Basso, who is also featured in the video above - as "Dr. Jon" - spoke to the Las Vegas Sun last month:

“You’re intelligent if you don’t eat our food,” he said Thursday. “If people pondered what I’m doing, they’d realize I’m creating a mockery of this. When you hop on that scale and you’re 350 pounds and we give you a free burger and people cheer, what’s really going on? We’re singling you out as a freak. On the one hand, I could try to defend myself ethically and call myself a crusader that’s trying to wake up America and conduct an intervention on obesity. That’s half true. The other half is I’m an entrepreneur trying to make a buck, plain and simple.”

Basso stopped, thought for a minute, then added: “The only thing I can say in my defense is: If you compare me to Burger King and McDonald’s, I’m honest and they aren’t. It says right on my door: ‘Caution, bad for your health.’”

Read more here and here. This can't possibly be what our country's founding fathers had in mind. Ugh. 

State Fair Fare

Ahhh... the unmistakable smells of summer: honeysuckle, a backyard barbecue, freshly cut grass and fried Kool-Aid? Yep. It exists. 

It's hard to imagine that anyone could surpass the creativity displayed in previous years of deep frying "items," but sure as he fried a Mars bar, Charlie Boghosian of Chicken Charlie's is at it again. Deep-Fried Kool-Aid. Add it to more than 100 "original deep-fried items" coined by Charlie, who has become quite famous frying liquids - like Coca-Cola.

At opening weekend of the San Diego County Fair, Charlie sold 1,800 five-piece orders, requiring 150 pounds of Kool-Aid. The recipe is simple: flour, water, and cherry Kool-Aid mix. The batter is scooped and dropped into extremely hot oil then fried until they are lightly browned with a crisp outer layer.

Learn more about Chicken Charlie's and other fried "items" sweeping the nation here and here.

(Thnx, B)

2010 CalorieLab, Inc Obesity Stats

For the fifth year in a row, Mississippi has been ranked above all others in terms of obesity rates. What's more alarming, at least to me, is to see a graphic representation of the "one in four American adults are obese" statistic. Read a thorough analysis of CalorieLab's findings here. Also, kudos to Colorado, where only one in five people are obese therefore making them the "thinnest state."

New 2010 Dietary Guidelines

There is a lot of good stuff in here but it is a bit on the scientific side for a casual read so here are highlights from the 2010 Report of the DGAC on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

1. Reduce the incidence and prevalence of overweight and obesity of the US population by reducing overall calorie intake and increasing physical activity. A focus on life-stage approaches (pregnant women, children, adolescents, adults, and older adults) is necessary nationwide to help Americans meet nutrient needs within appropriate calorie intake. To achieve this, Americans should:

• Know their calorie needs. In other words, individuals need to know how many calories they should consume each day based on their age, sex, and level of physical activity.
• Significantly lower excessive calorie intake from added sugars, solid fats, and some refined grain products.
• Increase their consumption of a variety of vegetables, fruits, and fiber-rich whole grains.
• Avoid sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Consume smaller portions, especially of high-calorie foods.
• Choose lower-calorie options, especially when eating foods away from home.
• Increase their overall physical activity.
• Have access to improved, easy-to-understand labels listing calorie content and portion size on packaged foods and for restaurant meals (especially quick service [i.e., fast food] restaurants, restaurant chains, and other places where standardized foods are served).

2. Shift food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet that emphasizes vegetables, cooked dry beans and peas, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. In addition, increase the intake of seafood and fat-free and low-fat milk and milk products, and consume only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry, and eggs.

3. Significantly reduce intake of foods containing added sugars and solid fats because these dietary components contribute excess calories and few, if any, nutrients. In addition, reduce sodium intake and lower intake of refined grains, especially refined grains that are coupled with added sugar, solid fat, and sodium.

4. Meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

If you have a few minutes, definitely read the whole report.

Too Fat to Fight?

A reader recently alerted me to a new report estimating that 27 percent of all Americans of recruitment age - which is about 9 million young adults - are in fact too fat to fight for their country that prompted Sen. Richard Lugar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and a group of retired generals and admirals to warn that America, with 1/3 of our fighting force unfit, is facing a national security crisis.

It's an interesting topic, no? Daniel Engber thought so too and took a deeper look into the Census numbers, requirements for military personnel, school lunches and war times and wrote this great article.

Read it. Let it marinate. And please share your thoughts.

Hmph.

I can't decide whether I think this window display at Borders is a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose the good news is that people are interested in changing their diets, right? But on the other hand these books are taking the top spots among best sellers (over some incredible literature) yet obesity and related health consequences continue to be the number one cause of death in America. Not to mention diets are transient and only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. Ugh.

Soda Tax

While he says that he was "just presenting the science," CDC chief Dr. Thomas Freiden seems to approve of the proposal for a three-cent sales tax on soda and other sugary drinks - pointing out that increasing the price of unhealthy foods "would be effective" at combating the nation's obesity problem. Considering obesity-related health spending reaches $147 billion a year, double what it was nearly a decade ago, the $24 billion the tax is estimated to generate over the next four years could certainly come in handy.

What do you all think about a soda tax? or sugar tax? Will vending machines start taking pennies?

Obesity Virus?

I'm certainly not an expert on infectious diseases or chubby chickens, but something about this claim just doesn't seem.... real.

A study published in the American Journal of Physiology, Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology, and discussed in this Medical News Today article, claims that the human adenovirus Ad-37 is making people fat. Dr. L Whigham and team in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Wisconsin University infected and studied chickens.

I have two questions for Dr. L Whigham and friends:

1.) Did you have to use chickens?!?! You may as well just sell the virus to our nation's hungriest chicken processors!

2.) Have you considered that the root of obesity may be a spell? Just saying. Something to think about. (Fiona from the Shrek films... get it?)

I better go double check that my source didn't find this study on The Onion...

****update****

I got a scientific opinion about this obesity virus business from a trusted colleague and pioneer of science at Johns Hopkins University, Zachary Gerhart-Hines:

"I would agree with you [that this sounds pretty far-fetched]. There are many things we do in science for which we do not have mechanistic explanation. There is also the question of how direct or indirect is the action of the virus on the animals. One person in the article began to address this... If the virus makes the animals sedentary or tired etc then they may eat more and exercise less. However, if that was the case I would not consider that to prove that the virus makes you fat. That's like saying getting dumped makes you fat. If you get depressed from having been dumped and you eat a lot and stay inside and cry you will gain weight. I can tell you from what little I know about viruses they affect A LOT of cellular processes and it is difficult to tease out the direct actions from peripheral side effects."

The World is Fat

That is not a typo. It's a new book by Barry Popkin, The World is Fat, that points to the usual suspects: sugary drinks, cheeseburgers, sedentary lifestyle, as well as the less obvious ones like evolutionary biology, the global food economy, and the constant availability of food that he aptly calls an "obesogenic environment."

In case you forgot what an enormous (pun intended) problem obesity is in some countries and starvation in others, here's an alarming statistic: More than 1.6 billion people in the world are overweight. 800 million are malnourished. Somethings wrong here. Wowzers.

Read Newsweek's interview with Popkin here and Slate's take on Popkin and the novel here.

I don't even know where to start...

Not that I've ever doubted him...

... but a recent study pretty much confirmed that Michael Pollan is right and "fast food" is basically "corn." If you are wondering why this is awesome, let me explain. Or rather, let Wired explain. From the Wired post:

Chemical analysis from restaurants across the United States shows that nearly every cow or chicken used in fast food is raised on a diet of corn... Corn is an icon of unsustainable agriculture, requiring tons of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which require large amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture. Most of it is fed to livestock who didn't evolve to subsist entirely on corn. In cattle, eating corn increases flatulence emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — and creates an intestinal environment rich in e. coli, a common cause of food poisoning. That necessitates mixing cow feed with antibiotics, in turn producing antibiotic-resistant disease strains... Many of those livestock end up in high-calorie, low-nutrition franchised fast foods... Fast food's biggest selling point is its low price — and that, say industry critics, is largely possible because of corn's ubiquitous cheapness.

And why is corn so cheap? Because it is subsidized by the government.

Corn is central to agriculture in the United States, where it is grown in greater volumes and receives more government subsidies than any other crop. Between 1995 and 2006 corn growers received $56 billion in federal subsidies, and the annual figure may soon hit $10 billion.

The $100-billion fast food industry has repeatedly been linked to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes (you know, the "western diseases"). So this is a pretty big deal. Something has got to change, right? Anyone else hoping that our new President Elect will spend some time with Michael Pollan or at least his books?

4th meal? Err.. 5th maybe?

As I approached the end of a long dive down to North Carolina on Friday night I had given up on searching for a new radio station every time commercials came on and heard a ridiculous McDonald's commercial. It aired around 11:00pm and went something like this:

Man: I'm gonna run out and get somethin' to eat. Want anything?
Woman: (sounding tired) I just went to bed, like, two hours ago...
Man: I'm going to McDonald's... (he says in a "tempting" voice)
Woman: Alright... (she concedes) Bring me some fries then.
Song: Do do doo do doo... I'm lovin' it.
Announcer: Open 'til one AM or later... feed your late night cravings...

Really? I mean, REALLY?? I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I've heard all the "Eat great, even late" Wendy's ads before. And I think Taco Bell actually made up a name for a fourth meal. AND McDonald's has those snack size sandwiches for mid-morning or mid-afternoon or watching sports or something.

Perhaps this isn't a new thing for McDonald's to encourage folks to wake up in the middle of the night and eat fries and I just haven't been awake after 11pm in a while? Or I've mastered the art of avoiding these silly marketing messages? Or I'm still subscribed to the marketing message that if I am up late and craving something it is because I am pregnant, hormonal, or going through a break-up and the clear fix is a pint of ice cream, likely something with a catchy name like Chunky Monkey? Or maybe I'm just old fashioned and still think late night cravings are a private moment of weakness - a rare guilty pleasure - as opposed to a nationwide nightly occurrence.

Ugh.

MSG. UGH.

NY Times is reporting a link between the use of MSG and obesity. More on that study here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/health/nutrition/26nutr.html?ex=1377403200&en=2c39a29c32506586&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

The study looked at the link between MSG use in home cooking and obesity in some three villages in southern China. I've never thought to use MSG in my own cooking but I found myself wondering a little more about it and thought I'd share.

Here is a little background about the "anti-appetite-suppressant" from MSGTruth.org. Check it out:

Why do food companies add MSG to foods?

There are several reasons:

MSG tricks your tongue into making you think a certain food is high in protein and thus nutritious. It is not a "meat tenderizer". It is not a "preservative". The food industry is trying to confuse the issue by focusing on the "fifth" taste sense they call umami. Free glutamic acid is detected by the taste buds as a simple way to signal the presence of protein in a food, just as there are fat receptors to detect fats and receptors that sense carbohydrate or sweet flavors. The purpose is to help us discern real food from inedible matter. It changes your perception of not simply taste but the nutritious qualities of what you put into your mouth. However, and here is the main problem with free glutamic acid - It is the very same neurotransmitter that your brain and many organs including your ears, eyes, nervous system and pancreas in your body use to initiate certain processes in your body.

MSG stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. So many diets these days are concerned about the Glycemic Index of foods and yet none of them address the fact that MSG and free glutamic acid stimulate the pancreas to release insulin when there doesn't even have to be carbohydrates in the food for that insulin to act on. The food industry has found their own "anti-appetite suppressant". It's a convenient way to keep consumers coming back for more. The blood sugar drops because of the insulin flood. And you are hungry an hour later. Sound familiar? The body changes excess glutamate to GABA. GABA may be addictive. It is calming and affects the same receptors in the brain as valium.

Cost. The illusion created by adding MSG to a food product enables the food processor to add LESS real food. The illusion of more protein in a food allows the food producer to put LESS protein in it. The consumer perceives the product - say chicken soup - to have more chicken in it than is actually there.

As always, I am reminded of something Michael Pollan wrote. Something about the U.S. being a nation full of over-fed and under-nourished people. Excluding the Olson twins, of course.

If you want to try and avoid MSG, here are a few foods to steer clean of at restaurants: Chicken, Sausage, Ranch, Parmesan, Gravy, Dipping sauces, Soy sauce... for a comprehensive list check out http://www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm

Orthorexic?

With all this news about Los Angeles' fast food restaurant zoning, I can't help but think about the thin line between those with healthy eating habits and those with an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy: Orthorexics

*Orthorexia - From the greek "ortho" (right and correct) and "exia" (appetite) . American physician Steven Bratman first proposed the term in 1996 and while it is not yet an eating disorder recognized by DSM but, all of this according to Michael Pollan in In Defense of Food, an academic investigation is underway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the fast food industry (thanks to Fast Food Nation, among others), I'm just wondering if this is the best approach to help control the obesity epidemic or if the LA City Council members are a little high on protein and perfection.

Of course the bigger hope is, like in Concord, Massachusetts a few years back, that such restrictions will boost traffic and sales at local grocers, diminish truancy, decrease pollution and improve these communities but I guess, well, I can't help but picture Britney Spears chaining herself to the local Sonic (I know I know, "leave Britney alone"). What I am trying to say is, obesity is a symptom of a much larger problem: the industrialization of food gone wild. Another symptom on the opposite end of the spectrum: famine and starvation in other parts of the world.

Oh Lord... am I an orthorexic?