I’ve seen and heard a lot of people ask or say, “Why is America obese?” “Why is it so unhealthy?” This has been a thing for years, decades probably. And while there’s so much to the answer, things like…
Processed foods being cheaper than the healthier version since we’re all too poor to grow our own foods or go to the better grocery store.
Portion size is bigger, but also cheaper. The mindset is about getting your money’s worth because no one wants to spend 10 dollars on a burrito that is the size of their phone, but will spend 10 dollars on a burrito the size of their forearm because that’s essentially a great deal. Although, portion sizes are also big so you can have left-overs. I’ve heard that in other countries, to-go boxes and leftovers aren’t a thing, whereas here in the US, it’s very common to ask for a to-go box because most can only eat half of that forearm-sized burrito.
Lack of money and or time to go to the gym, and not having enough energy to go before or after work because many of us work long hours with many having more than one job. So… many just focus on sleeping or dealing with their family than focusing on themselves and their own health.
But… there’s an extra one to the list that a lot of people don’t take into consideration, though that may just be ignorance. Clears throat.
Our food is literally poisoned.
This is between processed and unprocessed foods. “We spread herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones and various other toxins which kill everything around.” - Taken from Google. And it’s not wrong…
I’ve seen a lot of people through social media say that they eat junk food, get told to eat better, and then eating better doesn’t help. Then they’ll go to another country, like somewhere in Europe for example, and eat the same things—junk food with a mix of healthy stuff—with nothing changing to their actual diet or exercise. But they lose weight, their skin clears up, and they don’t have medical problems. One guy said that he was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and his doctor told him to eat better. He went on a few week vacation to another country, felt better, came back, and his doctor told him whatever he’s doing is working because it went away or something.
But here’s the thing… these countries have banned these toxins from their food, and we haven’t because apparently, according to CDC, “It’s harmless until proven guilty.” Sure, because it already is very harmful to us who consume said food. And then there’s good ol’ capitalism which also includes healthcare and hospitals. With the food being so bad, we get unhealthy and are forced to see doctors and pay hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of medical care. But if we get healthy, we no longer have to visit and pay them. So us being unhealthy benefits these greedy hospitals more.
I’m reminded of that episode of Married With Children when Peggy accidentally kills her personal trainer by feeding him all the junk food she normally lives on. (♯^.^ღ)
Then when she feels guilty about it she asks Al, her husband, why they haven’t died yet from eating the same food. His speech is golden. He says the personal trainer died because he treated his body like a temple, so it wasn’t able to handle the poisons Americans usually eat. Americans are like cockroaches, he says; we can eat anything and survive. We’re making our bodies totally resistent to toxins by eating some every day. (>‿◠)
While I agree with you 100%, I do like to think there’s a Rasputin effect that’s going to save us all someday when the rest of the world is suddenly crippled by toxins we long ago became resistent to. Oooh, that would make an excellent dystopian story! ☜(ˆ▿ˆc)
Of course, some of these ingredients, like dyes, aren’t as harmful as some articles would like you to believe but they cause a lot more contreversey than sugar or trans fats.
There is some truth to it. We do adapt to bad stuff. But most of us just die early. We have already gotten to the point where the average lifespan ain’t going up.
That being said, you can make better choices, with care.
I’d been wanting to move myself, but the process is so friggin’ tedious.
I mean, if you get passed all the politics, the economy, the education system, the capitalism, all of that… it isn’t that bad of a place to live because it’s gorgeous here and you get so much culture from so many various areas. But honestly, with everything happening, it feels like you’re trapped, and it’s definitely very sucky.
If I ever did move, I’d want to live in Italy or England. Mostly Italy, though. Lol
It sure is. For me tho, I’m gonna be working on my dual-citizenship for the Dominican Republic. I wish I can live somewhere in Europe, but DR is my best option. Applying to become a citizen there will be easier because my parents are from there and maybe in the future, I’ll live in a European country.
For example, if you can find frozen fruit at the Dollar Tree (should be $1.25, now, used to be $1) and get the frozen berries, that’s one of the few sugary fruits that often lowers blood sugar. Changing that out for processed sugary things can help. Peanut Butter is often made with palm oil. That, like coconut oil, is healthier than peanut oil–and is one of the oils that doesn’t use insulin to break it down (it breaks down in the liver instead). Without getting into “added chemicals”, sugars are generally inflammation causing.
Yeah I can’t eat bread or anything with gluten. Had to cut that out in high school because I was always sick. Went to Europe and had pasta and I was completely fine. The food here definitely makes you sick
Had a teacher with Chron’s disease who struggled with living in the US, but during her few years abroad, drinking UNPASTEURIZED milk? Never had issue one. Now, I do think killing the bacteria that aids with lactose had a part in that, but she also wasn’t eating severely preserved meals. The amount in mass-produced, transported wheat is crazy.
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But there are groups out there that help make guides:
This one is the one I’d like to test:
“New research sheds light on inorganic phosphate — an additive and preservative found in up to 70 percent of the foods in the common diet in the United States — and the impact it could be having on your health.”
Of course, never just blindly follow “this is bad” any more than the touts of “this is good”. The thing is that if it directly accuses a chemical of bein xyz, you can look up the study involved with that and take in various aspects of the original work to figure out how pertinent it is.
My sister had to write a paper on something, and she chose what causes obesity, and one of the biggest causes is High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is pretty much literally in everything, our bodies can’t break it down/process it so it is just added to the fat on our bodies.
As far as chemicals go on fruits and vegetables; it’s very hard to control fungi, bugs, and weeds without them unless you are purchasing at a higher price. This is because of throw away due to fungi killing the plant or produce, damage on the fruit/vegetable because people are very aesthetic when it comes to how their food looks even if it isn’t rotten, even a tiny brown spot from a bug bite, it ends up thrown away or used for canned/jarred foods and then sugar and preservatives are added to it to make it taste even better and last longer.
I’m not saying that chemicals aren’t bad, I’m just saying to understand why chemicals are needed to produce food unless we ourselves as individuals grow our own garden or buy from local small farmers or a farmers market and maybe deal with some bug bites.
I definitely do not condone the use of hormones and all antibiotics have a withdrawal period, so there should never be antibiotics in your food, but unfortunately sometimes it happens when animals or animal products are sold and used that haven’t had the correct time between the last dose of medicine and when it is out of the animal’s system.
Mark Hyman has a good YouTube channel that covers the Standard American Diet (SAD)*, how it depletes your health at every opportunity, and which food types to base your diet around and which to avoid. One of my favourite sayings about food in general is if it came from nature, its okay. If it came from a factory, it goes in the bin. *
*I don’t know if these quotes are from Hyman, but they sound like him.
…Also avoid gluten, grains, most fruits, beans, sugar, mono-crops and sprayed crops, and night-shade plant groups…
That would be the only reason I’d find for adding specific chemicals: to let it last longer. When I go actual grocery shopping, I buy an entire week’s worth of food so I don’t have to keep going back and forth. And some of the food I buy, like ham for sandwiches, hot dogs, or other kinds of things, often last two weeks, if not more. And without specific chemicals, it may only last a few days. So I do understand that in that regard. But you’d think they’d find healthier, safer ways of letting food stay okay for a certain amount of time with technology and science advancements, right?
