Obesity in the News Again

http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/B_ody_W_eight_32/041406412007_Gene_found_responsible_for_obesity.shtml I'm sorry, I just have to gripe about this. I'll admit flat out, I'm obese. I have more than 100 lbs to lose. I know what I need to do to lose this weight, but I don't always do what I should. That said, I get so irritated with all these research results that you read about in the news... That obesity is caused by a bacteria in the stomach, that it's caused by genetics. We who are heavy are always looking for a magic pill. You know what I mean -- if you do this, you'll lose all your weight then you can go on doing exactly what you've been doing all along. That's the whole theory behind weight loss surgery. They even offer WLS for teens now. True weight loss requires giving up certain things, but the food industry doesn't want us to stop eating these things. For example, true weight loss means that we need to stop eating cookies so often. However, when we cut back on the amount of cookies we buy, Nabisco and other big companies don't earn so much money because they're not selling as many cookies. So instead, they pay for scientists to find other reasons for our weight gain. It's not the cookies after all, it's that we can't help it, we have a gene that is causing us to be obese. Umm no, that's not it at all. There is no magic pill to lose weight. Weight loss takes a lot of work, we need to eat healthy, preferrably lots of fruits and veggies. We need to exercise, get our bodies moving and our muscles strong. We need to drink water... I've seen research saying that we need 64 oz, but we can count the water in our food. Umm what? Try this instead. At least 64 oz, preferrably 80 or 100 oz, and don't count on getting water in our food. 100 oz of water is not going to cause us to die from too much water unless we try to drink it all in the same hour. Spread it out, so you are drinking 32 oz every 3 hours for 9 hours, and you've gotten in 96 oz of water. That's just a bit more than 10 oz in an hour. We drink more than that of soda... how many times have you finished a 32 oz cup of soda from a convenience store within an hour? Of course, drinking that much water means you won't be thirsty for as much soda... that'll hurt the soda industry. After all, if you buy less, they make less money too. Hmm it looks like the main people who benefit from America's obesity are the food industry. McDonalds burgers and fries notwithstanding, even Subway makes money off America's obesity. They advertise all of these healthy choices, but if you walk in there, the healthy choices are only a portion of their menu. Cheese, meatball sandwiches, all the mayonnaise... these are not healthy choices. We as Americans need to insist that companies offer healthy choices. An occasional treat is not going to hurt us, but we need to eat healthy 95% of the time. That's actually not bad if you think about it. If you don't get too carried away, one meal out of 20 can have a treat. That means one meal a week. So if you can control yourself, you can have dessert after your Friday night meal... Now if I could only follow my own advice. Personally, I let stress win instead of trying to beat stress with exercise. That's the best stress relief of all.

rBGH Book Review

http://foodconsumer.org:80/7777/8888/C_onsumer_A_ffair_26/040810362007_Book_review_What_s_In_Your_Milk.shtml Years ago, when they first approved the rBGH (Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) for use in cows, Ben & Jerry's ice cream company made a big stir. They refused to use milk from any cows that were treated with this hormone. As I was living in Vermont at the time, I heard all sorts of information about it. Many people were upset, saying that there was absolutely no difference in the milk. They felt that Ben & Jerry's was causing controversy for no reason. That there really was no difference and that the company was going to decrease consumer confidence in our milk supply. Instead, after years of the use of rBGH in our milk supply the truth is coming out in this new book out by Samuel S Epstein, MD. According to his research, even though Monsanto and the FDA still insist that rBGH is safe, there are many independant studies that show some very disturbing results. First, rBGH causes cows to get sick, including getting mastitis. This is now a warning on the label for the drug. Second, the pus from the mastitis gets into rBGH milk, not to mention the antibiotic used to treat the cows getting into the milk. Third, rBGH milk is nutritionally different than non-rBGH milk. Fourth, rBGH milk is contaminated with the hormone. So we are actually drinking a hormone that causes all of this in cows. How safe is it for us? You can read the full article above, it gives a disturbing glimpse of how our country's health is put at risk just so a company could make money. It's sick to know what tactics this company is willing to take just to hide the truth.