The men who made us fat

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  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    How is it possible that, with a straight face, you can blame someone else for your own overeating??

    "You jerk! The food you make tastes TOO GOOD and you're making me fat!" Seriously? That's like something from The Onion.


    Well, see, there's this whole crazy concept called "nuance".


    Check it out, it actually possible for groups and individuals to operate on a different set of rules!


    Crazy! Things aren't super simple, black and white, cut and dry. Complexity exists! Small particles don't behave as predicted by the physics we use to understand larger ones! CRAZY!

    The thread title is "the men who made us fat."

    Only one man made me fat, and that's me. I'm not sure if other men made you fat, but I doubt it. So... us? We made ourselves fat.


    You keep wanting me to say its JUST the one thing or the other. Science doesn't work that way. Reality doesn't fit strict rationalistic definitions and theories.


    It's true that I made myself fat and I made myself unfat.


    But as a larger group of humans, we actually invest resources, and lots of them, researching ways to make each other fatter for the benefit of a very small group at the top.


    I know this is really tough, but it is possible to have a healthy amount of freedom along with a healthy amount of security, and you don't have to pick only one or the other.

    You replied to me. I never said anything to you :laugh: I'm not Casey and BeachIron (as interesting as that would be)

    I don't care what you say. All I said was that the thread title is a pathetic cop-out; an attempt to blame someone else for your own actions. It would be comical if it weren't serious
    The thread title was the tv programme and last year it talked about how when we eat out portion sizes are too big, super sizing food and king size mars bars etc. it wasn't trying to take away individual responsibility, but it was saying corporations like Maccy ds need to be more responsible too. Empowering people to enable them to make the right choices is what it was talking about. Even though it is individual actions in the end that make us fat, they owe the public in not prioritising selling us crappy processed food at the expense of our health , and to offer cheap healthy food . Only my opinion lol

    Sounds like Stalinism to me.
  • ritchiedrama
    ritchiedrama Posts: 1,304 Member
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    If you are fat it is because you ate too much, jus' sayin...

    close teh thread plz m8z
  • BeachIron
    BeachIron Posts: 6,490 Member
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    I think people got way off on a tangent.

    The OP asked what foods were your surprised that they had added sugar.

    So far, here in Australia, sugar isn't added to everything and it isn't promoted as a health food.

    I was comparing labels on bread for the US and here and was surprised sugar is added to plain white bread in the USA.


    Yes people, usually Americans raised on Ayn Rand, will go on and on about personal responsibility. The world is black and white, and terms are always absolute and determined before the conversation started. Other cultures are strange and arbitrary, ours is rational.


    Because, you know, taking high fructose corn syrup off the GRAS list would be COMMUNISM

    Wow. Just wow. Wait, weren't you trying to argue that it's not black and white? But if we mention personal responsibility then we're now pushing Ayn Rand? Pot meet Kettle.

    News flash. The successful aren't so different than the unsuccessful. The difference is the availability of the tools necessary to become successful. So educate people honestly. Stop telling them that it's not their fault, that they can't change themselves, because it's a lie. You want to spend time blaming HFCS and other things that aren't supported by actual science? Go ahead, but don't be surprised when you're called out for it. And don't go crying that we're not being fair or taking ridiculous leaps of logic.

    Never mind. I'll go back to not being serious because this is clearly not a serious discussion among serious people.
  • debbash68
    debbash68 Posts: 981 Member
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    How is it possible that, with a straight face, you can blame someone else for your own overeating??

    "You jerk! The food you make tastes TOO GOOD and you're making me fat!" Seriously? That's like something from The Onion.


    Well, see, there's this whole crazy concept called "nuance".


    Check it out, it actually possible for groups and individuals to operate on a different set of rules!


    Crazy! Things aren't super simple, black and white, cut and dry. Complexity exists! Small particles don't behave as predicted by the physics we use to understand larger ones! CRAZY!

    The thread title is "the men who made us fat."

    Only one man made me fat, and that's me. I'm not sure if other men made you fat, but I doubt it. So... us? We made ourselves fat.


    You keep wanting me to say its JUST the one thing or the other. Science doesn't work that way. Reality doesn't fit strict rationalistic definitions and theories.


    It's true that I made myself fat and I made myself unfat.


    But as a larger group of humans, we actually invest resources, and lots of them, researching ways to make each other fatter for the benefit of a very small group at the top.


    I know this is really tough, but it is possible to have a healthy amount of freedom along with a healthy amount of security, and you don't have to pick only one or the other.

    You replied to me. I never said anything to you :laugh: I'm not Casey and BeachIron (as interesting as that would be)

    I don't care what you say. All I said was that the thread title is a pathetic cop-out; an attempt to blame someone else for your own actions. It would be comical if it weren't serious
    The thread title was the tv programme and last year it talked about how when we eat out portion sizes are too big, super sizing food and king size mars bars etc. it wasn't trying to take away individual responsibility, but it was saying corporations like Maccy ds need to be more responsible too. Empowering people to enable them to make the right choices is what it was talking about. Even though it is individual actions in the end that make us fat, they owe the public in not prioritising selling us crappy processed food at the expense of our health , and to offer cheap healthy food . Only my opinion lol

    Sounds like Stalinism to me.
    Sounds like good old common sense to me
  • smantha32
    smantha32 Posts: 6,990 Member
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    What has been winding me up for years is when I discovered that most of the available varieties of smoked Salmon (which i love and eat a lot of) have got sugar added to it! Why on earth? Totally unnecessary for the flavour. The same with Bacon! Good news is there are some without added sugar or any other form of sweetener.

    Which are the foods you've discovered have sugars added to it and surprised you the most?


    In the 80's the American heart association decided dietary fat was making everyone have heart attacks, so the food industry removed as much fat as they could from processed meals to comply with health standards. They had to add something back so their processed crap didn't taste like cardboard, hence the overload of sugar we're all subjected to now.
    And the irony is it did nothing to reduce heart disease. It maybe even made things worse.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    How is it possible that, with a straight face, you can blame someone else for your own overeating??

    "You jerk! The food you make tastes TOO GOOD and you're making me fat!" Seriously? That's like something from The Onion.


    Well, see, there's this whole crazy concept called "nuance".


    Check it out, it actually possible for groups and individuals to operate on a different set of rules!


    Crazy! Things aren't super simple, black and white, cut and dry. Complexity exists! Small particles don't behave as predicted by the physics we use to understand larger ones! CRAZY!

    The thread title is "the men who made us fat."

    Only one man made me fat, and that's me. I'm not sure if other men made you fat, but I doubt it. So... us? We made ourselves fat.


    You keep wanting me to say its JUST the one thing or the other. Science doesn't work that way. Reality doesn't fit strict rationalistic definitions and theories.


    It's true that I made myself fat and I made myself unfat.


    But as a larger group of humans, we actually invest resources, and lots of them, researching ways to make each other fatter for the benefit of a very small group at the top.


    I know this is really tough, but it is possible to have a healthy amount of freedom along with a healthy amount of security, and you don't have to pick only one or the other.

    You replied to me. I never said anything to you :laugh: I'm not Casey and BeachIron (as interesting as that would be)

    I don't care what you say. All I said was that the thread title is a pathetic cop-out; an attempt to blame someone else for your own actions. It would be comical if it weren't serious


    Ah, good one. Changing the subject to "who should speak". Classic.


    Thinking caps, people. You can do it! I know it's uncomfortable, but maybe both sides have a point and they aren't mutually exclusive!

    What on earth are you talking about? You put "who should speak" in quotes, but no one said that. I didn't say anything like that. I can't figure out what you're talking about. I think you're sorta conflating my posts with posts from other people and treating it like a conversation with a single person.

    Take a deep breath, go back to the top of the page, and read MY posts. :laugh:


    Crazy leap I made: I took your words and boiled them down to what they mean. In this case the quotes don't indicate a literal quotation.

    It burnssss!

    Except I literally didn't say one word about who should say what. I gave my opinion on the thread title, and you lumped me in with a couple of other posters. Oh well.
  • smantha32
    smantha32 Posts: 6,990 Member
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    There is an app for the iphone that will scan upc codes and let you know if the item has ingredients that you are trying to avoid. Shocked me when I found out coke and diet cake have wheat in it. Its a free app and kind of fun to use.

    what??? Coke has wheat in it? Dafuq?
  • smantha32
    smantha32 Posts: 6,990 Member
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    If you are fat it is because you ate too much, jus' sayin...


    Pretty much, yeah.
    Whether by calories or volume as argued in another thread. Too much is too much.
  • pushyourself14
    pushyourself14 Posts: 275 Member
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    I check the label on everything, always.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
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    QUOTE: I was comparing labels on bread for the US and here and was surprised sugar is added to plain white bread in the USA.

    I wanted to note that sugar is added to leavened breads worldwide. Why? Because the yeast that makes bread rise consumes sugar, not starch. You will be hard-pressed to find a recipe for leavened bread that actually rises which does not use some quantity of sugar.
  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
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    @ pcastagner: Can't even follow what you're sayain dawg. You be trippin mayne, trippin' all da time mayne.
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    @ pcastagner: Can't even follow what you're sayain dawg. You be trippin mayne, trippin' all da time mayne.


    Start here: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/philosophical-battles-empiricism-versus-rationalis.html


    Don't you ever wonder if it's possible a is not always a? If maybe you will never get at truth if you have to frame everything as a choice between two opposites?

    Have you ever wondered if the strong have an obligation to care for the weak?


    I get so sick of hearing those who "make it" bask in the glory of their agency, while chalking up those who fail as inherently, rather than circumstantially inferior. Also sick of those with resources, be it willpower or material, tell those without to simply make use of that which they do not have. It's a supreme failure to understand the human condition beyond the context of ones own experience.


    Am I tripping? No.
  • HollisGrant
    HollisGrant Posts: 2,022 Member
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    Just watching a fascinating 3part documentary about the Foodindustry on UK television (BBC2).
    Part 1 about the US and the introduction of Cornsyrup and the wide range foods it's added to. Very good and highly informative. Watch it if you can.

    It's terrifying how the US industry totally ignores the impact Sugar (in various forms and artificial Sweeteners) has on the increase in Obesity.

    Who on here really checks all the food labels?

    What has been winding me up for years is when I discovered that most of the available varieties of smoked Salmon (which i love and eat a lot of) have got sugar added to it! Why on earth? Totally unnecessary for the flavour. The same with Bacon! Good news is there are some without added sugar or any other form of sweetener.

    Which are the foods you've discovered have sugars added to it and surprised you the most?

    Months ago I bought some frozen vegetables (peas or spinach, I forget which) and read the label when I got home. You guessed it -- the vegetable plus sugar. I eat all fresh vegetables now.
  • goodnamegone
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    It is frightening how much sugar and other chemicals is put in food. You will have to make a special effort to find food that has not been tampered with. See if you can buy in bulk with other people and go to a farm (if there are any near by) or buy from the health food shops if you can afford that.
  • mhfitbit
    mhfitbit Posts: 6 Member
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    If I know how to read (which I'm ALMOST positive that I do) I'm taking a stab in the dark here that the OP's original post didn't say that sugar MADE her or anyone else fat. I THINK she may have been simply stating that she was unaware just how much sugar is in EVERYTHING. But again... what do I know... maybe I should join in the fun and jump to conclusions because it's amusing everyone else. :)

    the title of the thread is "The men who made us fat."

    ?
    Because the OP is talking about a programme called "The men who made us fat".

    Jacques Peretti, the programme maker, has a new doc out (this week in the UK I think) called ... "The men who made us thin" about how the same manufacturers that produce junk food are often the ones plugging "diet" products also.
  • RECowgill
    RECowgill Posts: 881 Member
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    To the OP: I do check the labels on everything I think about buying... now. I wasn't before, that was the problem.

    I know who made me fat: Me. I wasn't educated enough about what I was eating or how much of it should be eaten. So the blame in my case squarely falls on me, I got no problem with that.

    However the documentary sounds like a good one. I think there are definitely cases where these companies made people fat, and others can be absolutely blamed for the nutritional confusion and overeating. They confused busy people who have too much to do already on what is important and not important (fat = bad, red meat = bad). Some experts have mislead, sometimes intentionally. There are points in the past where people have been marketed to with outright lies, and people didn't have the capability or education to sort through it.

    You can't just always blame the victim. "Don't have the education? Go get some!" is failed thinking. Many people need help, guidance, a hand up. Nobody is saying you have to solve their problems for them, but at least steer them in the right direction, especially when its their lone human brain against the collective money, marketing and intelligence of a system determined to make them fat and sick.

    At least some people need help sometimes. People who don't think that are myopic about their own life experiences, and are failing to realize human diversity and the overwhelming power of systems on individuals. Since most people who post on MFP are trying to be helpful and sort out fact from fiction, you'd think everyone would agree with this. :drinker:
  • morticia16
    morticia16 Posts: 230 Member
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    Nothing like absolving yourself of personal responsibility!

    That was my knee jerk reaction as well. But then again, it is not like the population globally is really well educated about nutrition and while the internet helps for those who care, there are people out there not really knowing much about these things. Now, would it be up to education systems to actually educate during all those health or even biology classes in, say, high school?
  • stefjc
    stefjc Posts: 484 Member
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    Wait til you see The Men Who Made us THIN

    I thought I'd move this to its own thread. I realised I was derailing this one.

    Apologies.
  • Marksmith209
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    Seriously: what I eat is up to me, and me alone. If I gain weight, its because I chose to. The fact that water has less calories than Pepsi is not a closely guarded state secret.

    Awesome quote, really sums up the whole issue of working out and weight loss
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    Just baffling


    Point: it isn't about blame when we look at entire populations as systems. The concept of responsibility on an individual level doesn't address what to do about creating a sustainable human existence for the community at large.


    Counterpoint: you have no one to blame but yourself for being fat.


    Don't you guys get it? Personal responsibility is not the opposite of rational systems on the community level. They aren't at odds because its like arguing Newtonian concepts of gravity in terms of quantum physics. They only contradict each other if you suffer from failure of imagination or a really bad case of rationalism.


    I took responsibility for my condition. But I'm also all about evidence so I don't ignore everything that doesn't fit my notions.