Look at that ingredients list... good grief.

This is awesome. But now, I have to address something a little less than awesome. The FDA.

For those of us who are calorie counting, this is of interest to us. I, really, have no words for this just yet. But trust me.. they’re coming.

For those of you who may not be able to watch the video, the transcript (provided by The Today Show website) is pasted below. Just… wowzers.

Matt Lauer: This morning on TODAY INVESTIGATES, exposing the truth behind diet food labels. Can you really believe those fat and calorie numbers? NBC’s Jeff Rossen went to find out. And I have a feeling this is bad news, Jeff. Good morning.

JEFF ROSSEN reporting: No. And we brought them out to show you.

LAUER: All right.

ROSSEN: You know, a lot of us are on diets, including one of us on the couch right now. We’ll let you guess which one. And that’s why we buy these frozen meals. They make the hard sell right on the front. I’m sure you’ve seen it, with the low-calorie and the low-fat numbers. So we took them to a lab and did some testing of our own. This morning, we separate the fat from the fiction. IN the battle of the bulge these companies say they have the secret weapon.

ROSSEN: They brag about low fat and calories, knowing consumers eat this stuff up. How important are these numbers to you?

Unidentified Woman #1: They’re important.

Unidentified Man: And that’s all I look at. First thing, even before price.

Unidentified Woman #2: People don’t buy it because it tastes good. They buy it because the calories are there. And that’s what they’re looking for. And they’re like…

ROSSEN: So if the calories and the fat are off?

Woman #2: Yeah, then it’s what’s the point?

ROSSEN: Exactly. So we bought meals from the top diet brands: Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones and Healthy Choice. We took the meals out of the packaging and put them into specially marked baggies, then sent them here to ESL, a top food laboratory. Scientists tested each sample for fat and calories. Would the numbers really match the labels? We found it was all over the map. Some were actually lower. Healthy Choice Roasted Beef Merlot, 17 percent less fat compared to the label. Lean Cuisine’s Grilled Chicken Primavera, 19 percent fewer calories than the label. And the rosemary Chicken, 60 percent less fat. But don’t start binging yet. Our tests showed many meals were packaged with higher numbers. Smart Ones Shrimp Marinara had ten percent more calories than the label. Healthy Choice Lobster Cheese Ravioli, 17 percent more fat than the label. And that Lean Cuisine Chicken Primavera? Twenty percent more fat. But the biggest gut busted of all? Smart Ones Sweet and Sour Chicken. It advertises 210 calories and two grams of fat. We found it really had 11 percent more calories and the whopping 350 percent more fat. While the company was “skeptical” at our results, they’ve now launched an internal audit.

Ms. SUSAN ROBERTS, PHD (Tufts University): It’s enough to make you cry. I mean, these – this is disgraceful.

ROSSEN: Susan Roberts should know. As a leading food scientist, she did similar testing in her lab and, like us, found lying labels.

Ms. ROBERTS: We hear all the time that people are not losing weight. They’re plateauing. They can’t understand why they’re eating almost nothing and not losing weight. Here’s one explanation.

ROSSEN: You may be outraged by this, but the government isn’t. In many cases, under the law it’s perfectly OK. Believe it or not, FDA regulations allow food companies to be as much as 20 percent off on their labels.

Unidentified Woman #3: That’s unfortunate, and especially at the same time when they’re preaching to us about obesity.

ROSSEN: The government allows these companies to be 20 percent off on their label.

Unidentified Woman #3: Why?

ROSSEN: Good question. The FDA declined our request for an interview, so we went to the group representing the food companies. Isn’t this deceptive?

Mr. ROBERT BRACKETT (Grocery Manufacturers Association): No, it’s not at all deceptive. It may be something that the consumers don’t necessarily understand. And this is a great to explain them.

ROSSEN: He says these labels are merely an average. Companies come up with the numbers by testing a dozen or so meals then taking the average. Portions vary so they say no one meal can be exact. Why not be more transparent on the label and say this isn’t necessarily 230 calories, it’s an average? It’s 230-ish calories.

Mr. BRACKETT: Well, you could but it really wouldn’t help consumers. The idea here is that if you see 230 calories, that that’s a food that you normally eat, some are going to be more and some are going to be less.

ROSSEN: So you’re saying it’s OK for one particular sample to be three times higher than it says, another sample to be three times lower, as long as it averages out?

Mr. BRACKETT: Well, it’s — a better way to say this is not it’s OK, is that it’s a fact of nature. It’s a matter of being practical.

ROSSEN: Tell that to the poor customer who ends up with our Sweet and Sour Chicken, packed with three and a half times more fat than the label claims.

Woman #2: That’s scary, actually, because I eat those a lot, like very often, and now I’m wondering maybe that’s why I am — my weight hasn’t budged.

ROSSEN: No, she still looks good. In fact, scientists say these variations could cause you to gain weight over time. We shared our results with the food companies. They told us their labels and their testing procedures follow all FDA regulations. And, Matt, the big question is if these are made on a production line, why can’t they be more exact? The food companies say we’re dealing with real food here…

Can We Really Trust Nutrition Labels? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Are The Fat Free Labels Lying To You?
2. How To Dine With Nutrition In Mind
3. Supermarket Swindle: Two Things To Avoid On Your Food Labels

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, FDA, government, healthy foods, myths, nutrition labels

Q: I keep seeing this BMI thing everywhere, and I know that my girls aren’t overweight, but their doctors tell them they are and they need to lose weight. If they don’t look overweight, why does it matter if the BMI says they are?

If the question is whether or not the body mass index (or BMI) matters… the simple answer is that in reality, it doesn’t.

No, really.

But before you go writing off your physician’s advice, let me explain it a little clearer.

The BMI is merely a calculation based on your height in correlation to your weight. It is a ratio of what one’s frame is carrying in weight, and used as an estimation of one’s health. Not necessarily their health today, but their health tomorrow.

The idea is that there is a likely height-to-weight ratio that estimates just how much weight a particular frame can manage. Anything beneath that weight can imply that your organs aren’t being supported, you might be suffering an illness or you might be malnourished. Anything above that weight can imply that you have too much fat crowding your organs, you might be suffering an illness or you are “over-nourished,” so to speak.

Look at that paragraph – see all the uncertainty? “Likely,” “can imply,” “might,” “might”… c’mon.

The BMI was invented sometime between 1830 and 1850... before slaves were freed. Think about that.

The BMI wasn’t paid much attention until approximately the 1970s (over 100 years later… think about that, too) when a guy named Ancel (An-sill) Keys created a study titled “Indices of Relative Weight and Obesity” which used the BMI, gave it its “body mass index” name and popularized the simple ratio. Calling it an adequate measure of body fat percentage in the human body, and because it was a cheaper and quicker measure than what most researchers were using at the time, the BMI spread like wildfire. Flaws and all.

I already have a problem with Ancel Keys because he’s the reason why we swear that fat is the reason we’re fat, even though we’ve now suffered through two decades of “fat free/low fat” products and are fatter than we’ve ever been. The details of his Indices study are basically that he studied approximately 7,400 men in five countries. Women? Meh, y’all and your little bodily differences weren’t needed for such a study.

In the 1980s, when the National Institute of Health began advocating the BMI for regular use in treating patients, there were differing values for men and women.. and the marking number for being “overweight” rested somewhere around 27. Once the late ’90s hit, both men and women were now to share the same standard scale, and the marker for being “overweight” was moved down to 25.

Why, you ask? If you ask this guy, he’ll tell you the NIH and the CDC were in cahoots with one another so that they could create an obesity epidemic… thus resulting in more money being given to both entities. I’m a conspiracy theorist and all, but wowzers. The change in the threshold for obesity did result in something like 30million more Americans being classified as overweight.

If there are all these problems with it, why is it still in use? Because, quite frankly, while it’s often wrong… it’s also sometimes right. Though that “overweight” label might hurt some people’s feelings (why, I don’t know), its labels like “underweight” and “obese” that signify much more than the “overweight” category. (Although, I must admit, I doubt you need a scientific calculation to identify an individual as obese. Seems like a waste of time.)

Personally, I think it’s stupid. The body responds to its environment. Some athletes are extremely active, and the body will recognize that it may need to burn calories and lose weight to help accommodate that activity. Those athletes are, by definition, underweight. Some individuals have labor intensive jobs that require lots of heavy lifting, and the body will respond by packing on the muscle. Those individuals, by definition, are overweight. My bodybuilding friends? They’re shooting the BMI the finger because they’re obese.

If the body mass index is merely meant to measure the amount of mass a body should/could carry… and we know there’s a major difference between a body carrying fat and a body carrying muscle, for our doctors to use a measurement that doesn’t quantify muscle in comparison to fat is a medical fail. Seriously. Neither Keys nor the originator of the BMI intended for it to provide such blanket assumptions in such a specific fashion. “You must be like these other people because you share the same height and weight.” That’s what the BMI says. That’s why it’s so stupid.

I, personally, find the body fat percentage to be far more valuable in gauging my physical wellness. The body fat percentage estimates what percentage of your body appears to be purely fat. The “average American female’s” body fat percentage is somewhere around 32%, while the typical athlete is around 22%.

The bf% is a much more valuable number because it acknowledges that those in the overweight category may simply be muscular, and those on the thinner side may still be hiding some fat that needs to be addressed. There is no cheating or hiding behind “unfairness” with the body fat percentage. A caliper or a hydrostatic test is usually used to measure bf% – I use an electrical machine at my gym – but there’s also this quick and dirty calculator that I use to keep track, and it only requires a tape measure. You’ll get two numbers – take an average between the two numbers, and you’ll have a better and much more valuable estimate. If body fat is the issue (not muscle), then getting numbers that address specifically that definitely helps.

Lastly, if your body mass index still has you down… head on over here and see others who, apparently, are in your “weight group” and feel a little bit better about yourself. Lots of beautiful people over there, wondering how or why this arbitrary ratio matters so much. Just like the rest of us. (This one is my personal favorite.)

PS: Show a little love by voting for me in the Black Weblog Awards for Best Health or Wellness Blog category! That’s right – BGG2WL is a finalist thanks to you! Let’s do what we can to bring it home!

Q&A Wednesday: Why Does Body Mass Index (BMI) Matter? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: How Weight Clings To (And Falls Off) The Body
2. Q&A Wednesday: Is This The Size My Body Wants Me To Be?
3. Q&A Wednesday: Weight Changes, Body Awareness & The Creeper Effect

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ancel keys, bmi, body fat, body fat percentage, body mass index, CDC, fat head, government, NIH, normal weight, obese, obesity, overweight, underweight, what is normal weight, wtf is normal

I’m always getting people asking “Well, what if it says [this] on the box? What if it says [that] on the box? Doesn’t that make a difference?”

I’m here to state… for the record… no. It doesn’t. I can even prove it.

The best part of this? "Spoon inside!" As if to say, "You can even eat me in the checkout lane!"

Case #1:

Indie ice cream pioneer Ben & Jerry’s will be dropping the phrase “All Natural” from some of its ice cream and frozen yogurt cartons, it announced today.

The flavors containing alkalized cocoa, corn syrup, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil particularly irked the folks over at the Center for the Science in the Public Interest, who had asked the company to stop using “all natural” claims last month in a letter to parent company Unilever.

That leads us to wonder, if Ben & Jerry’s — Insert catchphrase “Peace, Love and Ice Cream” here — isn’t natural, then what is?

Apparently, the USDA allows meat and poultry to be labeled “natural” if they don’t include artificial colors or ingredients, and are not more than “minimally processed.” But the rest of the food supply’s definition of natural is up for grabs.

The FDA doesn’t define the word “natural,” so it’s used by a variety of food manufacturers in an effort to imply their products are somehow better for us. We’ve seen it on everything from potato chips to cereal boxes.

“The Food and Drug Administration could do consumers and food manufacturers a great service by actually defining when the word ‘natural’ can and cannot be used to characterize a given ingredient,” says CSPI’s Michael Jacobson.

[source]

Case #2:

Federal regulators filed complaints on Monday against the makers of Pom Wonderful Pomegranate Juice, saying that there was no science to support claims that the products treat or prevent diseases like prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.

The Federal Trade Commission said that Pom Wonderful, its parent company the Roll International Corporation, its creators and an executive violated federal law by making false and deceptive claims about disease prevention and treatment.

The agency’s complaint named the president of Pom Wonderful, Matthew Tupper, and the company founders Stewart and Lynda Resnick, a billionaire California couple whose holdings include the florist retailer Teleflora, Fiji Water and companies that produce Wonderful Pistachios and Cuties clementines.

PomWonderful is seen as starting the Pomegranate craze that has spread to everything from tea to smoothies, hitting ice cream, martinis and salad dressings on the way. The company’s health claims are a hallmark of its advertising.

Regulators said the ads were misleading in saying the research shows the juice or related Pomegranate supplements prevent or treat certain diseases.

“Any consumer who sees Pom Wonderful products as a silver bullet against disease has been misled,” said David Vladeck, director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. He said companies using scientific research in their advertising must have research that supports the claims. [source]

But wait! There’s more!

Now here’s something you wouldn’t expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself?

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

Does this mean that you’d have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named “vitaminwater,” a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?

Or does it mean that it’s okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?

In fact, the product is basically sugar-water, to which about a penny’s worth of synthetic vitamins have been added. And the amount of sugar is not trivial. A bottle of vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar, making it more akin to a soft drink than to a healthy beverage.

Is any harm being done by this marketing ploy? After all, some might say consumers are at least getting some vitamins, and there isn’t as much sugar in vitaminwater as there is in regular Coke. [source]

So… let’s get this right:

(1) Ben & Jerry’s waits until they’re harassed by a consumer watchdog group before they admit that the “all natural” sticker on their label is a little misleading.

(2) Coca-Cola, makers of VitaminWater – a product with, arguably, a misleading title and particularly misleading marketing – defends itself against a lawsuit by proclaiming that you’d have to be unreasonable to believe “vitaminwater” is a healthy drink.

(3) The makers of Pom Wonderful Pomegranate Juice just all-out decide to pull health claims out of the sky… presumably since they couldn’t present the FTC with any proof for what they’ve claimed.

Why do we think we should trust health claims on food labels, again? Why do we think it’s best to buy things because of claims people make regarding what the product can do for us… especially when it’s in their best interest to tell us whatever it takes to make us buy? Why, again, is it smart to leave ourselves open to being taken advantage of?

It’s just like buying a pair of shoes because the sales person hounded you about “how amazing they make your legs look” and how “all the men will be drawn to you.” C’mon – the only difference is the fact that the salesman isn’t a person – it’s a little sticker on a box that says “Now with fiber!” [and leaves you wondering why it didn't have fiber in the first place.] The only reason we don’t go home with buyer’s remorse about the food is because we often don’t know just how we were swindled.

The interesting thing about the pomegranate product is that while pomegranate may very well aid in fighting cancers or providing a little boost to the gentlemen – much like many other foods out there – it has to prove them… to an organization… and their findings have to fit their standards. And, well, we all know how reliable and honest and foreward-thinking the FDA is.

The reality is… you can’t trust any of this stuff. Nothing is guaranteed. Except, well… the fruits and vegetables (with occasional meat) we’ve been eating for forever. If you insist on buying something in a package, don’t let yourself get suckered in by a health claim. As you can see, they aren’t worth much.

Rule: If It Makes A Health Claim… It’s Probably Lying is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. The 80/20 Rule… Fitness Style
2. Are The Fat Free Labels Lying To You?
3. Moms: Your Work Schedule Makes Your Kids Fat

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advertising, ben and jerry's, coca cola, FDA, ftc, government, health claims, marketing, natural, pom wonderful, vitamin water

Should you not feel like clicking that link, I’ll pull some of the more interesting quotes from the article to share below:

But the full-figured African-American nominee is also under fire for being overweight in a nation where 34 percent of all Americans aged 20 and over are obese.

Critics and supporters across the blogsphere have commented on photos of Benjamin’s round cheeks, saying she sends the wrong message as the public face of America’s health initiatives.

Here’s another good one:

“I think it is an issue, but then the president is said to still smoke cigarettes,” said Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine who is now a senior lecturer at Harvard University Medical School. “It tends to undermine her credibility.”

“We don’t know how much she weighs and just looking at her I would not say she is grotesquely obese or even overweight enough to affect her health,” Angell told ABCNews.com.

“But I do think at a time when a lot of public health concern is about the national epidemic of obesity, having a surgeon general who is noticeably overweight raises questions in people’s minds,” she added.

I’m overlooking the “sexist” aspect of this situation simply because I don’t buy that. It feels like an excuse to discuss something other than the fact that the woman appears to be physically unfit. My question is… does the physical appearance really make that much of a difference? Do you really pay that much attention to the Surgeon General to define them as or look to them to be a pillar of health? Is it that serious to you?

One last quote for the road:

Dr. Sarah Lester, a pediatrician from Andover, N.H., told ABCNews.com she lost 30 pounds, setting a good example for her patients’ families.

“I do think it makes a big difference,” said the 38-year-old. “Many ask me how I did it and when I tell them more exercise and eating less many are disappointed. However when they hear even for me there isn’t a magic bullet, I think it helps.”

What do you think?

What Does An Overweight Surgeon General Mean To America? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. News: Telling Parents About Overweight Kids Has Little Impact?
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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: government, health policy, obesity, surgeon general

And just then, the record (or CD …or MP3) skipped.

I get it. People who believe that the primary concern is calories… will drink a diet pop because the calorie count is low. (In fact, in some cases, it’s literally zero calories.) But clean eaters know better. Clean eaters know a few things about this mentality:

First, if you’re going to enjoy a zero calorie drink, it had better be water.

Secondly, a drink that has color and sweet sugary taste, but zero calories? That’s a highly processed product. No bueno.

Next, if it has no vitamins or minerals in it, it’s not worth my time ingesting it. Getting the most bang for our nutritional buck, here.

Lastly, if it has high fruc–

Uh, not so fast, Erika! Diet soft drinks don’t have high fructose corn syrup in them!

No, you’re absolutely right. It doesn’t have HFCS in it. It has aspartame in it. Ooooh, that’s so much better.

I’m not even going to go in on this. Someone already did:

“When aspartame was put before the FDA for approval, it was denied eight times. G.D. Searle, founder of aspartame, tried to get FDA approval in 1973. Clearly, he wasn’t bothered by reports from neuroscientist Dr. John Olney and researcher Ann Reynolds (hired by Searle himself) that aspartame was dangerous. Dr. Martha Freeman, a scientist from the FDA division of Metabolic and Endocrine Drug Products, declared, “The information submitted for review is inadequate to permit a scientific evaluation of clinical safety.” Freeman recommended that until the safety of aspartame was proven, marketing the product should not be permitted. Alas, her recommendations were ignored. Somehow, in 1974, Searle got approval to use aspartame in dry foods. However, it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. In 1975, the FDA put together a task force to review Searle’s testing methods. Task force team leader Phillip Brodsky said he “had never seen anything as bad as Searle’s testing” and called the test’s results “manipulated.” Before aspartame actually made it into dry foods, Olney and attorney and consumer advocate Jim Turner filed objections against the approval.

“In 1977, the FDA asked the U.S. attorney’s office to start grand jury proceedings against Searle for “knowingly misrepresenting findings and concealing material facts and making false statements in aspartame safety tests.” Shortly after, the U.S. attorney leading the investigation against Searle was offered a job by the law firm that was representing Searle. Later that same year, he resigned as U.S. attorney and withdrew from the case, delaying the grand jury’s investigation. This caused the statute of limitations on the charges to run out, and the investigation was dropped. And he accepted the job with Searle’s law firm. Stunning.

“In 1980, a review by the Public Board of Inquiry set up by the FDA determined that aspartame should not be approved. The board said it had not been presented with proof of reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as a food additive.” In 1981, new FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed. Despite the fact that three out of six scientists advised against approval, Hayes decided to overrule the scientific review panel and allow aspartame into limited dry goods. In 1983, he got it approved for beverages, even though the National Soft Drink Association urged the FDA to delay approval until further testing could be done. That same year, Hayes left the FDA amid charges of impropriety. The Internal Department of Health and Human services was investigating Hayes for accepting gratuities from FDA-regulated companies. He went to work as a consultant for Searle’s public relations firm. Interesting. The FDA finally urged Congress to prosecute Searle for giving the government false or incomplete test results on aspartame. However, the two government attorneys assigned to the case decided not to prosecute. Later, they went to work for the law firm that represented Searle. Fascinating. Despite recognizing ninety-two different symptoms that result from ingesting aspartame, the FDA approved it for use, without restriction in 1996. Brilliant.

[...]

“Nutrasweet and Equal contain aspartame. When ingested, one of aspartame’s ingredients, methyl alcohol, converts into formaldehyde, a deadly neurotoxin. In addition to aspartame, Equal contains the amino acid phenylalanine. Phenylalanine occurs naturally in the brain. But high levels can increase the chance of seizures and lead to depression and schizophrenia. There is no lesser of the two evils. NutraSweet and Equal are both evil. Sweet and Low is no saint, either. It is an artificial sweetener that contains saccharin, a coal-tar compound.” [source]

I’m going to focus on three major issues, here.

For starters, this should lay to rest that philosophy of “If it were so bad for you, then the FDA wouldn’t have approved it.” The amount of trust we give our government officials would make sense if those positions weren’t held by people with their own humanity to contend with. Look at the instances of people who were bought off, paid off, pushed aside, ignored all to get this product approved.

Secondly, I’m a huge advocate of knowing what you’re eating – both the positive and negative information – before you eat it. If you didn’t know all of this about aspartame before you decided to make it a staple in your diet, is it time to reassess whether or not it belongs in your diet?

Thirdly, this is the issue with processed foods. They make use of chemicals used for other purposes in nature in order to create flavors and tastes in a fashion that would be much more costly if the actual foods themselves were used to make the product! You are introducing chemicals into your system… period.

“[Aspartame is a low-calorie sweetener made by joining two amino acids with an alcohol. It is approximately 180 times sweeter than sugar.] Some researchers claim to have linked aspartame to brain tumors and lymphoma, but the FDA insists that the sweetener is safe for humans. A list of complaints submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services includes headaches, dizziness, diarrhea, memory loss and mood changes. The Center for Science in the Public Interest states that children should avoid drinks sweetened with aspartame.” [source]

Think about it – a chemical was created to cause the brain to react to it in the same way as sugar. Many people – many people - claim they experience withdrawals when they take a break from products containing aspartame. The only other instance I can think of where a person is willfully introducing a mind-altering chemical into their system… definitely causes withdrawal symptoms when people break from it. I’m sure you’re familiar with heroin… cocaine… meth… I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

And since I’m ticking everyone off? Let’s talk about Splenda.

Knowing what we know about the 40-some-odd years of aspartame’s existence, splenda (made of sucralose), has an equally young past. One more quote:

Because we’re having so much fun, lets bash the shit out of Splenda, one of the newer sweeteners. Splenda is made by chlorinated sugar, changing its molecular structure. The finished product is called sucralose. The makers of this poison tout its lack of calories and claim it’s safe for diabetics. The FDA calls sucralose 98 percent pure. The other 2 percent contains small amounts of heavy metals, methanol, and arsenic. Well gee, at least it doesn’t have any calories. So what if it has a little arsenic? Sucralose has been found to cause diarrhea; organ, genetic, immune system, and reproductive damage; swelling of the liver and kidneys: and a decrease in fetal body weight. What a splendid product! [source]

Really, I’m over it. All those little diet dishes that are “sweet” thanks to this stuff? I’m over those, too. I have a family history of cancer… what do I look like putting known cancer-causing agents (also known as carcinogens) in my body? No thanks.

These sweeteners are not food. They are chemicals meant to trick your body into thinking they are something they aren’t. I don’t know how many different times, in how many different ways I can say this, but it goes as follows:

I don’t care how many miles you run each day, how many pounds of weight you lift or how chiseled your muscles are. You cannot live a fully healthy life if you ingest chemicals to survive. You are cheating your insides – screw what you look like on the outside – if you don’t care for them as much as you care for your abs, your booty, your legs or whatever else you adore. Period.

Believe it or not, I don’t share this stuff with the intention of telling anyone to give it up. We all (hopefully) have reasons for making the decisions we make. My point in sharing this information is so that we can, again, make educated decisions about the food choices we make. Clean eating is simple. Easy. The foods are of the Earth, I’m of the Earth, this is a win. When we introduce outside substances to our diet, our bodies deserve the twenty minutes it might take to hit up your favorite wellness-promoting website and do a search. It’s seriously not that hard.

I will say this, though: I’m a firm believer in the philosophy that says “those who know better, constantly strive to do better.” Just a thought.

The Case Against Diet Soda (And Aspartame… And Splenda.. And….) is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Case Against Agave Nectar
2. No Food Stamps For Soft Drinks? Cracking Down On Soda Pop
3. The Case Against… Juice?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 48 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aspartame, clean eating, dieting, equal, Fad Diets, FDA, government, Healthy Eating, high fructose corn syrup, nutrition, processed foods, soft drinks, splenda, sucralose, sugar, sweeteners, sweetnlow

…and immediately, I think to myself… “…because the rush to approve and accept them came much faster than the rush to ensure that such unique technology was actually deemed safe, across the board, for human consumption.”

There’s also this:

The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act imposed strict rules requiring that the word “imitation” appear on any food product that was, well, an imitation … [And] the food industry [argued over the word], strenuously for decades, and in 1973 it finally succeeded in getting the imitation rule tossed out, a little-notice but momentous step that helped speed America down the path of nutritionism.

… The American Heart Association, eager to get Americans off saturated fats and onto vegetable oils (including hydrogenated vegetable oils), was actively encouraging the food industry to “modify” various foods to get the saturated fats and cholesterol out of them, and in the early seventies the association urged that “any existing and regulatory barriers to the marketing of such foods be removed.”

And so they were when, in 1973, the FDA (not, note, the Congress that wrote the law) simply repealed the 1938 rule concerning imitation foods. … The revised imitation rule held that as long as an imitation product was not “nutritionally inferior” to the natural food it sought to impersonate—as long as it had the same quantities of recongized nutrients—the imitation could be marketed without using the dreaded “i” word. — In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

So… as long as the studies declare that the GMO products aren’t “nutritionally inferior,” we don’t really have to be told they’re fake food. How much do you want to bet it’ll be a long time before those studies are ever done?

The problem with genetically modified foods, really, is the uncertainty. And really, let’s be honest, here. In an industry where everyone is waiting for the next opportunity to turn a big profit, very little is left unchartered. Everything is studied to a fault because if there are benefits to tout for something, we’d be inundated with press releases, commercials and everything else. For any food – genetically modified or otherwise – to be covered in a cloud of uncertainty… tells me that that cloud is placed (and left) there intentionally. If you dug deeper than the cloud, you’d find all the reasons to not eat the stuff.

The article includes a lot of stuff that food nerds like me are interested in, but I’m going to parse it down to the stuff that I think should be noted and quoted here, at least:

In the last three weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved three new kinds of genetically engineered (G.E.) foods: alfalfa (which becomes hay), a type of corn grown to produce ethanol, and sugar beets. And the approval by the Food and Drug Administration of a super-fast-growing salmon — the first genetically modified animal to be sold in the U.S., but probably not the last — may not be far behind.

It’s unlikely that these products’ potential  benefits could possibly outweigh their potential for harm. But even more unbelievable is that the F.D.A.and the U.S.D.A. will not require any of these products, or foods containing them, to be labeled as genetically engineered, because they don’t want to “suggest or imply” that these foods are “different.” (Labels with half-truths about health benefits appear to be O.K., but that’s another story.)They are arguably different, but more important, people are leery of them. Nearly an entire continent — it’s called Europe — is so wary that G.E. crops are barely grown there and there are strict bans on imports (that policy is in danger). Furthermore, most foods containing more than 0.9 percent G.M.O.’s must be labeled.

Let’s not forget – Europe’s regulations? Far tougher than ours. And why?

Tom Vilsack, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, is now Secretary of the USDA.

Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.

Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Islam Siddiqui, Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the US Trade Representative.

Rajiv Shah former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under-Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.

Elena Kagan, who, as President Obama’s Solicitor General, took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, is now on the Supreme Court.

Ramona Romero, corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA. [source]

…but back to the article.

Also curious is that the salmon is being categorized as a “new animal drug” which means that the advisory committee in charge of evaluating it is composed mostly of veterinarians and animal scientists, instead of, say, fish ecologists or experts in food safety. Not surprisingly, the biotech industry has spent over half a billion dollars on G.M.O. lobbyists in the last decade, and Michael Taylor, the F.D.A. deputy commissioner for foods, was once vice president for public policy at Monsanto. Numerous groups of consumers, farmers, environmental advocates, scientists, supporters of organic food and now even congressmen — last week, a bill was introduced to ban G.E. salmon — believe that the approval process demonstrated a bias towards the industry.

Understand what this means. It means that since the genetically modified animal isn’t actually being evaluated as an animal… or as, well, food. It’s being evaluated as a drug.

…but back to the article.

Cross-breeding is guaranteed with alfalfa and likely with corn. (The U.S.D.A. claims to be figuring out ways to avoid this happening, but by then the damage may already be done.) And the organic dairy industry is going to suffer immediate and frightening losses when G.E. alfalfa is widely grown, since many dairy cows eat dried alfalfa (hay), and the contamination of organic alfalfa means the milk of animals fed with that hay can no longer be called organic. Likewise, when feed corn is contaminated by G.E. ethanol corn, the products produced from it won’t be organic. (On the one hand, U.S.D.A. joins the F.D.A. in not seeing G.E. foods as materially different; on the other it limits the amount found in organic foods. Hello? Guys? Could you at least pretend to be consistent?)

The subject is unquestionably complex. Few people outside of scientists working in the field — self included — understand much of anything about gene altering. Still, an older ABC poll found that a majority of Americans believe that G.M.O.’s are unsafe, even more say they’re less likely to buy them, and a more recent CBS/NYT poll found a whopping 87 percent — you don’t see a poll number like that too often — wants them labeled.

The cross-breeding of alfalfa is a big deal because of the issue with the term “organic.” For instance, if you purchase organic cow’s milk, it means that your cow has eaten only organically grown food, as well. Since alfalfa makes up the hay fed to cows, its imperative that that alfalfa be organic, as well. If cross-breeding – in other words, when seeds of plants “blow over” to someone else’s land and grow there – happens that easily with alfalfa, then it alters the amount of organic alfalfa there is to feed organically raised cows… thus reducing the ability to organically raise cows… thus increasing the difficulty of raising cows organically as well as reducing the amount of organic milk… thus increasing the price of organic milk and cheeses.

That’s a big deal.

There’s a great clip – I’ll have to find it somewhere – of a court case where a food industry executive was asked why they didn’t want food labeled to reflect what it truly is, and the woman said “Oh, we don’t want to unnecessarily worry the public.”

That’s industry speak for – “We know they’ll pick up on something that’ll give them a reason to not give us their money.” Look at that number. 87%

Eighty-seven per cent of the public wants genetically modified foods labeled! Why can’t we get what we want? Because the industry doesn’t want to “unnecessarily worry” us. Oh, okay.

…but back to the last and, to me, most important part of the article:

Even more than questionable approvals, it’s the unwillingness to label these products as such — even the G.E. salmon will be sold without distinction — that is demeaning and undemocratic, and the real reason is clear: producers and producer-friendly agencies correctly suspect that consumers will steer clear of G.E. products if they can identify them. Which may make them unprofitable. Where is the free market when we need it?

A majority of our food already contains G.M.O.’s, and there’s little reason to think more isn’t on the way. It seems our “regulators” are using us and the environment as guinea pigs, rather than demanding conclusive tests. And without labeling, we have no say in the matter whatsoever.

We are, essentially, being turned into test subjects – unwittingly, even – but there’s one way to avoid it. Start doing what you can to avoid genetically modified foods and the things that feed from them.

The Trouble With Genetically Engineered Foods, Revisited is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Problem With Genetically Modified Foods
2. Genetically Modified Foods: The World According To Monsanto
3. Cows Genetically Modified To Produce Human Milk?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alfalfa, corn, FDA, frankenfood, genetically engineered foods, genetically modified food, genetically modified foods, government, monsanto, salmon, usda

I. Am not. The Food Police.

That’s right.

And before I dig any deeper into that? Let me clarify with what I define as “The Food Police.”

“The Food Police are the busybodies — activists, trial lawyers, and troublemakers — who would have the government intervene in everyday nutrition choices under the pretense of ‘protecting America’s Children’.”

And before you jump in and tell me there’s nothing wrong with the government doing that… let me remind you that almost every single time that the government has intervened in the nutritional lifestyle of the public, it has proven to be problematic.

And why would it not happen that way? We elect lawyers and other similarly-degreed individuals to our government, and we ask them to take the information sent to them and use it wisely to make decisions on our behalf. Who do you think is paying for all of that information and those studies that they’re reviewing? Surely, our government cannot afford it. Industries who are most affected (either for the positive or for the negative) by a desired outcome are the ones most likely to spend the money on a study, pay for lobbyists to kiss the behind of whatever congressman in charge and provide “campaign donations” to those most able to help them further their goals.

And really? Let’s keep it real. For a product to be approved for sale… it only has to prove that it is not harmful. Not that it actually has benefits… but that it won’t kill you. Enter: GRAS, or Generally Recognized As Safe. “Its benefits, as we see them today, outweigh the problems…. as we see them today.” Never mind the fact that “the problems” may very well appear tomorrow.

My favorite example of this? Margarine. Yesssss… margarine. Margarine was pushed onto us in response to the “OMG – butter has saturated fat!” message. Yes. We were told to eat a completely artificial product – loaded with trans fats at the time – instead of simply balancing our intake of the real thing. Surely enough, it was a cancer-causing agent, causing countless cancer-related deaths.

As I said, the larger food manufacturing grew, the more we were distanced from it’s production, and the less oversight we were granted to it’s creation and ingredients. Because (in my opinion) the government wanted to simply do what it could to ensure that the US had a consistent food supply, lots of leeway was given to big food factories to help ease them along their way in supplying our supermarkets with food – glorious food! Want an example? The food industry was able to get the FDA to change the law – imitation foods that weren’t nutritionally deficient in comparison to their whole counterparts didn’t have to be clearly marked as “imitation.” (You can skip the below quote if you like because I’ve quoted it before, but it’s valuable enough to read twice.)

The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act imposed strict rules requiring that the word “imitation” appear on any food product that was, well, an imitation … [And] the food industry [argued over the word], strenuously for decades, and in 1973 it finally succeeded in getting the imitation rule tossed out, a little-notice but momentous step that helped speed America down the path of nutritionism.

… The American Heart Association, eager to get Americans off saturated fats and onto vegetable oils (including hydrogenated vegetable oils), was actively encouraging the food industry to “modify” various foods to get the saturated fats and cholesterol out of them, and in the early seventies the association urged that “any existing and regulatory barriers to the marketing of such foods be removed.”

And so they were when, in 1973, the FDA (not, note, the Congress that wrote the law) simply repealed the 1938 rule concerning imitation foods. … The revised imitation rule held that as long as an imitation product was not “nutritionally inferior” to the natural food it sought to impersonate—as long as it had the same quantities of recongized nutrients—the imitation could be marketed without using the dreaded “i” word. — In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

[..]

I do want to go back to the point about the FDA’s law about imitation substances, though. It does a lot more to the food industry than you think it does. Take a loaf of bread, for example. Bread has maybe five ingredients in it – flour, water, sugar, salt, and yeast – but if you look on the label for the bread in your house right now? You see what – hyphenated chemicals. The food industry now has the ability to put anything in your food, so long as it is not deficient in the nutrients that science recognizes are valuable… in comparison to the food it imitates.

So, if the foods aren’t nutritionally deficient, why is this a problem?

Well, how much credit do you give food science? The rule is simply that the foods cannot be deficient in nutrients that science recognizes as valuable. What about what science hasn’t spotted yet? What about all these hyphenated chemicals that science hasn’t identified (or is prevented from identifying) as harmful to our health?

And before you call me a conspiracy theorist, consider this: it took science decades to recognize that trans-fats – once a massive part of margarine and other major foods – were hazardous to our health. Believe it or not, the government still allows trans-fats in foods, and actually allows food manufacturers to lie about how much trans-fats are in their foods. (More on that later.)

And that’s another thing – our government can only be reactionary. Because of the predicament they’re in – they can’t really test for anything with such a limited budget, and they certainly can’t keep up with all of the products flooding the market every single day. It simply isn’t possible. They can approve something today, and weeks – years… maybe decades – later discover the hell they’ve unleashed upon the public.

I’m not even going to get on the problems with school lunch. Just know that the USDA’s standards… don’t meet mine. And anything I pack for my child has to compete against whatever neutral-colored gobbledy gook they’re serving with that sugary milk colored with Red-400. Thanks. (Oh, and don’t you worry – I will get to the school lunch issue, too.)

I’m sorry, but I don’t know that I love the idea of these lawyer-turned-politicians determining what it is that I should be eating. I already know what I should be eating: the stuff that comes out of the ground, and the occasional bit of animal or animal by-product (cheese, milk, etc.) We all should know that.

But if I’m not The Food Police, then what on Earth is this site for?

People who use the term “Food Police” tend to fall on either side of the following spectrum: Either they reeeeeally want lots of legislation, or they reeeeeally don’t.

Am I the only one who sees the problem with this? All this talk about whether or not the government should be involved… and no talk of how to involve ourselves in making better decisions.

It doesn’t take a federal law to tell you that a cheeto isn’t grown on a vine… or grown at all. It doesn’t take federal mandates to explain to you that a fake food can never nutritionally replace a real one. At least, it shouldn’t… and that’s why, even though I don’t want to be aligned with The Food Police, I for damn sure don’t want to be aligned with those who are anti-TFP, too.

Why? Because those people not only want the government completely out of our nutritional decision making… they also want to keep us from ever learning about how to make the proper decisions. Why? Because knowledge is power.. and the more knowledge we’d develop, the more we’d realize that we shouldn’t be buying these phony products. Heaven forbid food manufacturers be compelled to create quality.

I get those people commenting on this site, too – some comments I approve, many others, I don’t – who mistakenly align me with the TFP camp. I don’t need a government to determine what’s acceptable for me to eat. Thousands of years of human existence on this Earth does that just fine. Where’s the push to educate people? To help us make our own decisions?

That’s where my site fits in.

I write about what I’ve learned that has helped me reclaim my health. My community, my stores, my options all facilitate that. I write in hopes that someone else will gain a little insight into how I’ve achieved what I have thus far, and that perhaps it can help someone else do the same. How often is this information available out there? For free even? C’mon. Really.

To put it bluntly… I don’t care what you eat. I do care that we all have accurate information about how dangerous and questionable some of our choices are. People take risks every day… and when they know the risk associated with their decisions, that’s one thing. A lot of this food stuff? The real answers are kept from us because manufacturers know full well we’d reject their products. I think that is wrong.

As often as I write about the “Come to Fitness” moment, I also write about how people have to make that realization on their own. It’s easier for me to live the knowledge I’ve acquired, answer the questions as they come to me and hope that we all can make better-informed decisions because of that enlightenment. Me trying to force you – someone I don’t know, don’t live with and aren’t personally invested in – to eat how I think is best without any consideration of your budget, your resources, your time or your abilities? It’s unfair.

That’s the real reason why I write about these issues that aren’t just “Swap this with this and save calories!” Because the reality is… it takes more than that. It takes making sure that we are aware of what we need to live healthy lives, so that we can begin to demand it. If we know that we need access to these things, we can show that the demand is there. If we never learn, we never demand and we continue to only get more of the same. I’m not pro- or anti-Food Police. I’m pro-”enlightening-and-educating-the-public-so-that-we-can-demand-more-of-our-food-industry.” And neither side does enough of that for me.

So, until they do… I’ll be over here writing… and sangin’ in the background.

I Am Not The Food Police is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. No Myths Here: Food Stamps, Food Deserts and Food Scarcity
2. Hierarchy of Food Needs: How Do You Get GOOD Food When There’s No Food?
3. Neither Soul Food, Nor “Slave Food,” Made You Fat

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: FDA, government, school lunch, the food police, usda

An actual lap-band, from Allergan's own site.

Allergan Inc’s already approved stomach band was effective for reducing weight in a broader group of obese patients, U.S. reviewers said in documents released on Wednesday.

The maker of Botox, breast implants and other cosmetic products wants approval to promote the surgically implanted Lap-Band device to people with lower body mass indexes who are still considered obese. Wider approval could boost sales.

Allergan shares gained 0.3 percent to close at $66.46 on the New York Stock Exchange.

In an Allergan study, “there was significant decrease in all measures of weight loss,” Food and Drug Administration reviewers wrote in a summary prepared for outside advisers who will consider the wider use on Friday.

The company is seeking FDA approval to promote the Lap-Band for adults with a BMI of 35 or higher, or at least 30 plus one weight-related health problem such as diabetes or high blood pressure. A person 6 feet tall would need to weigh about 225 pounds (102 kilograms) to have a BMI of at least 30.

The Lap-Band is approved for adults with a BMI of at least 40, or at least 35 plus one other health problem. About 15 million Americans are candidates under the currently approved definition and about 27 million more fit under the broader group, Allergan said.

The company studied 149 patients in the less obese group. Nearly 81 percent of them had lost at least 30 percent of their weight at one year, FDA reviewers said.

No unexpected complications were reported. About 2 percent of device-related problems were considered severe, FDA staff said. One patient’s band had eroded and was removed, while another’s was repositioned in a new operation after it slipped.

The FDA reviewers said they had some questions about Allergan’s data, including whether the people who were studied represented the types of U.S. patients who would be eligible if wider use is approved. Most patients studied were white women, and nonwhite men were underrepresented, they said.

Collins Stewart analyst Louise Chen said she conservatively estimates Lap-Band sales could rise to $390 million by 2016. The device, which is placed around the upper part of the stomach to create a small pouch and limit food intake, already commands two-thirds of the $300 million to $400 million gastric band market.

Wider approval would be positive for Allergan, Chen said, but “uptake may be slow given the high unemployment rate” as many patients pay out of pocket for the device.

The surgery costs between $12,000 and $20,000, Allergan said.

More than 72 million U.S. adults are obese, which raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer. Efforts to fight fat with a pill have fallen short, leading some patients to consider surgical options.

Allergan dominates other markets with products such as wrinkle smoother Botox and dermal filler Juvederm, making it an attractive takeover target for large drugmakers.

The FDA cleared the Lap-Band for sale in 2001. The device can be implanted through a small “keyhole” incision. The procedure is less invasive than stomach stapling or gastric bypass, which involves cutting and rerouting the stomach. Johnson & Johnson sells a rival device called Realize.

The FDA panel is set to vote on Friday afternoon on whether to recommend approval for the less-obese patients. The agency usually follows panel recommendations.

Doctors are free to implant the Lap-Band now in any patient they consider appropriate, but Allergan needs FDA approval to market the device for the wider group.

In a summary also released by the FDA, Allergan said its study findings “make it clear that the benefits of the weight loss exceed the risk of surgery and the risk of failure to treat” obesity.

Allergan also is studying the Lap-Band in teens ages 14 to 17.

From the Q&A on the lap-band:

For starters, I don’t understand why weight loss procedures are considered some great, grand solution to every obesity-related illness, especially when the only thing the surgery immediately solves is the “obese” issue – you lose the weight. You’ll still have the hypertension, you’ll still have the high cholesterol and you’ll still have the diabetes to contend with. It is not a cure all.

In fact, I can recall a conversation I had with an MD a while back regarding surgeries… because I feel some kinda way about how they are peddled as being The End All Be All To Curing The Real Health Woes In America. Her words to me were, “Surgeries aren’t intended to be a cure-all, they’re meant to aid the people who are genuinely unable to function because of the weight they’ve put on, or the people who actually need to quickly lose weight so that we can go in and perform other procedures. If there’s too much fat for us to go in and do what we need to do, then a procedure will be recommended for weight loss first… then the other procedures come afterwards.”

Excerpted from Q&A Wednesday: Should She Go Lap-Band? | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Now, if the idea is that because a person is limited in how much food they can take in because of the lap band, and that they don’t, in fact, have to actually change what they’re eating… that just means it’ll take longer to experience the same obesity-linked illnesses. Doesn’t mean those illnesses will never resurface.

From the comments on the Q&A post:

I have a friend who is 5’10″ tall and weighs around 425lbs. She gained the last 30lbs whole wearing a lapband that she just had removed in August. Somehow she ate the same amount of food in teeny tiny meals, ALL DAY! Since vegetables caused her indigestion, she didn’t eat them. So lots of meat and potatoes, and starches. Because she gained that extra weight, the lapband was rubbing against her liver causing pain and internal bleeding..

We get along as as long as the topic of food doesn’t come up. Now she’s on a mostly liquid diet of 1000 calories/day to lose weight in preparation of gastric bypass surgery in January. She said she doesn’t want to develop Type 2 Diabetes like me, so she going to get herself cut up. I understand her fear, but I cringe whenever I think of what she puts in her mouth. Since she’s limited to 1000 calories, she stocked up on fat-free puddings, and diet pop. I asked her to just do herbal teas, and a few squares of dark chocolate but she complained that that little bit wouldn’t fill her up. And she HATES water!

One more:

I wrote the post lap gastric bypass/calorie restriction post yesterday and I feel that there are some necessary clarifications to be made about bariatric surgery.

1) Whether lap band or bypass, you will regain the weight if you don’t change your behaviors. Period. Limiting calories to1,800/day, exercising, eating healthy food…that’s the only way to go to have long-lasting results.

2) The gastric bypass surgery functions quite differently from the lap band. The bypass removes approximately 95% of the stomach (although not following directions can cause it to stretch back to its original size) and affects the hormones released by the digestive system. These hormones affect how the body processes food, burns it, and can absolutely change your palate. Pre-surgery, my problems were with sugar (thankfully I didn’t have high blood pressure, diabetes, or any other co-morbid condition). Now, I can’t eat some natural sugars because I’m so sensitive to it. A slice of pineapple almost had me updating my will. I’m an outlier; all folks don’t have this experience. However, since sugar was my main problem, my surgeon and I are very confident of my success as I can no longer tolerate (nor do I crave it). I also work out 3x week with a trainer. This, in addition to the surgery, accounts for how I’ve lost more than 60% of my excess weight in less than 11 months.

3) The lap band physically reduces, though not permanently, the size of the stomach which limits intake. There is no cutting. It does NOT affect hunger hormones and there is no “dumping” syndrome, where the body rids itself of everything (it seems) if the patient eats too much fat or sugar in one sitting. Lap band folks can eat sugar, fat, anything they want, just in smaller quantities. This is why a significant proportion of lap band patients eventually have the bypass surgery.

No matter what you do (surgical or non-surgical intervention), your eating habits and exercise regimen will ultimately determine your weight and thus, your health. I had years of therapy before I had the surgery, which is partly why I’ve been successful. And for the record, I lost nearly 50 pounds BEFORE the surgery (30 pounds MORE than my surgeon required) because I was able to address many of my psychological issues around food and “practice” my post-surgery habits for a full 11 months before the surgery.

Bariatric surgery is not for everyone. No matter how good your intentions, how great your support system, you should not have the surgery until you’ve addressed emotional/psychological reasons for eating.

I’m a doctor and can address more specificities of the surgeries. However, I’m not here to give medical advice; that’s for your primary care physician.

One more thing: one can be too obese for the surgery. At my highest weight, 400+ pounds, there are surgeons who would not have accepted me as a patient. My surgeon, PCP, and therapist all knew that I was in it for the long haul and that I would comply with all requirements. No surgeon wants an extremely obese patient who can’t follow directions. It sounds callous, but it destroys their surgery statistics…and that matters quite a bit for reputational and malpractice purposes. I’m shocked that someone above stated that their 650 pound mother had a bypass. NO way surgeons at my Top 10-ranked hospital would have accepted her as a patient. She got very lucky.

There is one thing I’d like to highlight from the article:

Doctors are free to implant the Lap-Band now in any patient they consider appropriate, but Allergan needs FDA approval to market the device for the wider group.

In a summary also released by the FDA, Allergan said its study findings “make it clear that the benefits of the weight loss exceed the risk of surgery and the risk of failure to treat” obesity.

Allergan also is studying the Lap-Band in teens ages 14 to 17.

One final question:

Anyone notice that the end goal, here, is to ensure that people don’t have to stop eating how they want.. so that the food industry’s money isn’t affected by our weight loss? ‘Cause, I mean, if you actually lost weight by eating what you’re supposed to eat… the entire food system would have to change.

Update:

Allergan Inc.’s stomach-shrinking Lap-Band won a favorable vote from a federal advisory panel Friday, showing how surgery rather than drugs is increasingly gaining favor as a treatment for obesity.

The panel at the Food and Drug Administration voted 8-2 that the benefits of the Allergan device outweighed the risks of using it in a broader patient population.

[...]

The Lap-Band is already approved to treat adults with a body-mass index of 40 or more or a BMI of 35 with at least one obesity-related condition such as Type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure. Allergan wants to market the device to all adults with a BMI of 35 or those who have a BMI of 30 and one obesity-related condition.

Body-mass index is a measure of weight relative to height. A person who is 5 feet, 5 inches and weighs 180 pounds has a body-mass index of 30. [source]

Funny how that works out. Thoughts, y’all?

Makers Of Lap-Band Want Bigger Share Of The Market is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. MSNBC: Gaining Weight To Quality For Lap-Band Surgery?
2. Q&A Wednesday: Should She Go Lap-Band?
3. Our Trip To The Farmer’s Market

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advertising, allergan, FDA, government, lapband, marketing, weight loss surgery

Monika Sumpter did what many women dream of — she set a goal to lose weight and dropped 50 pounds.

Despite losing all of that weight, her ratio of fat to muscle was around 25 percent, 5 percent from where she started and dangerously close to what some researchers say is an unhealthy situation.

“I was just shocked. I thought that it was a lot lower, and I thought that I was healthy,” Sumpter said.

There are others like Sumpter. As many as 30 million Americans who are considered average weight may actually have what scientists call normal weight obesity, according to a recent study by the Mayo Clinic.

The study, which followed 6,171 Americans over nine years, found 20 percent to 30 percent of people considered normal weight still have an alarmingly high percentage of body fat.

Now, when this was brought up on the FB page, it was brushed off as just being a reason for the health industry to call more people “fat.” Considering the number of weight loss drugs vying for FDA approval right now, I don’t doubt that. However, I don’t think this should be brushed off so quickly. I just think there’s more to it than that.

The article goes on:

The Mayo Clinic says that generally, women should have a body fat percentage below 30 percent, while men should have a fat to muscle ratio of less than 20 percent to 25 percent.

Sumpter, a 34-year-old mother of one, is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs about 140 pounds, which is in the normal weight range for her height.

However, if 42 of those pounds — or 30 percent of her weight — are made up of fat, Sumpter would actually be considered normal weight obese.

Traditionally, terms like “overweight” and “obese” and “normal” in regards to weight are applied using the body mass index (BMI), and I’ve already shared my thoughts on that. What I also said back then was that I think its useless, especially considering how the body fat percentage is a much more valuable quantifier of one’s health. A body carrying an excess of muscle functions differently than a body carrying fat, and to ignore that very real issue is to ignore the real reason we use the BMI in the first place – a means of gauging ones quality of life:

I, personally, find the body fat percentage to be far more valuable in gauging my physical wellness. The body fat percentage estimates what percentage of your body appears to be purely fat. The “average American female’s” body fat percentage is somewhere around 32%, while the typical athlete is around 22%.

The bf% is a much more valuable number because it acknowledges that those in the overweight category may simply be muscular, and those on the thinner side may still be hiding some fat that needs to be addressed. There is no cheating or hiding behind “unfairness” with the body fat percentage. A caliper or a hydrostatic test is usually used to measure bf% – I use an electrical machine at my gym – but there’s also this quick and dirty calculator that I use to keep track, and it only requires a tape measure. You’ll get two numbers – take an average between the two numbers, and you’ll have a better and much more valuable estimate. If body fat is the issue (not muscle), then getting numbers that address specifically that definitely helps. [source]

I’m not sure how to say what I’m thinking… so I’m just gonna say it. This is why the scale doesn’t matter as much as we like to make it matter. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh; if anything, it matters how much fat you are carrying. Petite women are often pedestaled as being some ideal, but… if one third of her physical makeup is pure fat, what’s ideal about that? Being cute? Not if her health is in question… and let’s be real – the lifestyle that allows one to consistently maintain 30% bodyfat is what the issue is, here, not simply the fat itself.

Speaking of which, the article goes on:

That diagnosis means a higher risk of obesity-related diseases, such diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease, which is the No. 1 killer of women.

“Women with normal weight obesity, meaning those who have high fat and a normal weight have a two times increased risk for death or dying from heart problems or a stroke,” said Dr. Francisco Lopez Jimenez, who led the Mayo Clinic study.

A diagnosis of being “normal weight obese” means higher risk of obesity-related illnesses because…. of the lifestyle! Not the weight. Not the weight. Not the weight.

Not the weight.

A lifestyle that allows one to maintain 30% (or more) body fat means that the same lifestyle is likely to contain high sugar quantities (thus, the diabetes), too much animal products and by-products (thus, the cholesterol) and too much salt (thus, the heart disease…and many other things, I’m sure.) It is about the living, not the weight.

This is what I presumed “normal weight obese” referred to in the beginning: a person of normal weight carrying the symptoms of a lifestyle usually experienced by someone who is clinically obese. And, in many ways, I believe that’s an appropriate definition.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was curious, though. I know that there’s a slew of weight loss drugs going up for FDA approval right now, so does that have something to do with the push to have more people clinically defined as obese? I mean, more people defined as obese means more people qualifying for their insurance paying for their weight loss drugs, right?

I’m a cynic (and a businesswoman), so clearly I believe the two are thoroughly linked. I’m also someone who doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, either. I do think there’s a reason to have more people defined as obese, but so long as everyone isn’t being pushed to take medications they’re unsure of and instead opts to use this push to be more cognizant of their health… I can appreciate the awareness. Telling people that are 130lbs at 32%bf that they’re “all good” is just as bizarre as telling someone who’s 190lbs at 20%bf that they “need to lose.”

I also feel like this kind of awareness would make for more tolerance of the term “fat,” because apparently more of us are “fat” than we’d like to admit. I’m just sayin’. It might even stop some of that fat-bashing we see all the time. If more doctors were aware of the issue of body fat percentage over basic scale numbers, then they might be less inclined to harbor a bias against those who are “visually obese.” There might be less fat prejudice.

More from the article:

Sumpter changed her workout routine, adding more weight-bearing exercises to build lean muscle mass instead of only doing calorie-burning cardio.

“Resistance training is the key,” said Sumpter, who is now certified as a personal trainer and works at Equinox in New York. “There are three key components to a healthy lifestyle, which is healthy eating habits, resistance training to build muscle and of course cardio to burn calories and for a healthy heart, but it’s a combination of all three.”

Today she weighs 20 pounds more than her lowest weight, but her body fat percentage is down to 14 percent.

I’ve always said I’m not an advocate for “thin.” That’s not what my weight loss was/is about, and that’s not why my site is here. I’m shooting to compete in a figure competition… clearly, “thin” ain’t my thing. My goal is to figure out how to make “fit” a part of my every day life, and if I can show one more person that “fit” should be the goal, not “thin,” then I feel like this site has done some form of good. It is suspect, to me, that these opinions are gaining attention right around when all these weight loss drugs are vying for approval… but I cannot deny the fact that they have a point. Thin and fit certainly are not the same thing (the same goes for “thin” and “healthy”), and if it takes a term like “normal weight obesity” to call our attention to that fact, then I’m all for it.

What do you think? Let’s hear it!

Normal Weight Obesity: Another Medical Scam? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Identifying A Scam: Religion-Based Weight Loss Scams
2. “World’s Fattest Woman” Too Overweight For Medical Help?
3. The Side-Effects of Obesity: “Overweight Is The New Norm”

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: big pharma, bmi, body fat percentage, body mass index, FDA, government, health care, normal weight obesity, obesity, weight loss drugs, weight loss pills

I’m trying to be as sensitive to the topic as possible, but it isn’t for the very sensitive or faint at heart. There are no gruesome photos within this post.

In the event that you didn’t know (since some areas of the US are unaffected by the recall, it is possible), here’s a brief recap:

A half-billion eggs have been recalled in the nationwide investigation of a salmonella outbreak that Friday expanded to include a second Iowa farm. More than 1,000 people have already been sickened and the toll of illnesses is expected to increase.

Iowa’s Hillandale Farms said Friday it was recalling more than 170 million eggs after laboratory tests confirmed salmonella. The company did not say if its action was connected to the recall by Wright County Egg, another Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs earlier this week. The latest recall puts the total number of potentially tainted eggs at over half a billion.

An FDA spokeswoman said the two recalls are related. The strain of salmonella causing the poisoning is the same in both cases, salmonella enteritidis.

The eggs recalled Friday were distributed under the brand names Hillandale Farms, Sunny Farms, Sunny Meadow, Wholesome Farms and West Creek. The new recall applies to eggs sold between April and August.

Hillandale said the eggs were distributed to grocery distribution centers, retail groceries and food service companies which service or are located in fourteen states, including Arkansas, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. [source]

So… let’s talk about salmonella. Salmonella enteritidis, to be exact. Salmonella is transmitted through feces. Because it lives in the intestinal tract and is passed out through bowel movements, contamination occurs when someone touches feces and – without proper hand washing – touches food. If salmonella enters the body at the start of the digestive cycle, anywhere from 8-72 hours later, problems occur – fevers, stomach aches, cramps and diarrhea. All bad.

Sure, you can get salmonella plenty other ways… but for the intent of what I’m explaining here, this is where I’m going with this.

In hens, if feces touches their feed and enters their mouths, salmonella nests within their ovaries, thus affecting the eggs they lay. Feces can intermingle with their feed by improper cleaning of the hen house, rat droppings, unhygenic workers… whatever. It happens.. and it’s disgusting.

Now, let’s talk about how one farm is able to produce [and, subsequently, recall] 380 million eggs. It’s called factory farming.

You know how a factory has that kind of assembly line style, where everything is organized in a way that allows for the most product to be created as quickly as possible? Factory farming is no different. Factory farming streamlines processes in as tightly organized spaces as possible, in order to maximize output and minimize waste.

It makes sense… except, we’re talking about animals, here. Not even in the “animal rights” sense, here – animals are unpredictible. Animals develop illnesses… contagious… illnesses. Salmonella, for starters. Hens contained in tight spaces where there’s a rat infestation problem are bound to all wind up sharing the same feed infested with the same rat feces. Now, to mitigate the risk of disease in factory farms, hens are given antibiotics. Lots of antibiotics…to help them live in environments they aren’t supposed to live in, like factory farms. As you can see, it’s vital for farmers to be vigilant in keeping hen houses free of infestations… because if not, 380 million eggs can be recalled for fear of spreading the disease into the public.

Speaking of recalls… let’s talk about the FDA. They can’t. Recall, that is. The FDA is not authorized to issue recalls. The FDA can “announce” a recall and, to save face, “order” a recall… but they are not authorized to snatch anything off the market. Consider this:

When a product is defective or harmful to the public, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may order or request a recall of the product from the market. Sometimes, the manufacturers of defective products will voluntarily recall the defective product, while other recalls are ordered by the FDA.

Can the FDA Order a Recall?
The FDA does not have the authority to “order” recalls. Instead, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the FDA may “request” the recall of a harmful consumer product if the manufacturer is unwilling to recall the product without the FDA’s written request. [source]

Going back to the first article I quoted:

Almost 2,000 illnesses from the strain of salmonella linked to both recalls were reported between May and July, almost 1,300 more than usual, Braden said. No deaths have been reported. The CDC is continuing to receive information from state health departments as people report their illnesses.

A situation that originated in May, was allowed to affect “1,300 more [people] than usual” before the public was made aware of the issue… and the FDA can’t do squat. Okay. Got it.

Except… the owner of the Wright County Farm, Jack DeCoster, is someone who generally doesn’t tend to his farm the way he should. Consider the following:

• In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster’s farm in Turner, Maine. Then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop.” He cited unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and other unsanitary conditions.

• In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a “habitual violator” of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.

• In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster’s Wright County plants.

• In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at six DeCoster egg farms. The farm had been the subject of at least three previous raids.

• In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming – the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms – agreed in state court to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization. [source]

Oh, okay.

One question I was asked was how do we, as consumers, avoid this kind of risk?

The reality is that because there is no frequent or regular monitoring of these farms, and the only thing keeping many of these hens from developing salmonella is whether or not the farmer manages to remember to call The Orkin Man… we’re constantly at risk. Since salmonella can hang out inside the egg shells as well as on the outside, it is ideal to make sure you’re cooking your eggs all the way through as well as washing your hands before and after handling eggs. If you’re baking, be sure your dishes are cooked all the way through, to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.

There’s also the option of purchasing your eggs at a local farm (hey, I have to throw the locavore angle in there.. sorry) where you can see the conditions of the hen house yourself. I don’t eat eggs often – I do buy them when I bake and when I make my mayo – but because of the rarity, it doesn’t hurt too much to buy the eggs from the better-kept chicken. If you’d rather do that, but know it’ll kill your budget… why not eat less eggs? Instead of having two eggs in your omelet, have one and add a variety of peppers. Instead of two scrambled eggs, go for one and add a nice breakfast fruit to your plate. I’d actually taken to using alternatives to eggs in my baking, and while I’m still perfecting that (because that is a craft in itself), it’s proving to be a better option for me already.

Sure, there are the eggs at the store that say “cage free” or “free range (eggs?)” or “these eggs have danced under the Georgia sun”… whatever. None of those claims are regulated or verified by any agency. “Organic” is it (and boy, can it be pricey.) An “organic” label means that an organization has certified this product as not using antibiotics or pesticides to provide you with a healthy product.

I hate to drive home the same point repeatedly, but this is why it is so important to know where your food originates. Cutting out as many middle men as possible – the grocery, the shippers, the factory – not only benefit the environment (no shipping, no gas, no pollution), but benefit your health as well. It’s tough, can be pricey if we don’t alter our habits to accommodate our new food items, and is very frustrating… but the payoff is well worth it.

No one can make those kinds of changes or modifications to their lifestyle overnight, but as they used to say… “knowing is half the battle.” Now that you know, you can make the appropriate changes to your life and do what you need to do.

Resources:

• FDA: Salmonella Q&A
• How Does Salmonella Get Inside Chicken Eggs?
• Salmonella Enteritidis: From The Chicken To The Egg
• CDC On Salmonella Enteritidis
• Touting Factory Pig Farming Safe?
• Recall Expands To More Than Half A Billion Eggs

Q&A Wednesday: Salmonella, 500 Million Eggs, The FDA, & You is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Are Brown Eggs Really Better Than White?
2. More Than 1.4 Million Families Living On $2 A Day Or Less
3. The Secret To Scrambled Eggs

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: antibiotics, cage free, chicken, egg recall, factory farming, factory farms, FDA, free range, government, hens, organic, recalls, salmonella

Take my favorite example – at Friday’s, you’ve got the “Three-For-All.” For Applebee’s, it’s the “Sampler.” Olive Garden offers the “Tour of Italy.” All for the eater who “can’t choose what they want, so let ‘em eat ‘em all!”

CSPI also talks about the ridiculous appetizers and add-ons offered at most restaurants that are little more than slightly smaller versions of full-course entrees. Adding half a rack of ribs to your dish for $6.99,

Taken from the press release:

Keep in mind that most people should limit themselves to about 2,000 calories, 20 grams of saturated fat, and 1,500 mg of sodium per day. And the envelopes please…

• Red Lobster Ultimate Fondue: This retro item is also making comebacks at Olive Garden, Uno Chicago Grill, and at a chain that sells nothing but fondues, The Melting Pot. Red Lobster’s Ultimate version, “shrimp and crabmeat in a creamy lobster cheese sauce served in a warm crispy sourdough bowl,” is crammed with 1,490 calories, 40 grams of saturated fat, and 3,580 mg of sodium. That’s two days’ worth of both artery-clogging fat and blood-pressure-spiking sodium.
• Applebee’s Quesadilla Burger: Here Applebee’s inserts a bacon cheeseburger into a quesadilla. Two flour tortillas, two kinds of meat, two kinds of cheese, pico de gallo, lettuce, and a previously unknown condiment called Mexi-ranch sauce, plus fries, gives this monstrous marriage 1,820 calories, 46 grams of saturated fat, and 4,410 mg of sodium. Bonus heart-stopper: Applebee’s actually invites customers to top the fries with chili and still more cheese.
• Chili’s Big Mouth Bites: This is four mini-bacon-cheeseburgers served on a plate with fries, onion strings, and jalapeno ranch dipping sauce. (“Mini” is relative: each one is like a Quarter Pounder.) Like the “sliders” available at other chains, Chili’s Big Mouth Bites can be an appetizer or an entrée (these numbers are for the latter). 2,350 calories, 38 grams of saturated fat, and 3,940 milligrams of sodium.
• The Cheesecake Factory Chicken and Biscuits: Nutrition Action calls it “discomfort food.” If you wouldn’t eat an entire 8-piece bucket of KFC Original Recipe plus 5 biscuits, you shouldn’t order this. But unless you live in a city with menu labeling, you wouldn’t know that this dish has 2,500 calories. The rest of the winning—or rather, losing—appetizers, entrées, and desserts are in the June issue of Nutrition Action.

Because of all this, I was asked if I thought these kinds of offerings should be deemed illegal. And I’ve got to admit, I’m kinda torn about this.

No… actually, I’m not.

There’s no denying the fact that these numbers are bananas, and these dishes are disgusting looking. Having said that, the only question I have left to ask is…

…so what?

I mean, let’s look at CSPI’s findings for what they are. I’m a firm believer in the idea that if these restaurants are going to serve these gut-busting atrocities and pass them off as meals, then they should also be forced to make the nutritional information for those dishes available to the public… just like the processed food manufacturers. Not as an obscure link on a website. As a part of their menu. To me, it just makes sense – if the FDA says that food manufacturers have to put the nutritional info on the side of the box, then restaurants should be forced to have the information equally readily available. Kudos to CSPI for helping bring to the forefront the issue of hidden calorie counts.

However, to say that because CSPI uncovered these heart-stopping (literally) findings means that we should all campaign to have the dishes banned by law? I think that’s quite a reach. I mean, complaining about high-calorie appetizers that are supposed to, by definition, whet the appetite… you’d probably do better to talk to the person who orders the appetizer as their meal and remind them that “this dish is intended to serve 4… not one.”

I look at it like this – the reality of it all is that for the past 50 or so years, we’ve had someone assume the “responsibility” of leading the American diet. Not the various cultures from which we came (regardless of how connected some of us were allowed to be to our cultures), not the traditions of our respective nations… but… the government. The charge has always been led by someone who could develop/has developed ulterior motives or a fundamental incapability to properly rule on these most serious of matters. (Would you trust the entity responsible for protecting the longevity of an industry to tell the public how to safely enjoy said industry? Have you met the USDA?)

Do I have a problem with the dishes? You know I do. I find them disgusting, especially since I could probably duplicate that 2,500 calorie pasta dish in my own kitchen for mayyyybe 600 calories. But to tell people that they shouldn’t be allowed to order them is excessive. I’ve simply had enough of people trying to assume the responsibility of telling us what to eat. They either get it wrong – repeatedly – or they start getting drunk on their own power and abuse their privilege… trading in our health for their own personal favors. Unacceptable.

In reality, I’m a much larger proponent of forcing restaurants to post calorie counts of their food items than I am anything else. That would compel those who care to make better, more knowledgeable choices and force franchises who want that money to create healthier dishes and compete for those dollars fairly. The hypothetical question of banning certain foods is just excessive, I think.

The point of all this, really, is to underscore the fact that the responsibility for my eating habits should solely rely upon me. No one is going to look out for me and my health the way I can… especially when there is money to be made off of me. Don’t rely on others to make these kinds of decisions for you, leaving yourself open to poor health. Take charge! Some things, we can’t rely on a magic button, pill, garment, organization or law to do for us. Some things are important enough for us to take charge of ourselves, and that includes our health.

Your thoughts? Let’s hear ‘em!

Should A 2,500 Calorie Plate of Pasta Be Illegal? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
2. Science Catches Up: A Calorie Is Not A Calorie
3. Weekend WTF: The 98,824 Calorie Taco Night & The 71,000 Calorie Lasagna

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: center for science in the public interest, cspi, government, Healthy Eating, restaurants

When my girl first showed me the link, I shrugged it off. “I mean, they already ban other things that they’ve deemed harmful… if you want more choice, get off government assistance.” I believe that most people who are for this kind of legislation all echo that same sentiment.

Then again, I’ll be honest. That felt like lazy thinking to me.

Let’s do a little quick math:

14% of the population is enrolled in the SNAP program (formerly known as food stamps). Roughly, that’s something like 41.8 million.

12.5% of the population is African-American. Even if the entire whole of the Black population in America was on food stamps… it would still not be only Blacks on food stamps.

Almost 10% of the population is unemployed. Even if the entire unemployed population was on food stamps, it would not only be unemployed Americans on food stamps.

Do you know how many Americans are considered at least overweight? At least 60%. So, subtract out the [maybe] 15% of people who are merely victims of being far too muscular and weigh more than the BMI thinks they should… and you’ve still got 45% of Americans who are overweight. So basically, there’s four times as many people in America who are overweight as there are on food stamps.

But wait… one final point.

Do you know how many Americans live beneath the poverty line? I can assure you… it’s way more than 41 million… and, even still, Blacks do not make up the majority of the impoverished population. Look at those numbers – clearly, everyone who is eligible for assistance… does not receive it.

It took me – maybe – 10 minutes to compute all those numbers. (Told y’all 10 minutes is valuable.)

What does that mean? That those on government assistance are not all Black, not all unemployed (and therefore, assumedly, lazy welfare queens), and even if they were all overweight… guess what? There’s still another almost half of America that is just as overweight. So… let’s get over any assumptions of who and what food stamp recipients really are.

I’ve already written about the government making the decision to tax soda as a means of paying for health care. If the issue is money, I’m almost certain that if the government stopped overpaying for corn (or paying for it period?) they could find the money for health care. If the issue is the actual product, then saddle up, ride out… and ban it. No guts, no glory.

My question, really, is… what makes the food stamp recipients so worthy of this special attention that THEY would be prohibited from using their benefits to buy that which has already been deemed harmful by a government entity? Why do they get the honor of the government telling them what to do, and not the rest of us? Why do they get that “protection” and not all of us? Because the government should be allowed to control what they purchase? At least 60% of Americans are, by standard, overweight… and 14% of Americans are on food stamps. They’re obviously not the only ones who “are in need of the additional guidance.”

Or is it that we think that, because they are soooo poor that they need government assistance, that they obviously need us to tell them how to eat? Let’s face facts: The only difference between food stamp recipients and at least a third of America? It isn’t money. It’s the fact that they’re on government assistance. Period. The recession should’ve taught us that.

Let’s assume that they’re really thinking, “We need to save them. We need to help them. We need to curb obesity, and since they rely on us for X, surely they also need our help to accomplish Y, as well.”

There are four thoughts that immediately come to mind:

For one, if this is about people who need outside help in addressing their weight (not their health, their weight), then – again – there’s at least another 45.9% of Americans outside of food stamp recipients that need to be addressed. Is pop a great place to start to rid ourselves of added sugar? Yes. Is the entire 14% of food stamp recipients guzzling down soft drinks? No. So why are we starting with the poor instead of the “middle class” who, by obvious definition, is also fat? Because the poor have the fewest lobbyists and are the easiest to target? Oh.

Secondly, this isn’t about prevention of purchases. This is about “You can’t buy it with the money we give you.” I’m sorry, but I immediately cringe at the thought of trying to force someone to change their choices instead of educating them on why another option is better. And before you question what “telling people how bad soda is for them” can do… remember what site you’re reading right now.

The fact that the Mayor of NYC would make a statement like “This initiative will give New York families more money to spend on foods and drinks that provide real nourishment.” about an “initiative” that prevents access instead of using education to allow the individual to make the appropriate decision… further lets me know how toothless this is. If you’re assuming they don’t know anything about food and drinks that provide real nourishment… it makes sense to, instead, make the decision for them? No. It would make sense to provide them education on proper nutrition. It may be soda today, but it’ll be some other new-fangled product tomorrow and they’ll need you to swoop in and save them then, too… because instead of helping them learn how to make their own decisions, you merely made the decision for them. No one learns from that.

Thirdly, if we’re going to allow the government to dictate which items are good and bad… can you imagine how much money would come pouring in to “re-election campaigns” to prevent certain foods from being classified negatively? (Keep in mind, the current policy states that in order for a food to be considered ineligible for purchase with food stamps, it needs to be voted on by Congress.) The amount and opportunity for corruption at the expense of the public’s health… I can’t even imagine just how ridiculous and unfruitful it would be.

Lastly, if the Mayor of freaking New York City gave even a remote damn about the health, wellness and well being of those who rely on government assistance… perhaps he should spend a little time conversing with his constituents. Especially since one said the following right here on my own blog:

Also, if were going to make the argument that food stamp users should be spending on healthier choices, how bout we put some of those stores where [food stamp] users are?

If he believes food stamp recipients are so in need of assistance in regard to how to eat, why not actually talk to the individuals to find out what problems they face so that you’re not disillusioned about what problems they really face? Or is that too much conversation to be had with people who won’t be donating to a campaign any time soon? They have answers that are worth listening to… being on government assistance doesn’t equate to “being stupid.”

I don’t believe this is about truly addressing obesity in impoverished communities. I wholeheartedly believe this is about people wanting to feel like they can lord over “people who need it.” And lets face it – when you think of “overweight and poor” or “overweight and on government assistance,” you think Black (thanks to the “welfare queen” analogy) … and America is a country that is notorious for trying to rescue some needy Black [or Black-looking] people. Even in its philanthropic nature, it is ridiculously misanthropic. Deny that if you want… I’m okay with that.

So… if the question is “how do we address obesity among Americans” and I’m shooting down the “prevent the poor from buying soft drinks” answer… do I have an answer of my own?

Absolutely.

How about, for starters, paying some respect to the hierarchy of food needs and helping these people address these concerns first? Then, how about a little education? Teach people how the choices they make in food are in direct correlation to their ability to life healthily. Show people how poor food choices have contributed to poor health in America (or is that too much blame for “Big Food?”) and teach them how to avoid having to make those kinds of decisions. Educate them on how to use their food stamps to the best of their abilities. Be less elitist, insulting and classist – don’t assume that all food stamp users are some poor, lazy, clueless and shiftless individuals who clearly need your almighty interference. If the issue was truly obesity and if every single food stamp user was overweight, that still leaves almost half of the rest of the US population in need of the same kind of government involvement… and singling out the poor simply because they’re at the mercy of the government is little more than a politician’s toothless growl. Lots of bark… very little bite.

Update: And if you’re not completely talked out about this issue, Civil Eats is hosting a relatively interesting conversation about what questions this situation brings up. I don’t agree with it all, but both sides deserve representation on this issue.

Why The Food Stamp Soft Drink Ban Is BS is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Elitism On A Food Stamp Budget?
2. No Food Stamps For Soft Drinks? Cracking Down On Soda Pop
3. The Coffee Conundrum: To Drink Or Not To Drink?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 67 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diet soda, FDA, food stamps, government, new york city, politics, pop, poverty, SNAP, soda, soda ban, soft drinks, usda

Congress is in the process of figuring next year’s agriculture budget, and the food industry is using the occasion as an opportunity to bully the USDA as it rolls out new rules for the National School Lunch Program. According to the New York Times, Big Food has already dropped a cool $5.6 million lobbying to kibosh the new rules.

Why does the industry care about school lunches? Because school cafeterias get less than a dollar a day per student in federal funding to spend on ingredients (about two-thirds of the maximum $2.94 outlay per lunch goes to overhead and labor), and many public schools lack cooking facilities altogether. So cafeterias often outsource cooking to massive entities that know how to squeeze a profit by selling lots of dirt-cheap food—companies like meat giant Tyson and its infamous heat-and-serve “Dinosaur Shaped Chicken Nuggets,” and Conagra and its frozen pizzas.

In January, the USDA came out with new guidelines governing what can go on kids’ plates. Mandated by a 2004 act of Congress ordering USDA to align school lunches with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the rules (PDF) impose two new criteria that have drawn the ire of the food industry.

First, they rewrote the requirements around vegetable and fruit servings. Before, cafeterias were required to serve at least one vegetable per day, and the definition was expansive: Tater Tots and French fries, for example, counted. Now, they limit the amount of potatoes and other “starchy vegetables” to no more than one cup (two servings) per week—and require schools to serve at least one serving per week of dark green and red/orange vegetables. Second, they no longer allow the two ounces of tomato paste that lacquer a typical frozen pizza to count as a vegetable.

To Big Food and its friends on the Hill, none of this would do. Back in October, by a unanimous vote, the Senate slapped an amendment on its ag appropriations bill that will rescind the limit on potatoes. This, despite a major recent Harvard study finding that regular consumption of potatoes in all their forms, fried and not, contributes heavily to unhealthy weight gain.

And now, reports Politico’s David Rogers, Conagra and fellow frozen-pizza behemoth Schwan are arraying their lobbying might against the new tomato-paste rule. Rogers writes:

A June letter from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, for example, celebrates the virtues of tomato paste in language that closely mirrors the arguments made by Schwan, a privately owned giant based in Marshall, Minn. And both Schwan and ConAgra have quietly helped to finance the “Coalition for Sustainable School Meals Programs” which maintains a red-white-blue—and yes green—website with the heading “Fix the Reg.”

According to Rogers, the House version of the ag-spending bill will likely contain a provision nixing the rule change, and preserving frozen pepperoni pizza’s status as a fruit/vegetable serving, so long as it harbors a bit of tomato paste. Between the Senate’s amendment and this coming move from the House, school cafeterias will remain profitable places to move cheap corporate French fries and pizza, and train a new generation to regard such dubious fare as every-day food.

In my recent post on food and Occupy Wall Street, I showed how the food system, like the financial system, is both in desperate need of reform and utterly trapped under the heel of industry influence. The gutting of the USDA’s new lunch guidelines provides yet another example.

UPDATE: I wrote this post before the House came out with its spending bill late Monday afternoon. It turns out, it’s even worse than I thought. Associated Press:

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to prevent that.[source]

I have a post coming up for a new series on the blog called the “Friday 5″ that I was starting tomorrow, with a post titled “5 Things I’ve Learned From Spending Time In A School Cafeteria.” Seeing this, coupled with what I know… let’s just say I’m a little incredulous right now.

And a tomato isn’t even a vegetable. It’s a fruit!

Do You Think Tomato Paste Is A Vegetable? Your Government Does! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Dear Government, Taxing Soda Is Crap And You Know It
2. Friday 5: 5 Things I Learned From A Grade School Cafeteria

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: children, government, school lunch, usda

As A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss spends a day celebrating the life of an icon, I’m going to take some time to echo the late great Michael Jackson’s words:

“Tired of injustice, tired of the schemes, kind of disgusted, so what does this mean? Kickin’ me down, I’ve got to get up… As jacked as it sounds, the whole system sucks….With such confusions, don’t it make you wanna scream?”

She mad, he mad, I'm mad... you mad?

Now that I’m all fired up… let’s get down to business, shall we?

There are a few things that I hear, when people ask me questions about food, that are all too common. We all, when confronted with information that forces us to change how we address food… we push back a little. I mean, I live this way for a reason! And I deserve to present my reasons to you before I just give up my way of life, right? That’s to be expected. No one should just blindly follow anyone when it comes to nutrition, but I often wonder – do we think about where we got our own philosophies about food? I think some of us might be surprised if we really traced them as far back as they go.

Having said that, here are a few food myths that make me wanna scream. [insert obligatory crotch grabbing here]

“If it’s so bad for you, why does the government allow it to be sold?”

Contrary to popular belief, the FDA doesn’t really have the power to tell someone to stop selling something. I know, I know, the next line is always “But they’re the government – they can do anything.” The government tries to keep its hands out of food production as far as imposing limitations because of three reasons:

1. Telling people they cannot sell something limits capitalism. You’re essentially cutting off a potential industry for people to make money, thus limiting the amount of taxable income floating around, thus, thus, thus.. they’d be out of bounds.
2. The FDA’s purpose is to ensure that there is food accessible to the public. That’s it. Determining the quality of the food.. mehhhh, they’re not interested in that.
3. Since “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” includes allowing me to make choices for myself (be they healthy or not), the FDA would be overstepping its bounds by preventing me from “enjoying what I like, even if in moderation.” (And, really – considering how many poor decisions the FDA and the USDA have made regarding food in the last, oh, 30-40 years… I want to be able to make my own informed decisions.)

Realistically speaking, the most that the FDA can do is issue press releases and conferences telling you how certain ingredients are absolutely harmful (see: trans fat), but they cannot keep companies from using those same harmful ingredients in foods (see: yes, trans fat.) We are supposed to make those decisions for ourselves, even though there are people who work hard to ensure we never get the information necessary to make informed decisions.

“I can eat this TV dinner. It’s healthy.”/”I can buy this – it says low-fat/low cholesterol/real blueberries!”

One of my favorite lines from a book goes as follows: “If it has a “healthy claim” on the label, chances are it’s the last thing you want to buy for better health.”

I know that I’ve written this before, but I’m always tickled by food in grocery aisles that says “Look at me! I’m made with real food!” Well, shouldn’t you be? I mean, you are food, aren’t you? Why on Earth would you not be made of real food?

If you are in pursuit of better health, the best options for you are foods that can’t talk to you through pretty labels – your fruits and vegetables. Your beans and nuts. Even your juices and berries. Don’t get suckered by claims on pretty – or, not so pretty – boxes. Especially when you consider what’s hiding behind that label. It’s not worth the money, the fleeting joy or your health.

“Ugh, I can’t stand her – she can eat anything she wants.”

Um, naw – she can’t.

I know that when people say this, the full sentence sounds more like “…she can eat anything she wants and not gain weight.” But really, no one can “eat anything they want and still avoid some kind of consequence. It’s just not possible.

Firstly, a lifestyle that consists of “eating whatever you want” will bite you in the tail eventually. ALWAYS. Why? Our metabolism decreases by approximately 0.5% every year. Think about that. Every ten years, we lose five percent of our ability to metabolize food properly. If I, at age 17, develop a habit of eating whatever I like without ever learning proper nutrition, by the time I’m 22 – after college and the dreaded freshman 15 – I have bad habits, excess unnecessary weight and a decreasing ability to deal with my bad habits. It goes downhill from there.

No matter how much one may workout to burn off excess calories, the fact remains that we may not always have that time to devote to getting in some extra time on the treadmill. That’s why it’s so important to have our eating habits in check. If you never have the extra calories to begin with, you don’t have to struggle so much with feeling forced to burn it off.(Hence, why calorie counting is so important.)

I probably could’ve shortened this entirely with just one sentence, but then I couldn’t rock out with the awesome video at the beginning. But really, if there is only one take away from this, let it be this:

“Focus on you and your eating habits, don’t let anyone’s health claims or supposed “responsibility” guide your lifestyle.” Your body will reward you over and over again for it.

3 Food Myths That Make Me Wanna Scream is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. No Myths Here: Food Stamps, Food Deserts and Food Scarcity
2. Hierarchy of Food Needs: How Do You Get GOOD Food When There’s No Food?
3. Q&A Wednesday: I’m Not Gonna Make It Through Labor Day!

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Post tags: fake food, FDA, government, health claims, health food, healthy food, michael jackson, nutrition

We eat the foods, but how often do we take a look at the stuff on the side? Yes, all those numbers, lines, and percentages… they’re supposed to mean something, but… must.. hurry.. purchase… yummies…

Well, with any luck, we have a better understanding of the nutrients that make up our foods. From here, the next step is applying that to our shopping skills to make the best decisions possible for not only weight loss, but better health altogether.

A lot of us may have pretty solid understandings of the nutrition facts label, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was pretty lost myself at times… and in my frustration, I’d let my hunger overtake my good sense, utter a curse word and throw it in the cart. Hey… no shame in my game.

Well, maybe a little.

Let’s get down to business, shall we?

To the left, you will find the nutrition label found on the side of a box of hamburger helper. I’m personally tickled by the fact that it offers the calorie count for the product “as packaged,” as well as “as prepared.” I mean, I’m sure people use parts of uncooked hamburger helper in other recipes.. I guess.

You’ll also notice that the top of the label lists that there are ten servings per container. This means that the entire contents of this box should be divided by ten to provide you with one serving size. Lucky for you, you’ll have to do any portion dividing on your own. (Or, perhaps you’re like many of the other people I know who eat several servings at a time.. and may need to multiply everything by that number.)

Next, you should see the calorie count, and the calories from fat listed underneath. Remember how I told you that for every gram of fat, you get 9 calories and every gram of carbs as well as protein gives you 4 calories… thus making up our calorie counts? Well, here is that in action:

.5g of fat multiplied by 9 calories = 4.5 calories. You’ll notice that the calories from Fat says 5 calories. So far, so good.

25g of carbs, 4 calories for each gram? 25×4=100 calories.

3g of protein, 4 calories for each gram? 3×4=12 calories.

4.5 + 100 + 12 = 117.5calories. If you’ll notice, the calorie count is listed as 120. How considerate. They rounded up. (Or, there is some rounding down going on in those 25.4g counts…)

Moving on.. you may also notice the “% Daily Value**” (or PDV) directly beneath the “Calories from Fat” line. You’ll also see two rows or numbers directly beneath that. The “% Daily Value” simply tells you “Of the amount recommended to you by the federal government, this serving will give you this percent.” So, yes, this one serving of hamburger – 1/10th of what you’ve cooked – will give you a little more than 1/3rd of your recommended daily serving of salt.

If you follow the double asterisks (**) to the near-bottom of the package, you’ll read the following: “Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.” 2,000 may be higher than your caloric goals for the day, so you’ll need to keep that in mind when you look at the percentages.

On each package of hamburger helper, they offer instructions on how to prepare it. The number on the left offers information on what the bare bones package offers you. To the right, you’re looking at the information for the meal, if prepared by their instructions to a tee. The items listed – sodium, fat, carbs, cholesterol, etc – are pretty much the bare minimum of what has to be listed on the label. This one lists potassium on its label because anyone conscious about sodium will know that you can balance its effects with a good dosage of potassium. Leave off and round down where you can, but shine as much light on yourself as possible when it helps.

The next section lists the PDV of the essential nutrients you’ll get from one serving of this stuff. It may also tell you – as it does here – “not a reliable source of protein/vitamin c/vitamin z.”

The next two sections are particularly interesting – well, to me, at least… but I like these kinds of things. They’re basically giving you basic calorie/nutrient requirements for a person living on either a 2,000 calorie (presumably for women) or a 2,500 calorie (presumably for men) daily diet. You’ll have to determine for yourself if that’s too high, too low, or a good base for yourself.

Lastly… the ingredients list. This one, to me, deserves it’s own post on its own.. but I’ll be nice today. Just know a few things: 1) If you skim back up to the “Total Fat” and see “0.0g trans fat,” then skim back down to the ingredients list and see “partially hydrogenated something oil,” there’s trans fat in it. That “0.0g” merely means there’s “less than .5g of trans fat in this serving.” You didn’t know that “rounding down” is considered acceptable by our government? As I’ve written before, what makes this especially challenging is the fact that people will easily – easily – eat more than one serving of this stuff in one sitting.. so 3 servings in one sitting means three servings of 0.49g of trans fats, which EASILY turns into 1.47g of trans fat. I find that appalling, but whatever. If trans fat is in the item, it has to be listed in the ingredients list.. so you can spot it. I’ll definitely have to do a more in depth post about the ingredients list but that’s the most important thing, at least to me, about that list.

My philosophy on it is this – if it has to have a nutrition label to tell me what’s going on inside of it, chances are I shouldn’t be eating it anyhow. But for those times that we have to bite the bullet and dive in, hopefully this will serve as a quick (is it ever really “quick?”) little handy guide to understanding the labels.

But really… stop buying stuff with labels and packages.

Comprehending Calories: How To Properly Read A Nutrition Label is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Comprehending Calories: The Basics
2. Comprehending Calories: The Role of Carbs In Your Diet
3. Want To Lose 20lbs In Two Hours? Read This!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, clean eating, government, grocery shopping, nutrition, nutrition label, processed foods

Look at her arms!

Listen… if it weren’t for so many people e-mailing me asking me what I think of all this… I wouldn’t be posting this, here. The thoughts of an overweight, balding and rather miserably unfortunate individual matter neither to First Lady Michelle Obama nor me.

I’d be lying if I didn’t frown up my face a little bit at the fact that this all came up right when I was preparing my post about body image, unrealistic perceptions and the media. Regardless of the unfortunate circumstances of the individual delivering the message… it isn’t lost on me that someone with a vast audience is perpetuating unrealistic perceptions and self-hate.

It also isn’t lost on me that an extremely large man is, again, expecting a woman to look like a swimsuit model on The Photoshop Diet in order to be the picture of health. I mean, let’s be honest, here. The last time Rush saw the inside of a gym was when he was staring – from the outside – in at the women on the treadmill. He just looks like he’s gross like that.

Both quotes from Mediaite:

One of the biggest (and some might say, strangest) targets of those opposed to the Obama administration has been Michelle Obama’s programs to combat childhood obesity which have been depicted as a nanny-state attempt to control what people eat. The latest attacks on these plans have also included accusations of “hypocrisy” by commenting on the First Lady’s weight in a disparaging manner. Last week, a controversial cartoon on BigGovernment featured a drawing of Obama binging on burgers. Today, Rush Limbaugh took a similar tack, railing against the First Lady for eating ribs during a vacation with her daughters.Here’s what Limbaugh had to say:

“The problem is, and dare I say this, it doesn’t look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary, dietary advice. And then we hear that she’s out eating ribs at 1,500 calories a serving with 141 grams of fat per serving. Yeah, it does…what do you mean, ‘What do I mean?’ I’m trying to say that our First Lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you.”

Judging by the reaction that that comic received last week (something we can assume Limbaugh noticed), it’s pretty likely these comments will cause a bit of an uproar. [source]

…and his own follow-up:

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh made some derogatory comments about the First Lady’s weight. Today he registered how shocked he was at the uproar they caused.(Of course, the word “shocked” in the above sentence should be read as “completely unsurprised as that was clearly what he intended to happen the whole time so now he’s happily compounding the issue by making some more comments.”)

Here’s what he had to say today:

“These were highly civil comments for crying out loud. I mean, people are going nuts. USA Today, the Politico. And some people were suggesting that my comments were below the belt. Well, take a look at some pictures. Given where she wears her belts. I mean, she wears them high up there around the bust line. Isn’t just about everything about her below the belt when you look at the fashion sense she has?”

And, so, the cycle of life continues. [source]

What are my thoughts?

For one, I know that we here, in America, tend to see talking about a woman’s eating and dietary habits as a sort of sacred cow-type situation… but I feel like that’s part of what First Lady Obama has opened herself up to. I feel like its, unfortunately, part of the territory because of the climate in which we live. Never mind the fact that people will erroneously judge you. Never mind the fact that people will make inaccurate inferences about what your diet should be. When the public perceives you to be making judgments about their food choices, the public then, in turn, believes its okay to do the same to you. They may get it wrong (as evidenced, here), but they’re gonna do it anyway.

That doesn’t “excuse” the comments. That just explains why they – and the annoying little cartoon – are a bit of a non-issue to me. I’m nowhere near as important as the First Lady and, still, when people see me out they ask me if what I’m eating at that time “is in my diet.” (I never know how to answer that because…. I don’t diet.)

Oh, you missed the cartoon? Well..

BACON?????????? *jumps head-first into the Atlantic Ocean*

Second… I giggled at Limbaugh’s break down of her meal.

“And then we hear that she’s out eating ribs at 1,500 calories a serving with 141 grams of fat per serving.”

…because I know better. Besides, no restaurant that our President and First Lady – no matter who they are – would dine at would serve a slab of meat so massive that the meat, alone, is 1,500 calories.

The restaurant decided to speak out:

The first lady, in Vail with her daughters and some friends for the Presidents Day weekend, dined at Restaurant Kelly Liken in Vail Village Saturday night, enjoying a pickled pumpkin salad with arugula and a braised ancho-chile short rib with hominy wild mushrooms and sauteed kale.

So, of course, some people are taking the short view of the short rib.

A braised short rib is a relatively lean cut of beef, braised with most of the fat cooked off. The 5-ounce serving runs about 600 calories, Liken said — a far cry from the 1,500 calories and 141 grams of fat it’s accused of.

“A proper 5-ounce portion of protein is what nutritionists say we should have,” said Kelly Liken, who launched the highly successful restaurant.

Let’s not forget that the 5-ounce rib is served with local kale, nurtured and grown by students at Eagle’s Brush Creek Elementary School.

“Kale is one of nature’s super foods,” Liken said. “There are more nutrients in the 3 ounces of kale we serve than you’ll get in a massive green salad.” [source]

Pickled pumpkin salad – with arugula – and a braised ancho-chile short rib. I don’t think that restaurant is offering anything with that high of a calorie count on their menu. (This, again, is another reason why I advocate saving your money and, instead of going out every other day, dining out less and going to the nicer restaurants. The nutritional quality is higher, the quality of the ingredients is higher and damn it, the food is better.)

What he’s doing is like a nationally syndicated version of food shaming. Just another way to imply that someone needs “dieting” advice because their looks don’t meet your standards. “You aren’t thin enough to me, therefore I need to give you advice on how to meet my standards.” Um, have y’all seen this dude? Let’s just say I’d love to see him live up to his own standards, for starters. Be the change you wish to see in the world, with your big behind.

There’s one last element of this that is especially annoying. I can’t gauge who, exactly, I’m going to piss off by bringing this up, but so be it.

A lot can be said about a society where it is acceptable for a fat white man to feel comfortable criticizing a woman’s body – a woman, who, for a long time was criticized for having arms that were too cut – let alone a Black woman’s body. Not only does he criticize her nutritional habits and her looks – because all women should aspire to look like Sports Illustrated models – but her fashion sense as well. She’s the First Lady, for goodness sake – if she were to, in fact, look like one of “A-Rod’s play things,” we’d be chastizing her for looking like a young whore instead of a prominent political official’s wife. Hell, we played her out just because she’s the first First Lady we could remember who had well-toned arms and had no qualms about showing them!

Let’s not act like Limbaugh didn’t have a chorus of listeners laughing and agreeing with him, if – for no other reason – than to ‘justifiably laugh and point at the First Family. Let’s also not act like there weren’t people who agree with his ridiculous statement. As women, society has standards that are set so high for us that they don’t even understand them anymore. They want us to be healthy, but obviously don’t know what healthy looks like – it certainly doesn’t look like mildly malnourished, pre-adolescent boy looking white women. They want to judge what we eat, but don’t know what healthy food looks like. Why do we allow society to influence our perceptions of ourselves so much? Why do we care so much about what society thinks? If I’ve educated myself on health, wellness and self-care… does society even matter? Could society’s opinion of me matter more than what I think of me?

Not. Ever. Repeat after me: Not. Ever.

And this comes to my final point. Because of all of this, I’m almost certain our First Lady doesn’t care. A blowhard – who wouldn’t know “healthy” if his intern googled it on Livestrong (much like his intern googled those short rib stats) – who feels more comfortable criticizing a woman’s body than picking up a carrot and taking a walk doesn’t really deserve this much attention. So can we go back to focusing on something important…. like, say, a nice round of yoga?

Just me?

Oh, okay.

What Rush Limbaugh Has To Say About Michelle Obama, And Why I Don’t Care is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. My Quest For Michelle Obama Arms
2. Walmart, Michelle Obama and The Halo Effect
3. Beyonce Teams Up With Michelle Obama For Workout Video

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Body Image, childhood obesity, controversial cartoon, first lady, first lady michelle obama, government, hypocrisy, michelle obama, nanny state, perceptions, photoshop diet, rush limbaugh, society, sports illustrated, swimsuit model, the photoshop diet

Check the story I saw on Fooducate:

Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property, although their diet counterparts are – up to a point.

Newsom’s directive, issued in April but whose practical impacts are starting to be felt now, bars calorically sweetened beverages from vending machines on city property.

That includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water. Juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners. Diet sodas can be no more than 25 percent of the items offered, the directive says.

[...]

The mayor’s administration points to studies linking soda to obesity, including a UCLA one released last year that found adults who drink at least one soft drink a day are 27 percent more likely to be obese than those who don’t, and that soda consumption is fueling the state’s $41 billion annual obesity problem. The study also found that 41 percent of children and 62 percent of teens drink at least one soda daily.

“There’s a direct link between what people eat and drink and the obesity and health care crises in this country,” Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker said. “It’s entirely appropriate and not at all intrusive for city government to take steps to discourage the sale of sugary sodas on city property.”

[...]

“This is not about the soda police or a crackdown on soda,” Winnicker said. “People absolutely remain free to choose to drink unhealthy sugary sodas anywhere they want.”

Selling them is another matter.

While the mayor’s order contains exceptions for vending machines covered under already negotiated contracts, it directs department heads to have new contracts conform to the new standards. – [source: Sugary Drink Ban Starts To Affect S.F. Sites]

Again, I get it. And as someone who hasn’t had a sip of soda in almost 18 months, I see where they’re coming from. The city absolutely does not have to sell anything on government property that doesn’t fall in line with their policies… or the Mayor’s beliefs.

Something about the entire thing just makes me cringe a little bit. I won’t lie. I cringe at the thought of being held to someone else’s nutrition standard, especially when it’s highly unlikely that they’ve got a sound grasp on this nutrition thing…. like, well, the government.

Take this for example:

What can I say about San Francisco’s ban on vending machines for sugared soft drinks on city property?

I could say that a twelve ounce can of Coca-Cola has fewer calories than twelve ounces of whole milk, because it does — 140 to 216.

I could say that you’ll be even fatter if you substitute whole milk for Coke, ounce for ounce, because you will be.

I could say that the extra nutrients in milk don’t do anything to make it less fattening, because they don’t.

I could say that 12 ounces of soy milk has 198 calories, which is still well above Coke’s 140.

I could even say that switching to skim milk doesn’t help you all that much — if you do the math, you’ll find that there are 124.5 calories in 12oz of skim milk, compared, again, to 140 for Coke.

I could also point out that a tall Starbucks Frappuccino — also 12 ounces, and not covered by the ban — has 190 calories, largely from sugar and fat.

I could ask: Does anyone ever order a plain Frappuccino? A tall mocha Frappuccino has 220 calories.

Finally, I could point out that banning vending-machine drinks while leaving Starbucks untouched is a pretty rank example of class privilege at work — my indulgences are sophisticated and upper-class, while yours are vulgar and prole. – [source: The Calorie Police]

As someone who drinks neither milk nor soft drinks nor Starbucks, I’ma put it to you like this: the fact that someone can reduce this to an issue of calories; the fact that someone thinks that the most important concern regarding a food item is calories, and that that is what’s fueling the Mayor’s legislation (or that this was even the foundation of the UCLA study) furrrrrrrther lets me know that the Mayor’s efforts (or the efforts of any politician) need to be centered around educating the public, not doing it for them.

The bolded, however, is intriguing to me. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that this smells a little like class privilege, with a giant “but” attached to the end: I don’t think it is intended to be class privilege, but it is absolutely an unintended consequence. If someone were to try to expand his legislation beyond city property, it would definitely – at this point in time – affect lower class families much more than anyone else… another issue that deserves more of the good Mayor’s time than this.

But imagine if Mayor Newsome were as unenlightened as the fella calling him the calorie police? Believing that “the extra nutrients in milk don’t make it less fattening,” and believing that this is a logical argument? Good grief. Any clean eater knows that 500 calories of broccoli – a wholly nutritious food item – looks very different from 500 calories of cheesecake. You’re not going to be able to get 500 calories worth of broccoli down. 500 calories worth of broccoli isn’t going to leave you nutritionally deficient, either. If the Mayor followed this fail-filled logic? We’d be reducing ourselves to unhealthy foods simply because the calorie counts are low.

To me, it’s another band aid on a bullet wound situation – so, instead of teaching people why soft drinks are such a serious issue… we’re simply going to do what we can to restrict their access to them?

Maybe I just have more faith in humanity – I’m too much of a hippie in the sense that I believe people do better when they know better. (I believe this site is proof of such.) Maybe I simply find it laughable that a branch of government would rather make the “rules” for people instead of putting forth the efforts to teach people why they should adopt this “rule” on their own. And while San Fran isn’t going so far as, say, a New York might’ve tried to go, I still find it interesting that concerned politicians take this route instead of something else. Anything else.

I know this is a lot of writing all about a simple choice that the government made (that is well within their rights), but I’m just tired of politicians trying to do it for us (make us give up our vices without educating us why we should leave them behind) instead of teaching us how to do it ourselves (live healthily.) That’s why we are where we are today, but I digress.

What say you? Are you down with the ban? Think it’s too much? Let me hear what you’re thinkin’!

San Francisco: The Soda Bans Begin is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. No Food Stamps For Soft Drinks? Cracking Down On Soda Pop
2. Chicago School Bans Lunches Brought From Home?
3. Q&A Wednesday: Where Do I Begin?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gavin newsome, government, pop, san francisco, soda, soda ban, soda tax, soft drinks

Anyone who’s been around for a while, knows that I’m a skeptic when it comes to the government and their involvement in food farming and manufacturing (ugh, that word makes me nauseous… “food manufacturing”) in the United States. Why? Because they couldn’t get “it” “right” if “it” was RIGHT… right in front of them.

I want to share with you a little story that kind of blew out of nowhere over the past few days surrounding the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Very short recap.

Shirley Sherrod, the (former) GA State Director of the USDA, gave a speech on March 27th, 2010 at a Georgia NAACP chapter function, that consisted of the following:

It isn’t necessary to watch the entire thing, but the important part is at approximately 14:00 minutes.

A very reputable outlet snipped, chopped and screwed her speech so that all you saw… was this:

As you can see, “very reputable” was sarcasm. That’s not journalism. It’s sensationalism for the sake of getting hits to your little website.

Everything else that happens… all happens in a blur. Apparently, the USDA gets wind of this clip, and immediately asks for her resignation (read: fires her.) The NAACP gets wind of the situation, and issues a press release agreeing with the USDA firing Sherrod.

Then… Sherrod starts doing interviews explaining how her comments were taken so far out of context than it sounds like a completely different speech. The white farming family, of whom she speaks in her video, even gave interviews informing the media that Sherrod saved their farm (and livelihood), and that the recent press was malicious. All of a sudden, the NAACP decides it might be time to review the actual video (of their event) and before you know it? Backpedal city. (Well, everyone except Roland Martin, apparently.)

Then, we get this:

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after a careful investigation into the presentation of former USDA Official Shirley Sherrod.”The NAACP has a zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites, or any other group.

The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Governor George Wallace and late US Senator Robert Byrd — each a man who had associated with and supported white supremacists and their cause before embracing civil rights for all.

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias. – [source: NAACP Statement On The Resignation Of Shirley Sherrod]

And literally.. as I write this, Savannah Guthrie just said the White House is pressuring the USDA to offer Sherrod her job back.

I have lots of questions. For starters, the question has to be… this was about a woman’s livelihood. Her JOB. Why didn’t the USDA bother to investigate? They were too busy rushing to get her out before her little edited clip wound up “on Glenn Beck.” Good grief.

Why didn’t the NAACP bother to investigate a clip from their own event? Don’t they have enough faith in their membership to know that they wouldn’t host an affair where that kind of sentiment – the same racist sentiment that the NAACP fought against for a century – would be so well received?

The video was “discovered” by a man who affiliates with the Tea Party. The NAACP issued a resolution condemning the racism in the party. Before you know it… a Tea Party affiliate discovers this video? Why would the White House (or anyone, for that matter) so quickly back the USDA’s decision to fire Sherrod, trusting the reporting of an individual who’s clearly got a reason to shed a negative light on the NAACP and Black governmental officials?

My last question is the reason why I felt like my thoughts on this topic belonged on this blog.

If you know anything about the treatment of Black farmers – actually, if you know nothing about the treatment of Black farmers in the United States… you should know this:

Thousands of black farmers who were discriminated against by the U.S. Agriculture Department will be eligible to receive $1.25 billion in a settlement, the government said on Thursday.

The settlement of the case, known as Pigford II, is contingent on Congress approving $1.15 billion for the farmers, in addition to $100 million already provided in the Farm Bill.

For decades, black farmers said they were unjustly being denied farm loans or subjected to longer waits for loan approval because of racism, and accused the USDA of not responding to their complaints.

The original Pigford lawsuit, named after North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford, was filed against the USDA in 1997, and settled two years later when the government compensated black farmers left out of USDA loan and assistance programs.

More than 13,000 farmers able to provide proof of their claims of discrimination were awarded $50,000 each and given debt relief in a package worth more than $1 billion. – [source: Black Farmers Win $1.25 Billion In Discrimination Lawsuit]

So, Blacks – fresh out of the civil rights movement – get land and start contributing to the sustainable food movement (before it was a sustainable food movement.) They apply to receive the same benefits and arrangements that every other farmer receives… and for “some reason” are denied.

This practice is carried on for, apparently, decades, and no one is fired. I mean, Black people feeling like someone is being racist toward them. What else is new?

A Tea Party blogger chops and screws a video clip of a Black woman’s alleged racism against a white farming family.. and she’s fired before an investigation can take place?

This can’t be life.

Sherrod’s overall message is one that I’ve learned over the course of learning about food politics in the United States – that there are demographics that affect one’s ability to prosper and flourish in this nation that extend beyond race. Wealth and class being two of them. It just so happens that many of us haven’t had the ability to overcome them. It also just so happens that many of the indivduals in power are so far removed from the rest of the population, that they still believe it’s about race. Antiquated thinking… that keeps us having to deal with antiquated issues.

In a perfect world, both Ben Jealous and Tom Vilsack (Secretary of Agriculture, responsible for the USDA) would be on their knees begging for the forgiveness of the woman they slandered. The NAACP would have a quiet seat in a very well lit room looking for its dignity (it might be next to where they “buried the ‘n-word’”.) And people would start to wonder why the USDA is so choosy in when it addresses its racism.

But for now, I’ll settle for her being offered her job back and a little more focus on Congress handing those Black farmers their darn money.

I just needed to get that off my chest. Now… on to Q&A Wednesday.

Shirley Sherrod, The NAACP, The USDA & Our Black Farmers is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: The Booty
3. An Open Letter To The Black Blogosphere

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Post tags: epic ranting, farmers, government, naacp, racism, shirley sherrod, usda

Two large initiatives designed to prevent African-American girls from becoming obese are not very successful at it, according to two new studies.

The two-year programs consisted of either practical advice and goals for staying fit and healthy, or regular dance classes along with an intervention to reduce the amount of time girls spent playing video games, watching TV, or on the computer.

However, over the course of two years, 8- to 10-year-old girls who were enrolled in either program were just as likely to gain weight as girls who did not participate in the interventions.

It’s not clear why the programs had so little impact, lead author of one of the studies, Dr. Robert Klesges at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, told Reuters Health. However, “the environmental factors that promote sedentary behavior” – such as TV and video games – and preferences for high-calorie foods “probably overwhelmed” the effects of the program, he suggested.

Obesity has become an epidemic among American children, and African-American girls are particularly at risk – a recent nationwide health survey found that approximately one-quarter of black girls are obese.

Read that again: “approximately one quarter of Black girls are obese.”

For the sake of clarification… where do they get these numbers? That’s not to say that it isn’t possible, because I’m actually wondering if the number isn’t higher.

Okay… continue:

To see whether targeted programs help prevent young girls from becoming obese teens, Klesges and his colleagues followed 303 girls in the Memphis area for two years. They randomly assigned half to a program designed to prevent them from becoming obese by giving them goals for healthy eating and exercise while teaching their parents about providing healthy foods, and the other half to an alternative program that did not focus on diet and exercise, but just self-esteem in general.

They found that girls who completed the obesity program tended to consume more water and vegetables, and fewer sweet drinks, than girls in the other program. But both groups were just as likely to gain weight, and both decreased their amount of physical activity over the two years.

“For those girls who changed these eating patterns and didn’t see weight gain prevention, they probably just replaced these calories with other foods,” Klesges noted. The next step, he suggested, could be to encourage girls to reduce their overall calories, not just shift the calories they’d get from soda and fatty foods into other food types.

And younger girls appeared to benefit more from the program, Klesges noted, suggesting it is worth continuing this program in that age group. “We didn’t do a cost analysis but the intervention is definitely portable and could be implemented for very low cost,” he said in an e-mail.

In the other study, also published in the November issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers randomly assigned 261 black girls in Oakland, California, to either participate in an intervention to reduce their “screen” time along with regular dance classes that included African, hip-hop, and step dancing; or receive newsletters about health issues for young girls and attend occasional family health lectures.

Here, too, girls in both groups were equally likely to gain weight during the study period, but those in the dance program showed improvements in some other aspects of health, such as lower cholesterol and insulin levels and fewer symptoms of depression. “I felt really good about (those findings),” study author Dr. Thomas Robinson at Stanford University School of Medicine told Reuters Health.

He added that the program experienced a few unexpected challenges that may have affected the findings – for example, transportation for the girls fell through early in the program, which likely lowered attendance. Implementing a similar program at a school would cut down on costs considerably, Robinson added, so the only expense would be paying the dance teacher, who might be willing to volunteer. “We haven’t given up on the concept,” he noted.

Furthermore, girls who were at higher risk of weight gain – those who watched more TV overall and were being raised by unmarried adults – appeared to benefit more from the program than other girls, Robinson said. (Erika’s note: In other words, latch-key children?) “They have more room to go, and are more likely to benefit,” he suggested. “Our intervention definitely helped a lot of girls.”

The next step, Klesges suggested, is to ensure children have regular access to physical activity that they enjoy, and find ways to encourage people not to opt for fast foods. “While we have a long way to go, promoting healthy diets from the time a child is very small is needed,” he said. “If more people wanted healthy alternatives, (fast food restaurants) would sell them.” [source: Obesity programs little help for black girls]

I have a LOT of thoughts, but I’d rather search out the individual studies from the November issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine before I say more.

There are a few things I’d like to point out, though.

They randomly assigned half to a program designed to prevent them from becoming obese by giving them goals for healthy eating and exercise while teaching their parents about providing healthy foods, and the other half to an alternative program that did not focus on diet and exercise, but just self-esteem in general.

They found that girls who completed the obesity program tended to consume more water and vegetables, and fewer sweet drinks, than girls in the other program. But both groups were just as likely to gain weight, and both decreased their amount of physical activity over the two years.

For starters… “teaching parents about providing healthy foods” is very different from increasing access to such. Access plus education, to me, is the only formula that will provide results.

Secondly, I wonder if this study corrected for the “liar effect.” What is “the liar effect?” Well, if you’re telling young Black girls [who are likely to be latchkey children who are excited to have an adult paying attention to them... and I say that as a latchkey child] to eat healthily, then you ask them to report what they are eating.. how likely is it that they’re telling the truth? They’re not going to want to disappoint the person who’s paying all this attention to them.

I’m not trying to be insulting or disrespectful when I say that, either. It’s a matter of fact – people who are asked to report what they are eating often lie. People who are asked to report what they eat are, also, often mistaken about how much they eat… dependent upon how large the portion size actually is (and regardless of the weight of the person reporting.) There’s an element of shame associated with reporting your food intake that people want to avoid… and young girls who already have body image issues are no different. So, if you have young Black girls who are eager to please and you ask them to report their intake… I think it is highly likely that they’ll lie.

Furthermore, girls who were at higher risk of weight gain – those who watched more TV overall and were being raised by unmarried adults – appeared to benefit more from the program than other girls, Robinson said.

Because we’re talking about young girls – not adult women who should be able to make their own conscious choices – I’m going to ask this question. What does “raised by unmarried adults” mean? Two unmarried parents in one home? Divorced with two active parents? Divorced with only one parent? Or only single parenthood? Why does the “raised by unmarried adults” aspect make such a huge difference? Is it because no one is around to further enforce the healthier choices? (Doesn’t this also lead to that point about lying on their food intake reporting?) Is it because fewer time is spent with the parent embodying the essence of healthier living for the child? (I admit that this is only my assumption, and based on my own early experiences.)

The next step, Klesges suggested, is to ensure children have regular access to physical activity that they enjoy, and find ways to encourage people not to opt for fast foods. “While we have a long way to go, promoting healthy diets from the time a child is very small is needed,” he said. “If more people wanted healthy alternatives, (fast food restaurants) would sell them.”

Y’all always think I’m playing when I say “We have more power than we think,” but I’m dead serious.. and that emboldened quote is exactly why I say it. Businesses go where the money is. If the money is in the sugary, fatty and salty… why on Earth would a business ignore that? Even the “healthiest” of fast foods succumb to using these tactics. No one is exempt. When the conscious public demands more, they’ll get it… and not a second sooner.

What do you think is going on here?

Why Don’t Obesity Programs Work For Young Black Girls? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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3. Moms: Your Work Schedule Makes Your Kids Fat

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black girls, government, obesity, programs, studies

Hi! Howaya? Hope [insert significant other's name here] and the family are doing well. Good lookin’ out on that whole health care reform thing. Most of us (and most of your peers) might not have much of an idea of what it actually does, how you’ll pay for it nor are they aware that it doesn’t really include a public option… but really, thanks.

And in the midst of whatever storm has originated from this flurry of legislation that has flown through, discussion about a soda tax seems to keep creeping up. Why? No, really. Why?

Let me be honest for a moment. I don’t drink soft drinks, soda, pop, any of it. None. Nada. The last sip I had was a Jamaican pineapple soda I had exactly 13 months from the date of writing this letter. Before that? It was 2006. So no, I’m not complaining about this because I’m too cheap to pay the tax on something I “can’t give up.” There may be plenty of people out there coming from that angle, but I’m certainly not one of ‘em.

You see, I lost 145lbs the hard way. The “I’m too angry to see a doctor with no answers, too cheap to get surgery, and too tired of not being able to buy and rock all these cute clothes” way. The “I’m going to give up straightening my hair every day and be a little (or a lot) sweaty so that I can be who I want to be” way. The “No pain, no gain; just-do-it nike style; pain-is-weakness-leaving-the-body” way. So believe me… I understand why soda pop would be an easy target.

I mean, really – drinking an 8oz of coke each day adds something like 10lbs a year to the human body. (97 cals in an 8oz of coke, multiplied by 365 days in a year, divded by 3500 calories in a pound = 10.115lbs extra each year.) A 20oz? 25lbs a year. (20oz = 2.5 8oz servings… multiply 10.115×2.5 to get 25 extra pounds added each year.) Trust me. I’m not a soda fan and I’m always telling people to watch how many calories they’re drinking. If we’re going to collectively care for one another via this health care reform, then it makes sense to take on the stuff that’s helping to cause the problem. I get it.

But then, I don’t. See, I write – a lot – about food production and manufacturing in these United States. So I’m well aware of the fact that our government – for whom, don’t get me wrong, I have the highest respect – pays farmers so much more money for corn than it is actually worth, that farmers overproduce corn… to the extent that it has decreased in value. I’m aware of the fact that this overproduction of corn is the reason why we are able to find corn in a good 60% of the food we eat in some form or fashion; “Use the cheaper food to make the product, save money for the business.” I’m aware of the fact that high fructose corn syrup – produced from this same corn that the government overpays for – is both a catalyst in the obesity epidemic and the #2 ingredient in most-if-not-all brands of soda pop. I’m aware.

Yet, we’re claiming that we want to tack on a tax for families to enjoy soda. Why? I mean, yeah – if they want it, they’re going to buy it regardless of how much you tax onto it, so it seems like an easy money maker for the government, right? But then, it isn’t really about attempting to affect the average American family’s consumption of soda pop, is it? It’s just about getting the money. Well, here’s a thought – why not stop overtaxing the average American who might – or might not – drink a soda every now and again? Why not just stop overpaying farmers to grow the same crap that is hurting us in ways that, now that we will have universal health care, will eventually cost us in another way?

What is keeping you from simply ending the subsidy that you pay the farmers? Or, better yet – what’s keeping you from taxing the companies that insist on selling the product in your state? Now, there’s a thought. If they’re going to sell a product that the government is willing to step out and say is harmful, they should have to pay a premium to do so, right? What would keep you from taxing the businesses who insist on selling the product in your state? Campaign donations? Oh, my apologies. I mean, “consideration for the regulation of businesses?” We’d rather work in favor of businesses than in favor of the people? If it’s about money, that’s where the real money is, right – the businesses? Or am I missing something?

The bottom line, dear politician, is this: the mere discussion of a soda tax is insulting to the intellect of the general populace. We deserve proper health care, yes, but what we deserve even more is practical ways to ensure that it is paid for… and “empty rhetoric” barking a soft drink tax at Americans is not going to do it for you.. especially in a recession. It’s clear that you’re only even bringing this up to divert away from the fact that you’re really not sure how you’re going to do this, but just want to get people talking as if you DO have ideas. This one just so happens to be hot-button enough to distract the public.

Insulting.

If you’re not going to take a serious swing at the ball, keep your cleats – and your mouth – away from the plate. These kinds of smoke screens aren’t why we elected you.

Sincerely Yours,
Erika
Mommy, Business Owner, Fitness Blogger, Daughter of a War Vet, Registered Voter
www.blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com

Dear Government, Taxing Soda Is Crap And You Know It is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. No Food Stamps For Soft Drinks? Cracking Down On Soda Pop
3. San Francisco: The Soda Bans Begin

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: government, health policy, soft drinks