Final Response to Food Rules and Michael Pollan

When first assigned this project I never would have thought that I'd be reading a book tackling the issue on America's health problems deriving directly from what we eat. I knew that obesity in America was an issue and I'd seen films such as "Super Size Me", but I wasn't fully aware of the problem and where the issues start until my mom told me about Michael Pollan and his books The Omnivores Dilemma and Food Rules. Americans need to be smart with how they eat and need to demand better quality food from producers. The way we prepare and consume food in America is unhealthy. There is a reason why our neighbors in Europe are so much healthier than us and its because of what they eat, how often they eat, and how they prepare their meals. Be conscious of what you are putting into your body, read labels/understand that much of what we eat can't really be considered "food" if you can't even pronounce the ingredients on the label. We need to eat in moderation and demand that the government crack down on the way our food is produced on farms, and how we take care of the animals which provide us with our every day meals. If you get the chance take a look at Michael Pollan's work and consider all he has to say. I really enjoyed reading the book and found it very informative and interesting. Change isn't far, but the American people need to ignite the flame that pushes the American food revolution.

Food Rules #5

Where's our food grown? What's in it? And why is it so cheap? Pollan says that ever since WW2, Americans have been on this "quest" to make food as cheap and abundant as possible. This has been the direction of all our agricultural policy to drive down the cost of food, which is always popular obviously, politically very popular, especially starting with the Nixon administration when we really went into overdrive in organizing subsidies to drive down the cost of corn and soy which were the building blocks of fast food. In real dollars were spending less on food than anyone in history. Only about 9% of our income goes toward our food. Its succeeded in a sense...we have lots of cheap and abundant food, but its almost succeeded to well. Much of America suffers from obesity, and type two diabetes. And as it turns out cheap food has many hidden costs. So how is it that we get the food so cheap? You have to brutalize the workers, and brutalize the animals, shoot them up with drugs, and feed them inappropriate diets. There are so many hidden costs that we are not aware of and if you think about it its quite gross. The food corporations and farms don't care about your health, they care about the money they get. If you can grow a chicken in 49 days why would you want one you gotta grow in three months? This is just an example of what farmers are doing in order to fulfill the idea that food needs to be made faster, fatter , bigger, cheaper. Look at the tobacco industry, the battle against tobacco is a perfect model of how an industries irresponsible behavior can be changed. Imagine of what it would be if as a national policy the idea would be to have such nutritionally dense food that people actually felt better, had more energy, and weren't sick as much. Its up to the people, we need to start demanding good wholesome food and really take this issue seriously. Only then will we see changes.

Food Rules #4

Rule 4: Avoid food products that contain high fructose corn syrup and foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients.  Here is some food for thought, when eating treats keep in mind to treat them as treats! As funny as that sounds in Pollan's book he covers sweets and how we abuse them in our diets. Labels list ingredients by weight, and any product that has more sugar than other ingredients has too much sugar. Complicating matters is the fact that, thanks to food science, there are now some forty types f sugar used in processed food, including barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, dextrin dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, sucrose, turbinado sugar and son. Sugar is sugar. And organic sugar is sugar too. Now having sugar isnt bad at all. It's when we abuse it is when it becomes unhealthy.  Treat treats as treats. If you reward yourself with something sweet then it is ok to have. But if your constantly indulging junk food then its just downright unhealthy. When looking at products that have high fructose corn syrup remember this. Its not that HFCS is any worse for you than regular sugar, but because it is, like many other unfamiliar ingredients in packaged foods, a reliable marker for a food product that has been highly processed.  As I'm looking at a box of poptarts, I notice that a top five ingredient is HFCS. Pop Tarts are my favorite and not bad for you, but having HFCS shows that this is a highly processed food that has a lot of things in it in order to keep it fresh for a long time. If we are aware of what we put in our bodies and we eat these foods in moderation then its not a problem, its when we have these all the time it then becomes health issue.

Food Rules #3

One of the cool aspects of this book is that it gives you tips about how to shop and what to look out for while fighting a larger issue. This book is  in fact about the food you consume and why some of it may be very unhealthy for you but cloaked in banners of "health".  This is about gov't or someone compromising our health for the benefit of big business like Monsanto who controls most of the grain in the US. Many people seem to be confused about whether food is an issue in America. It is huge.  Michelle Obama is behind it and it is one her pet campaigns but also many other groups. There are dangerous additives to virtually all the products we consume and that we put on our bodies. From Obesity to the fake additives and dangerous carcinogens that are unknowingly added to our foods and given incompressible names, there is a problem in this country. Many people are ignorant to the fact that obesity is a huge issue in America. Many have the mindset that its not my problem so why should I care. We need to start caring. For those who are interested in politics then you know what the new Health care system entails. Not only do people with weight issues usually have other health problems, but for those who constantly indulge chemicals and disgusting products into their bodies they will eventually have health problems as well. The point im trying to make is eventually when you pay for their health care with your taxes you will care what they (and you eat). If your pay check  takes 50% of your pay so that everyone has healthcare you will care what people eat.   In the end we pay for all of the problems we have.

Food Rules #2

Eat Food
This is easier said than done. Today supermarkets have on average forty-seven thousand products. Is all of this really food? The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you are eating, because if you knew the truth then you wouldn't want to eat it. In Pollan's book, Food Rules, he explains the problems that supermarkets pose to American health and how food companies have never been so powerful in our history.  When shopping at the supermarket you should always plan on buying products from food sections along the perimeter of the store. What are these products? These are typically your dairy (milk, cheese, etc..), chicken, fish, and beef. These can actually be considered food. What Pollan warns us about is what kind of stuff are we eating when we decide to shop within the aisles.  When you go through the supermarket there is an illusion of diversity.  So much of our industrial food turns out to be rearrangements of corn, for ex: ketchup, cheese, Twinkies, batteries, and peanut butter. Were never truly eating real food. For example, if I take a package of "Rice A Roni" from my kitchen and look at the ingredient, only a few sound remotely normal. What is ferrous sulfate? Thiamin  monoitrate? Riboflavin? Niacin? When I read those ingrediants it sounds like im putting a chemistry project into my body. On occasion a package of "Rice A Roni" is ok to eat. But in America, much of our population depends on cheap, fast, prepackaged food, that they will buy in bunches because it doesn't go bad. Its when this food is consumed on a daily basis is when we have to worry because its making us sick.  Its shocking that the FDA wants to allow the sell of meat from animals without any labeling of where its coming from. In recent years we have seen numerous cases of ecoli and salmonella being in our food products. For instance the "Peter Pan" brand of peanut butter needed to be taken off the shelf because it was making Americans fatally ill. Ecoli has been found countless times in our spinach and even apple juice. The ingredients that go into the "food" we eat, doesn't do us any good.  It only makes us sick but very little is being done by the food industry to help the people because all they want to do is sit back on the countless amount of money we spend eating crap each year.

FOOD RULES

The book Food Rules by Michael Pollan discusses the reasons why American's deal with obesity and why our eating habits have to change. Michael Pollan is the author of five previous books, including In Defense of Food, a number one New York Times bestseller, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, which was named one of the ten best books of the year by both the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Fact . Populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don't suffer from these chronic diseases. These diets run the gamut from ones very high in fat (the Inuit in Greenland subsists largely on seal rubber) to ones high in carbohydrate (Central American Indians subsist largely on maize and beans) to ones very high in protein (Masai tribesman in Africa subsist chiefly on cattle blood, meat, and milk), to cite three rather extreme examples. But much the same holds true for more mixed traditional diets. What this suggests is that there is no single ideal human diet but that the human omnivore is exquisitely adapted to a wide range of different foods and a variety of different diets. Except, that is, for one: the relatively new Western diet that most of us now are eating. What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization:to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick! It has been shown that people who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health. In one analysis, a typical American population that departed even modestly from the Western diet could reduce its chances of getting coronary heart disease by 80 percent, its chances of type 2 diabetes by 90 percent, and its chances of colon cancer by 70 percent. If Americans made changes in their diet, and they don't even have to be major, we could see a total decrease in health issues that Americans suffer from every year. The health care industry makes more money treating chronic diseases ( which account for three quarters of the $2 trillion plus we spend each year on health care in this country) than preventing them. In an economy where we need to control our spending and where our money goes, an effort needs to be put in to not only treat disease and infection but help prevent. And all that is is just knowing what you're putting into your body and how this may effect you.

MTV Credited For Decline In Teen Pregnancy Rates

From the chaotic family dynamics to the aftermath of childbirth, MTV's hit show "16 and Pregnant" has illustrated that teen parenthood is not always an easy journey. These candid glimpses inside the trials of young parents apparently are making a mark on youth across America, as the series is being credited with helping to spur a decrease in teen pregnancy.
According to a new government study, U.S teen birthrates plunged dramatically in 2009 after a five percent increase from 2005 to 2007. And a report by National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy recognizes "16 and Pregnant," specifying that 82 percent of teenagers credit the hit show in helping them understand the challenges that come with unexpected parenthood.
Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign, believes that "16 and Pregnant" helps broaden insight into teen pregnancy. "Entertainment media is one of the nation's favorite punching bags, but we have to acknowledge that when we're talking about teen pregnancies media can be and often is a force for good, and that is particularly true when it comes to shows like '16 and Pregnant,' " he said.
While "16 and Pregnant" has received some media criticism for its apparent glamorization of its subject, Albert stands by the findings of the survey. "Some critics say these shows glamorize teen pregnancy, but our survey data shows that's not the case," he pointed out. "That not only do they not glamorize it, but teens who have seen it suggest it makes the realities of teen parenthood more real to them."
 I find it very interesting that the show has had such a strong impact on teenage pregnancy. When I first watched the show I found it to be yet another stupid MTV reality show that I felt glamorized these teenage girls and their boyfriends for having gotten knocked up. I still agree that the show glamorizes teen pregnancy as these girls have now become famous. Becoming famous by giving birth at age 16 and having it documented on MTV is totally ridiculous. I think the show is a waste of time, but if it actually has had an impact on a decline in teenage pregnancy then I support its entertainment only in an effort to show teens the challenges that come with unexpected parenthood.