"CAFFEINOMANIA"! A NEW AMERICAN AFFLICTION OR ADDICTION?

Coffee, Tea and Cocoa have been the villains during early days of development of food industry as these beverage crops contain the unique ingredient Caffeine, considered a stimulant and addictive. Though these were being consumed for decades, no harmful effect was reported till recently. However during the last few years Caffeine has found its way into many other beverages and foods which trend seems to be growing day by day. Safety of chemically pure Caffeine is mired in controversy and no one is absolutely certain regarding the upper limit of Caffeine that can be tolerated by humans. That it is not a harmless chemical is reflected by the world wide consensus that Caffeine is not advisable for consumption by Pregnant women and children. If recent reports are to be believed Americans are seized with an obsession to consume more and caffeine in any form or through any medium and this trend is being exploited by even big industry giants by launching different types of products containing more and more Caffeine! Here is a critique on this latest development.    

"The Wall Street Journal reports companies are taking the obsession with caffeine to a new, more chewable form. From jerky to candy and even condiments, companies are cashing in on a caffeine-crazed nation. Frito-Lay, for example, now offers Cracked Jack'D Power Bites in Cocoa Java and Vanilla Mocha flavors. In 2007, Jelly Belly came out with caffeinated Extreme Sport Beans. There's even Perky Jerky, Wired caffeinated waffles and DoubleKick brand hot sauce. While the industry of caffeinated food products is still small compared with energy drinks, The Wall Street Journal reports sales in the U.S. have increased nearly 50 percent to $1.6 billion since 2008. Amped-up food is a unique challenge because of caffeine's bitter taste, but the real challenge for companies' may be bigger in that health regulators will look at the industry in a new way, according to The Wall Street Journal. There's also concern caffeinated snacks will be more desirable to children".

What is surprising is the utter insensitivity on the part of the health authorities in that country who is doing precious little to arrest this disturbing trend. The industry is not being asked to prove the safety of such high Caffeine containing products and in the absence of evidence to the contrary these products are "making merry while he sun shines"! what is forgotten in this charade is that Caffeine in natural products may act in a different way compared to that of pure isolated Caffeine and unless conclusively proved through clinical trials regarding the safety of the existing products containing chemically pure Caffeine their manufacture and marketing must be stopped forthwith.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

"COCAINE EFFECT" OF FOODS-LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

Remember how much money the the tobacco industry had to shell out after the class action through legal efforts in the US to pin down the industry which deliberately suppressed information that implied the addictive nature of tobacco? It is true that tobacco industry, in spite of this set back, still continues to have sizable "practitioners" who just refuse to see the writing on the wall and continue to indulge in smoking what ever the price of the product! One can only say that this most unfortunate and illogical. During the last one decade there have been compelling evidence that food industry also is going the "tobacco way", if scientific studies in multi lateral institutions are taken seriously. The main culprit is the main stream processed foods containing high levels of sugar and fat manufactured and marketed by the industry targeting youngsters and adults alike. How far this trend will continue with the industry in a denial mode remains to be seen and probably time is running out for it to self discipline the members to bring about significant changes in the product portfolio from the present one. Here is a comprehensive commentary on this phenomenon that must receive attention policy makers all over the world. 

"Cupcakes may be addictive, just like cocaine. A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) aren't simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs. "The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it," said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain." The idea that food may be addictive was barely on scientists' radar a decade ago. Now the field is heating up. Lab studies have found sugary drinks and fatty foods can produce addictive behavior in animals. Brain scans of obese people and compulsive eaters, meanwhile, reveal disturbances in brain reward circuits similar to those experienced by drug abusers. Twenty-eight scientific studies and papers on food addiction have been published this year, according to a National Library of Medicine database. As the evidence expands, the science of addiction could become a game changer for the $1 trillion food and beverage industries. If fatty foods and snacks and drinks sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup are proven to be addictive, food companies may face the most drawn-out consumer safety battle since the anti-smoking movement took on the tobacco industry a generation ago".

What can any one under such compelling circumstances? Will a blanket ban on "bad" foods work? Can raising taxes on high sugar and high fat foods be a remedy to the problem? Educating the consumer to avoid obesity causing foods is easier said than done! Suggestion to punish obese people through social boycott is just ridiculous, even to think of! The reported cost of supporting the obese population is staggering indeed. Probably evolving an ideal frame work for healthy food profiles within which all manufacturers will have to design their products and punishing those who violate these guidelines through high taxation may be considered in consultation with all stake holders.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD AND THE "COCAINE" EFFECT-KEY TO HEALTHY EATING

Food can have "addiction" effect on humans is a disturbing revelation and if some recent observations by a leading group of molecular therapeutic experts are to be believed, such linkage can be the basis for future remedies for curbing uncontrolled gluttony that is causing obesity and other related diseases in many countries. That food is compared to a drug like Cocaine which is addictive with millions of people in its "trap", it is time serious efforts are made to evolve ways and means to bring about radical changes in government policies and the operational style of food industry that will make processed foods less addictive.

"Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure--or even just feeling normal--requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study".

The terrifying question that the modern society faces is whether people who are obese will have to be treated for de-addiction like those hooked on drugs, if all known techniques of weight control fail. Or will pharmaceutical industry find a "cash cow" in the form of pills to treat addiction to foods? Those extremely concerned with the seriousness of living style disorders may even advocate to make the three main culprits for to day's human sufferings, sugar, salt and fat, cost prohibitive, to forcefully reduce their consumption. Imagine a world where sugar will cost more than Rs 100 per kg, fat Rs 200 per kg and salt Rs 50 per kg! Probably it needs a Mohammed Bin Tuglak to be reborn for putting in place such a "crazy" strategy!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com