Prosperity, thy name is "nemesis"-Great food inflicted health crisis staring us!

Umpteen number of treatise emphasize the uncomfortable truth that an average a denizen, living in any part of the globe with high income, consumes a diet that is drastically different from that consumed 50 years ago. The catch here is that the quality of the diet has taken a beating with more and refined foods, low quality carbohydrates, less and less of fibers, fruits and vegetables, more of fats of lower quality, predominating the food that is consumed day in day out. The result is there for every one to see. Diseases like obesity, CVD, blood pressure, diabetes, kidney ailments, liver problems, cancer etc have become common and billions of dollars are being spent to treat them, the only beneficiary being the drug industry. Here is a telling commentary on this vicious situation in a super rich country like the US which is revealing.

"Today, novelty dominates American food. Those yellow arches are now golden arches and we are now a nation addicted to sugar, fat and drive-through windows. Food is mere fuel, and we eat more of it in our family car than at our family table. For proof, look how we — you and me — have changed our food patterns in the last 40 or so years.
• In 1960, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, we spent 26 cents of our food dollar on restaurant meals; in 2013 it was 50 percent.
• In 1950, the standard soft-drink bottle contained 6.5 ounces; in 1960 it grew to 12 ounces and, in the 1990s, 20 ounces became the norm.
• In 1970, according to numbers in a 2011 article published by Grist, the U.S. "churned out 2,168 calories per day per person, 402 of which came from added sugar and 410 from added fat ... or, combined, about 37 percent of the total."
• In 2008, the U.S. produced 2,673 calories per day person (" ... powerful evidence that [America's] cheap food policy ... succeeded ... ") of which "added fats and sugars [grew] to 459 and 641 calories, respectively, a 35 percent jump over the 1970 level ... "
• In 2013, according to Harvard University, Americans spent "an estimated $190 billion treating obesity-related health conditions."
• Also, in 2013, U.S. organic sales (which USDA does not track) totaled an estimated $35.1 billion, an 11.5 percent increase from 2012 but still only 18.4 percent of the amount spent we spent to treat obesity-related health problems that year. 

What's it all mean, fellow foodies? According to that brief survey, most of us ate less sugar and less fat when we ate more fresh, local food at home 40 or 50 years ago than what we buy and eat (mostly) in town today. Also, most of us were skinnier and healthier (as were our parents in comparison to us today) and all of us had more neighbors and more "community" — local banks, medical care, grocery and clothing stores and the like — than almost any of us have anywhere in rural America today. In short, we had it very, very good — despite Grandma pushing the pickle beets and lima beans every chance she got. Little wonder, then, that a new food culture, a foodie culture, is taking root across the U.S. now."

Though the above study, analyzing the hard data is considered reliable, there is no cogent answer as to what can be done to redeem the world from the curse of bad food and distorted food culture which are slowly but surely making the quality of life progressively deteriorating. While many blame the industry for this sorry situation, some blame will have be apportioned to the government regulatory agencies who have allowed this situation to develop by shirking their bounden responsibility to protect the lives of the citizens. Where does the consumer come in this complex scenario? Of course it is the weak will power and weakness for tasty foods abandoning the health concerns (similar to tobacco and alcohol) on the part of the consumer that is driving this insane rush towards health catastrophe staring at them! Unless consumers, regulatory agencies, health experts and the food business get together to deal with the crisis, this sordid "death dance" will continue unabated!

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com

http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE SWEET TOOTH-A WEAKNESS INHERITED!

Who has to bear the blame for to day's over eating trend among young as well as the old, rich as well as the poor? The blame game drags in all the players who have some thing to do with food production, processing, marketing, consuming, food science and governing but the problem does not fit into any equation or mathematical modeling. What is needed is a concerted effort by all to tackle this menacing problem after understanding the reasons underlying the problem. While education of consumers, persuading the industry for voluntary action and coercion by government have the potential to reverse the present trend, so far none seems to be working as per expectations. Latest controversy about the policy being promoted in New York for banning large sized sugary beverages which has created a ruckus among human right activists and some consumer organizations is another example of the intractability of this grave problem. According to some analysts coercive policies only will work because the present addiction to sugary products is inherited through human evolution and unless humans are helped to over come this attraction to sugar through some compulsions, no voluntary action may work to chuck this trend. Here is a critique on this issue which appears to be reasonable in its conclusions.

"Since sugar is a basic form of energy in food, a sweet tooth was adaptive in ancient times, when food was limited. However, excessive sugar in the bloodstream is toxic, so our bodies also evolved to rapidly convert digested sugar in the bloodstream into fat. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed plenty of fat — more than other primates — to be active during periods of food scarcity and still pay for large, expensive brains and costly reproductive strategies (hunter-gatherer mothers could pump out babies twice as fast as their chimpanzee cousins). Simply put, humans evolved to crave sugar, store it and then use it. For millions of years, our cravings and digestive systems were exquisitely balanced because sugar was rare. Apart from honey, most of the foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate were no sweeter than a carrot. The invention of farming made starchy foods more abundant, but it wasn't until very recently that technology made pure sugar bountiful. The food industry has made a fortune because we retain Stone Age bodies that crave sugar but live in a Space Age world in which sugar is cheap and plentiful. Sip by sip and nibble by nibble, more of us gain weight because we can't control normal, deeply rooted urges for a valuable, tasty and once limited resource. What should we do? One option is to do nothing, while hoping that scientists find better cures for obesity-related diseases like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. I'm not holding my breath for such cures, and the costs of inaction, already staggering, would continue to mushroom. A more popular option is to enhance public education to help us make better decisions about what to eat and how to be active. This is crucial but has so far yielded only modest improvements. The final option is to collectively restore our diets to a more natural state through regulations. Until recently, all humans had no choice but to eat a healthy diet with modest portions of food that were low in sugar, saturated fat and salt, but high in fiber. They also had no choice but to walk and sometimes run an average of 5 to 10 miles a day. Mr. Bloomberg's paternalistic plan is not an aberrant form of coercion but a very small step toward restoring a natural part of our environment".

The perfectly balanced argument questions the right of the parents to guide their children or the schools to ban undesirable foods if government based on scientific evidence cannot do any thing to curb consumption of super rich, nutritionally unbalanced foods that destroys the health of its citizens, knowingly or unknowingly. If suicides can be prevented by coercive laws or if smoking can be restricted through restrictive policies, why not force people to restrict consumption of patently unhealthy foods? When a patient goes to a physician, his ailment is diagnosed and appropriate medicines, may be bitter to taste, are prescribed. Does the patient protest about it? Rarely, because he knows that it is done for his good. Then why not accept scientifically based restrictions for curing the disease of obesity? Sooner this bitter truth is realized, better it will be for the human race as a whole.    

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

SALT OR TOBACCO- WHICH IS THE GREATER VILLAIN?

For quite some time in the past alarm bells were ringing regarding the potential health risks posed by intake of salts beyond a certain limit and it is universally accepted that high salt can be injurious causing life threatening disorders like CVD, Blood Pressure and Kidney damage. Where there is no unanimity is regarding how much salt consumption can be dangerous. The problem is further complicated by the relative consumption of processed foods compared to home cooked products which vary from country to country. While there can be "forced" restrictions on salt content in processed products turned out by the industry, how can any meaningful reduction of salt can be achieved in the home cooked foods as well as on the dining tables across the world?. According to the latest reports emanating from British scientists, salt can be as dangerous as tobacco smoking and there must be global action to curtail salt consumption to save precious lives of people where ever they are and the UN system is being implored to take a pro-active role in this health protecting endeavor.

"Writing in the British Medical Journal they say a 15% cut in consumption could save 8.5 million lives around the world over the next decade. The report says practical steps to reduce consumption should be drawn up without delay. If voluntary measures do not work, the food industry should be compelled to cut salt levels, it says. The report - by researchers at the Universities of Warwick and Liverpool - says that after cutting tobacco consumption, getting people to eat less salt would be the most cost effective way to improve global health. The researchers say there is a "consistent, direct relation between salt intake and blood pressure". High blood pressure in turn is linked to heart disease, stroke and kidney problems. They point to the US, where cutting salt intake by a third would save tens of thousands of lives and save up to $24 billion annually in health care costs. But with 70% of deaths from strokes and heart attacks occurring in developing countries, the report says the impact of reduced intake would be global".

No doubt any meaningful action taken in this regard requires global cooperation and an agency like WHO under the UN system is eminently suited to take the much needed initiative. Probably even WTO could be brought into the picture for imposing a ban on trading in foods containing salt beyond a limit agreed upon. Mean while it is time R & D efforts are accelerated to evolve suitable and affordable salt "equivalents" that can be safe for humans, for use by the industry as well as at home.

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