In article <
[email protected]>,
Don Kirkman <
[email protected]> wrote:
> It seems to me I heard somewhere that William Wagner wrote in article
> <[email protected]>:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> > "TC" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> This brings up some good points for discussion.
>
> Indeed. See below.
>
> >> 3) If high-fat/high-calories do not always cause obesity, then what are
> >> the medical authorities basing their low-fat/high-carb nutritional
> >> policies on?
>
> > A complex issue. Here is a small tidbit concerning the Nixon white
> >house. Seems it was deemed a good idea to grow corn. Corn syrup stored
> >well and tasted sweet and now it is just about everywhere. Thank you
> >Earl Butz secretary of agriculture for this sweet disaster aka cheap
> >calories. Farmers were able to use marginal lands, distillers were able
> >to make cheap whiskey and now type 2 and obesity are common expressions.
>
> So let's discuss them. Why do you blame Nixon and Butz? A little
> history may help remove the scales from your eyes:
>
> [Begin]
> The federal government, which had done little in the 1920s to help
> farmers, initiated remedial programs during the administration of
> President Franklin D. Roosevelt. One approach was to reduce the supply
> of basic farm commodities. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933
> provided payments to farmers in return for agreements to curtail their
> acreage or their production of wheat, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn hogs,
> and dairy products. The act was declared unconstitutional in 1936, but
> in 1938, after several changes in the membership of the U.S. Supreme
> Court, a second Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed under which
> production quotas were set as before. Payments were financed from taxes
> imposed on processors and were based on the parity concept.
> [End]
> http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/Eco_agriculture.htm
>
> IOW, subsidies were initially aimed at helping struggling farmers and
> commodities markets during the dust bowl years and the concurrent
> depression. The dirty little secret isn't how or why subsidies were
> begun but why Congress continues to authorize subsidies when the
> recipients are Archer-Daniels-Midland and Sun Giant and Bank of America
> and other conglomerate agribusinesses instead of the original individual
> farm owner-operators.
...............................
What if these folks are half right? or 25% right?
Scary.
Bill
http://blogdayafternoon.com/articles/03/06/22/9208021/
Posted by Jeff (Sunday June 22 2003 @ 08:46PM EDT)
Recent data indicates that sixty-one percent of Americans carry an
unhealthy amount of weight, a figure which includes obese people who
account for twenty-seven percent of the total population. Overweight
people are characterized by a body mass index of 25 to 29 while obese
people register 30 or higher.
Over a period of thirty years the United States has gone from one of
the healthiest nations on earth to one of its fattest. The journalist
Greg Cristler investigated this phenomena in his very enjoyable book,
"Fat Land: How Americans Became The Fattest People On Earth." The author
leaves no stone unturned in his quest for answers. He charts the rise in
fry sizes from paper bags to super-sized, the role of loose, baggy
clothing and hunger satiation, and the effect suppressed peer-pressure
as a result of political correctness. "Fatty, fatty, two by four" can no
longer be applied to keep the herd fit and trim.
Much of what Cristler uncovered was already well documented. Who didn't
know that fast food portions have increased dramatically over the last
thirty years? Who didn't realize that video games contributed to
adolescent inactivity? But if he did uncover a smoking gun it was this:
corn. That's right, sweet and simple North American maize turned us into
a nation of cows.
Richard M. Nixon said he was "not a crook." But before he sent
operatives to the Watergate Hotel, he faced a crises which threatened to
undo his presidency. A food shortage gripped the nation in 1972 and
agriculture secretary Earl "Rusty" Butz responded by freeing farmers
from the restrictions of government regulation. They could grow what
they wanted to grow and sell when they wanted to sell. Butz recommended
corn and soybean. Plant it from "fencerow to fencerow," the fat man
advised. Farmers responded and production soared.
As American farmers grew corn out their ears, a Japanese company
developed a syrup six times sweeter than cane sugar. This new additive
was derived from corn, high-fructose corn sweetener. It was a food
industry wind-fall. Its potency meant that sugary food could be produced
at considerbly lower cost. Its long shelf-life made it an ideal
preservative. Fructose found its way into breads, rolls, etc., products
which did not normally contain sugar.
Fructose was a gift for manufacturers but a bane for consumers. Unlike
sucrose or dextrose which broke down prior to reaching the liver,
fructose arrived at that organ intact. This aspect of fructose became
known as "metabolic shunting." It triggered fat storage.
Today fructose in widely available. It is a listed ingrediant in almost
all pre-packaged or ready-to-eat food items. By the 1980s fructose was a
major ingrediant in all commercial softdrinks, second only to carbonated
water. One of the single most important predictors of a child's future
girth is his current fructose intake. Soda consumption in children was
studied for a period of nineteen months. One extra softdrink a day gave
a child a sixty percent greater chance of becoming obese. Each daily
soda added .18 points to a child's BMI.
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