There’s more to food than what’s not in it
| September 24th, 2006Maia at Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty writes:
In particular, several fast-food chains were in the news a couple of weeks ago. This is how it was reported in the The Dominion Post:
Representatives of the multinationals fronted up to Parliament’s health select committee yesterday and insisted their products did not cause obesity.
Because the only way to evaluate our food is whether or not it causes obesity. [...] As soon as the discourse becomes about obesity, the makers of food don’t have to justify what’s in their food, and can instead claim that things aren’t there.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Sorry to be nitpicky, but can you change the “then” to “than” in the subject line? Thanks!
[Done! And thank you for being nitpicky! --Amp]
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September 24th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
] As soon as the discourse becomes about obesity, the makers of food don’t have to justify what’s in their food, and can instead claim that things aren’t there. Go read the whole thing. posted 2:50 pm at Alas, a blog
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September 26th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Food products do not cause obesity. Eating too much of the wrong kind of food products can. Now, what “too much” and “the wrong kind” are can be an issue of one’s own physiology instead of gluttony; if you have particular metabolic or other medical problems, small amounts of food can be “too much”, and there are kinds of food that are “the wrong kind” for some people that are not the wrong kind for most people. Not to mention issues of not being able to absorb essential nutrients because of various physiological problems, etc.
But, if eating McDonalds’ food is bad for you, don’t eat McDonalds’ food. Food producers should take stuff out of their food (like too much sodium or trans fats) that is bad for just about everybody whenever they can, and they should be required to disclose what is in their stuff so that you can make an intelligent decision as to whether it is harmful for you to eat. But no one is holding a gun to your head and making you eat McDonalds’. If enough people don’t eat the “wrong kinds” of fast food, the producers of such food will go out of business.
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September 26th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
RonF, I feel you may have misunderstood the point of Maia’s post entirely.
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