Okay Mccoy,
I will dive into the chapters with you. Each chapter opens up with a true or false quiz. Don't cheat, try your best!
But first, the thing I intended on sharing:
Here's a fun little fact about food labels, serving sizes, and marketing: In 2003, the food lobby coerced the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) into allowing food companies to label their products as trans-fat-free if the product had less than 1/2 gram of trans fats per serving. So, the makers of Cool Whip can state that it is a trans-fat-free "food" because there is less than 1/2 gram of trans fat in a 2 tablespoon serving, despite the fact that Cool Whip is mostly made up of trans fats. They can legally lie.
...The science of nutrition is often squishy, and this accounts for the kind of contradiction and misinformation we've seen from scientists and experts over the decades. For example, the American Heart Association, or AHA (which receives much of its funding from the food and pharmaceutical industries), recently declared coconut oil harmful because it contains saturated fat, despite the fact that there has not been a single controlled trial or study showing that organic virgin coconut oil causes heart attacks. The AHA study on fats was funded in part by canola oil processors. The sponsors PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle, Mars, Domino's Pizza, Kraft, Subway, and Quaker- almost all of which have swapped out saturated fats for omega-6 vegetable oils, which the AHA tells us to eat more of to prevent heart disease. The AHA also receives hundreds of thousands of dollars every time its heart-healthy checkmark of approval is used on foods like Lucky Charms- high-sugar junk known to cause heart disease. Increasingly, many scientists point out the potential harm from swapping out saturated with refines vegetable oils or PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids).
The demonization of coconut oil is based on an outdated theory that saturated fat causes heart disease. More than seventeen meta-analysis have found no such link. If we accepted the recommendations of the American Heart Association that we eat less than 5 percent of our calories as saturated fats, we would have to ban breast milk. (It contains a whopping 25 precent of its calories as saturated fats.)
...Another factor we need to consider is who is funding the study. Is there any conflict of interest? If a study is paid for by a food company, it is eight to fifty times more likely to turn up positive findings for that company's product. If Coca-Cola underwrites studies on soft drinks, soda is likely to be found blameless for obesity and disease.
We're getting to Pillar #1 I assure you.
A final reason for dietary uncertainty is that our food system has become so political. Government policies heavily influence our dietary guidelines and dictate which foods are grown, how they're grown and processed, and how they are marketed. Our food policy also determines which foods are at the foundation of all our government food programs, such as food stamps, or SNAP, which feeds more than 40 million people; school lunches; and WIC (Women, Infants and Children Food and Nutrition Service). The outside influence that industrial food and agriculture lobbyists have on our policies encourages a food system that engenders disease. For example, in the 2016 election, the American Beverage Association and the soda companies spent more than $30 million fighting taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. It was only because a deep-pockets organization and a billionaire (the Arnold Foundation and Michael Bloomberg) spent $20 million opposing them that soda taxes passed in four cities. Also, why do the 2015 US Dietary Guidelines recommend we cut our consumption of added sugars to less than 10 percent of our calories, while the same USDA's SNAP program (food stamps) spends about $7 billion a year for the poor to consume soda and sugar-sweetened beverages (about 20 billion servings a year)? (Soda is the number one "food item" purchased by those on SNAP.) No wonder the cost of chronic disease overwhelm our federal budget. We need to transform our food system and address one of the biggest threats to our well-being: our lack of a coordinated and comprehensive food policy.
The Quiz
Sugars and sweeteners:True or False?
1) The main problem with sugar is that it's just empty calories.
2) Agave syrup is a healthy alternative to high-fructose corn syrup and sugar.
3) Saturated fat from butter or meat causes heart disease, not carbs or sugar.
4) Sugar may be more addictive than cocaine.
5) One of the benefits of eating sugar is that it provides fuel to your brain.
6) High-fructose corn syrup is sugar with a different name.
7) If you want to lose weight, replace sugary drinks with diet soda.
