Drug addict zombie communities

[cybercoma]

On 11/27/2016 at 4:20 AM, Bonam said:

Yes, let's jail anyone who dares to not eat the government-approved diet. Go down that path and before you know it your meal for each day will be prescribed by some bureaucrat on the other side of the continent. Freedom is more important than reducing the harm that stupid people can do to themselves.

Big Brother slop for everyone!

[cybercoma]

11 hours ago, The_Squid said:

 Nothing wrong with extra taxes on unhealthy food.  The health costs of obesity and trying to curb unhealthy behaviour is good reason for extra taxes.  Plus, they're entirely voluntary. 

Extra taxes on vices don't reduce vices. There's little elasticity for these products, including cigarettes and alcohol. Someone's not going to suddenly discover how to eat healthful foods because suddenly there's higher tax on some things and not others.

Also, we don't list taxes on product labels in stores. So it will be an unpleasant surprise at the cash register, unless it's mandated to be on the pricing label.

Perhaps more importantly, eating healthful foods requires time and skill to prepare food. People eat processed foods a lot of the time because of the convenience or because they lack the requisite knowledge or skill to come up with and create meals from scratch. Home Ec isn't a required course anymore. This is also why so many people eat out at restaurants several times a month. I work with people who buy lunch out every single day. It's more convenient. Point to something and pay for it. Takes less time, knowledge, and skill.

Paying an extra 10 cents on a can of pop isn't going to dissuade anyone. It's just going to leave people with less money to buy other things.

[Bryan]

10 hours ago, The_Squid said:

Comparing pop to eggs is just plain silly.  No one is suggesting taxing actual food that isn't sugary and processed.

People absolutely were talking about those very things with respect to saturated fat and cholesterol as recently as a year ago. Promoting a lower carb diet was illegal in Canada.

[Bonam]

14 hours ago, The_Squid said:

Comparing pop to eggs is just plain silly.  No one is suggesting taxing actual food that isn't sugary and processed.

"Processed" as an adjective is virtually meaningless when it comes to foods. Almost every food item undergoes some process between the time that a plant is harvested or the animal is slaughtered and the time it ends up on a store shelf. And "sugar" is not bad for you, sugar is just energy, and for people that are active consuming sugary foods is not harmful in the least, nor is it harmful in moderation even if you aren't particularly active. Sugar is bad for you if you eat a ton of it and then sit around doing nothing and get fat, but that is true of almost all foods. 

There are endless amounts of misinformation circulating about what is good and what is bad for you in terms of food. The reality is when it comes to getting fat or not, it's a simple matter of calories in vs calories out. Some foods may give you a feeling of being full with fewer calories, and others might make it easy to consume a ton of excess calories, but in the end to avoid gaining weight it's just calories in vs calories out. It literally couldn't be any other way, because it comes down to fundamental physics. Other than that, you just need to make sure your diet includes all the necessary types of nutrients/minerals that your body needs, which is a requirement that is trivially satisfied as long as your diet consists of a variety of different types of foods.

The media constantly bombards people with the supposed results of "studies" that say eat this or don't eat that, or that this and this helps prevent cancer, etc. But it's all bullshit, most of the studies are being misrepresented in the media, and those that aren't blatantly misrepresented are usually based on very small sample sizes, poor experimental methodologies, and have not been verified by a 2nd independent study. 

All anyone (who doesn't have specific diseases/allergies that eliminate or contraindicate large categories of food) needs to know about foods is:

- eat different kinds of things

- don't eat in excess

Follow the above two guidelines and throw in a lifestyle that includes moving around at least a little bit on a daily basis and you'll be just fine. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Bonam

[Guest]

3 hours ago, cybercoma said:

Extra taxes on vices don't reduce vices. There's little elasticity for these products, including cigarettes and alcohol. Someone's not going to suddenly discover how to eat healthful foods because suddenly there's higher tax on some things and not others.

Also, we don't list taxes on product labels in stores. So it will be an unpleasant surprise at the cash register, unless it's mandated to be on the pricing label.

Perhaps more importantly, eating healthful foods requires time and skill to prepare food. People eat processed foods a lot of the time because of the convenience or because they lack the requisite knowledge or skill to come up with and create meals from scratch. Home Ec isn't a required course anymore. This is also why so many people eat out at restaurants several times a month. I work with people who buy lunch out every single day. It's more convenient. Point to something and pay for it. Takes less time, knowledge, and skill.

Paying an extra 10 cents on a can of pop isn't going to dissuade anyone. It's just going to leave people with less money to buy other things.

No, but if you tax a whole lot of foods that I find unacceptable you could put the money into healthcare. I won't need it, of course, but you never know who might.

[cybercoma]

Yes because only people who eat junk food use hospitals. /s

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, cybercoma said:

Yes because only people who eat junk food use hospitals. /s

 

They could share...

[Bryan]

3 hours ago, Bonam said:

The reality is when it comes to getting fat or not, it's a simple matter of calories in vs calories out.

Our bodies are far more complex systems than that.

[Bonam]

4 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Our bodies are far more complex systems than that.

Our bodies are indeed very complex systems. All the details of what goes on inside are immensely complicated, and many of them are not yet well understood scientifically. However, what IS very well understood are the basic physical principles of conservation of mass and conservation of energy. Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose mass, it's simply not physically possible for it to be any other way. Eat more calories than you burn, and you will gain mass, again, physically impossible for it to be any other way. There are many many other aspects to one's health besides one's mass, of course. But when it comes to one's mass, it really is that simple. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Bonam

[Bryan]

Just now, Bonam said:

Our bodies are indeed very complex systems. All the details of what go on inside are immensely complicated, and many of them are not yet well understood scientifically. However, what IS very well understood are the basic physical principles of conservation of mass and conservation of energy. Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose mass, it's simply not physically possible for it to be any other way. Eat more calories than you burn, and you will gain mass, again, physically impossible for it to be any other way. There are many many other aspects to one's health besides one's mass, of course. But when it comes to one's mass, it really is that simple. 

The "than you burn" part is the sticky wicket, because certain foods have a greater thermic effect than others, meaning you can eat more calories of them than others and still lose weight. Calories count, just not very much.

[Bonam]

4 minutes ago, Bryan said:

The "than you burn" part is the sticky wicket, because certain foods have a greater thermic effect than others, meaning you can eat more calories of them than others and still lose weight. Calories count, just not very much.

The thermic effect is the energy it takes to digest the food in the first place. Yes, some foods take more energy to digest than others (i.e. they are less efficient in providing energy to the human body). Digestion is just one of many processes that burn calories all the time. Breathing burns calories. Your heart pumping your blood around your body burns calories. Your brain processing the information that comes into it from your eyes burns calories, too. Obviously, when considering your overall caloric balance, you would have to take into account all energy expenditures, including those for digesting food. 

[Argus]

On 11/22/2016 at 0:13 AM, bcsapper said:

Agreed.  People who think child abuse is horrific when it manifests as a good spanking think nothing of keeping a fridge stocked with Coke, and giving their kids unfettered access to it.

I like Coke. I'm not fat. I exercise. I don't need to lose weight. My dentist approves of my teeth.

All things in moderation.

[Guest]

Just now, Argus said:

I like Coke. I'm not fat. I exercise. I don't need to lose weight. My dentist approves of my teeth.

All things in moderation.

Sure, you can smoke too, if you want.  I can't imagine you would let your minor children do so, though. 

I used to let my kids drink pop if they went to someone's birthday party.  I'm not a monster.

[cannuck]

On 11/27/2016 at 10:35 PM, Bryan said:

The same scientists who have been wrong almost every time with regards to nutrition? That's my concern. If we were listening to them, things like eggs would have been banned or heavily taxed. We think we know sugar is bad now. We were really sure about cholesterol and fat before. Turns out scientists find what they are paid to find.

I hear you on the wife though. You should definitely listen to her.

No actual food scientist (or those from many other disciplines) ever bought into the eggs and butter BS.   That started from one extremely flawed "study" in the '30s funded by those who would go on to establish processed food products (margarine at the top of that list).  Don't sell science short if you don't bother to pay attention, inform yourself and know about it.

There were comments about the government determining what is and is not good for us (nutritionally).   It just so happens, that in Canada we not only have a large sick care business, but we actually have some genuine health care.  Much of that is provided by...wait for it...our government.  The beauty of having such an impartial body is that it is, well, impartial.  Particularly free of the bias of industry that you cite (correctly) about our sources of "scientific" missinformation.  While nothing is perfect, we have a very good source of information from Health Canada in the form of the Canada Food Guide.  I have access to some pretty dedicated and motivated people in food science, and they tell me the CFG is usually out of date by a bit, but overall, not bad information at all.