The obesity rate in America has increased from mere 11% to about 28% in just 20 years. The annual healthcare spending has reached 3.8 trillion dollars. 3 TRILLION DOLLARS. Why is it that healthcare and obesity rate is going up? There are many factors causing this, but one of the most important and major causes are the fast growth of the processed food and fast-food companies. Fast food industry being 191 billion dollar market, there are so many options for people to choose from and just about anywhere we go, we are able to see restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King. Let’s go over why fast food industry is so popular.
When people are going to McDonalds, it is because they want to eat something convenient, tasty, and cheap. Average person eats a Big Mac for about 5 minutes, we get the pleasure of eating a BigMac for 5 minutes, but if we wanted to burn off the calorie from the burger, we would have to walk for more than 2 hours to burn it off. Some people tend to perceive McDonalds as a nice company that cares about people because of all the deceptive marketing campaigns or because they sponsored the Olympics. But we all cannot fall into the deceptive media bias. These companies do not care if the food ruins our health. Their only interest is how much profit that they can make from you. The three main things that fast food companies focus on are taste, convenience, and cost to make sure that they are profiting from you. These companies do not care a bit about your health and we need to guard our own health. Let’s take a look at what these companies use in order manipulate you to keep eating their food.
When you are eating a Dryer’s Ice cream, it wasn’t made with a recipe that a chef thought will taste good. It was made with scientists trying to figure out the bliss point. The bliss point is the precise amount of sugar that we eat that makes us crave more of it. You might be thinking that you aren’t attracted to sugar. However, our body is wired to like sweets and sugar affects us greatly. Sugar also has the power to control our brain. For example, a rat will go in a situation where it would die if it could see something sugary in front of it and our brain is a lot like how the rats think. Consuming sugar also makes us eat a lot more than our average consumption and in almost everything that we consume, there are loads of sugar in it. High-fructose corn syrup is in liquid form which makes it easy to put in all kinds of food,and it is practically in every food available.
One of the Coca cola executives went to Brazil as a business trip. There he saw people drinking coke. However, he resigned after seeing people drink coke. Why? The people that are living in the poor parts of South America were addicted to Coca Cola, so they would spend all their money drinking coke, and they would have health issues because of the continual drinking. Frightened by this, the executive has chosen to resign. You might not know what a soda does to your body, but drinking just one soda everyday will make you gain 1.5 pounds in three weeks which equates to being 26 pounds a year.
Some food that contain ample amounts of sugar are soda, candy, and cereal. You might be thinking cereal is healthy. But, let’s actually take a look at what goes in a cereal. The main ingredient in cereal is sugar, and it generally makes about 50% of the cereal. Some cereals are even at 70.8% sugar. What American kids eat every morning for breakfast contains insane amounts of sugar which leads to kids having diabetes when they grow up. Why does cereal have a healthy image? Let’s take a while back and actually see what has happened.
When General Mills started selling cereals, it started flying off the shelves as it was very sweet and appealing to people. Then, people started realizing how cereals contain load of sugar. As people started to realize, the sale of cereals started to decrease. The companies wanted to retain their sales, so they had to think of some great marketing campaign to retain the customers. Since everyone knew cereals were sugary, they decided to take another approach. They started to say that cereals help brain development. Sure enough, parents started to buy cereals for kids as they thought it will help brain development for kids and the kids loved the sugary cereal. The cereals now have their own image: Corn Flakes being traditional, Frosted Flakes being fun, and Special K being healthy. Once again, this proves we shouldn’t be fooled by the media.
Sugar is not the only food that lures us to eat fast-food. The second is fat. Fat is in almost any fast food or processed food you consume. Why? Fat allows food to not rot for a longer time and it allows it to stay firm. Fat is popular by companies as it is very cheap for them to put in food. Most importantly, it has the power to coat our tongue and convey aroma. Unlike sugar, fat lasts for longer in our head and makes us repeatedly eat what we were eating. For example, once you pick up a Doritos or Cheetos bag, it is very hard to just eat one. That is because the fat in the Doritos is controlling our brain to not put it down and keep eating. The same applies for ice-cream. The smooth, silky texture of ice-cream is because of the fat, and it is hard to stop eating ice-cream after one bite. Scientists use something called “mouthfeel” to conduct study on how long the fat lasts in our mouth and finds how much fat makes our brain to keep eating and consuming the junk food.
The power of salt. Wheat thins is a snack that many people enjoy eating. A researcher conducted a study where people were given wheat thins without salt. Surprisingly, many people thought that they were being given cardboard. When people realized that it was wheat thins, many people had a hard time believing it. This is the power of salt.
“I tried eating healthy, but it’s too expensive!” This is what people say for eating crappy food. Yes, vegetables and grass-fed beef tend to be a bit more expensive compared to processed foods that only cost 1 dollar per meal. But let's actually take a look at how much these processed foods are going to cost us. If we eat these cheap, processed food on a daly basis, we are bound to be the people that spend $20,000 dollars on healthcare. If we consume these superfoods that are actually beneficial to our health, we can save a whole lot more on healthcare.
“Bet you can’t just eat one!” Lay’s potato chips are overloaded with salt and fat, therefore, you can’t quit eating once you pick up the bag. The oil in the chips send a signal in our brain to keep eating. The company even admits that you will be addicted to eating these chips once you start eating as they have conducted numerous amount to perfect the recipe. In fact, many of the people that worked in the cigarette industry are now working in the food industry. Notice something? Both of those industries allure you to keep purchasing their products.
So let’s actually discuss a few ways to replace some habits of eating these foods. For sodas such as Coke and Sprite, we all know how difficult it is to quit drinking. One better substitute I found is to drink carbonated water with a lemon. Although it might not taste as sweet, it definitely has that fizz and I was able to quit drinking soda with carbonated water.
What about chips or sweets? I found before I try to eat any chips, to try eating a cup of cashews or fruit before hand. If I do, I realized I only end up eating 1/4 of how much chips I would normally eat. You can start to decrease the amount as you go. Keep one thing in mind, no matter how much money you have, no matter how many people love you, you are not going to be able to enjoy what you deserve if you don’t have health, let’s try our best to keep eating food that are actually good for us. Stay strong!
When people are going to McDonalds, it is because they want to eat something convenient, tasty, and cheap. Average person eats a Big Mac for about 5 minutes, we get the pleasure of eating a BigMac for 5 minutes, but if we wanted to burn off the calorie from the burger, we would have to walk for more than 2 hours to burn it off. Some people tend to perceive McDonalds as a nice company that cares about people because of all the deceptive marketing campaigns or because they sponsored the Olympics. But we all cannot fall into the deceptive media bias. These companies do not care if the food ruins our health. Their only interest is how much profit that they can make from you. The three main things that fast food companies focus on are taste, convenience, and cost to make sure that they are profiting from you. These companies do not care a bit about your health and we need to guard our own health. Let’s take a look at what these companies use in order manipulate you to keep eating their food.
When you are eating a Dryer’s Ice cream, it wasn’t made with a recipe that a chef thought will taste good. It was made with scientists trying to figure out the bliss point. The bliss point is the precise amount of sugar that we eat that makes us crave more of it. You might be thinking that you aren’t attracted to sugar. However, our body is wired to like sweets and sugar affects us greatly. Sugar also has the power to control our brain. For example, a rat will go in a situation where it would die if it could see something sugary in front of it and our brain is a lot like how the rats think. Consuming sugar also makes us eat a lot more than our average consumption and in almost everything that we consume, there are loads of sugar in it. High-fructose corn syrup is in liquid form which makes it easy to put in all kinds of food,and it is practically in every food available.
One of the Coca cola executives went to Brazil as a business trip. There he saw people drinking coke. However, he resigned after seeing people drink coke. Why? The people that are living in the poor parts of South America were addicted to Coca Cola, so they would spend all their money drinking coke, and they would have health issues because of the continual drinking. Frightened by this, the executive has chosen to resign. You might not know what a soda does to your body, but drinking just one soda everyday will make you gain 1.5 pounds in three weeks which equates to being 26 pounds a year.
Some food that contain ample amounts of sugar are soda, candy, and cereal. You might be thinking cereal is healthy. But, let’s actually take a look at what goes in a cereal. The main ingredient in cereal is sugar, and it generally makes about 50% of the cereal. Some cereals are even at 70.8% sugar. What American kids eat every morning for breakfast contains insane amounts of sugar which leads to kids having diabetes when they grow up. Why does cereal have a healthy image? Let’s take a while back and actually see what has happened.
When General Mills started selling cereals, it started flying off the shelves as it was very sweet and appealing to people. Then, people started realizing how cereals contain load of sugar. As people started to realize, the sale of cereals started to decrease. The companies wanted to retain their sales, so they had to think of some great marketing campaign to retain the customers. Since everyone knew cereals were sugary, they decided to take another approach. They started to say that cereals help brain development. Sure enough, parents started to buy cereals for kids as they thought it will help brain development for kids and the kids loved the sugary cereal. The cereals now have their own image: Corn Flakes being traditional, Frosted Flakes being fun, and Special K being healthy. Once again, this proves we shouldn’t be fooled by the media.
Sugar is not the only food that lures us to eat fast-food. The second is fat. Fat is in almost any fast food or processed food you consume. Why? Fat allows food to not rot for a longer time and it allows it to stay firm. Fat is popular by companies as it is very cheap for them to put in food. Most importantly, it has the power to coat our tongue and convey aroma. Unlike sugar, fat lasts for longer in our head and makes us repeatedly eat what we were eating. For example, once you pick up a Doritos or Cheetos bag, it is very hard to just eat one. That is because the fat in the Doritos is controlling our brain to not put it down and keep eating. The same applies for ice-cream. The smooth, silky texture of ice-cream is because of the fat, and it is hard to stop eating ice-cream after one bite. Scientists use something called “mouthfeel” to conduct study on how long the fat lasts in our mouth and finds how much fat makes our brain to keep eating and consuming the junk food.
The power of salt. Wheat thins is a snack that many people enjoy eating. A researcher conducted a study where people were given wheat thins without salt. Surprisingly, many people thought that they were being given cardboard. When people realized that it was wheat thins, many people had a hard time believing it. This is the power of salt.
“I tried eating healthy, but it’s too expensive!” This is what people say for eating crappy food. Yes, vegetables and grass-fed beef tend to be a bit more expensive compared to processed foods that only cost 1 dollar per meal. But let's actually take a look at how much these processed foods are going to cost us. If we eat these cheap, processed food on a daly basis, we are bound to be the people that spend $20,000 dollars on healthcare. If we consume these superfoods that are actually beneficial to our health, we can save a whole lot more on healthcare.
“Bet you can’t just eat one!” Lay’s potato chips are overloaded with salt and fat, therefore, you can’t quit eating once you pick up the bag. The oil in the chips send a signal in our brain to keep eating. The company even admits that you will be addicted to eating these chips once you start eating as they have conducted numerous amount to perfect the recipe. In fact, many of the people that worked in the cigarette industry are now working in the food industry. Notice something? Both of those industries allure you to keep purchasing their products.
So let’s actually discuss a few ways to replace some habits of eating these foods. For sodas such as Coke and Sprite, we all know how difficult it is to quit drinking. One better substitute I found is to drink carbonated water with a lemon. Although it might not taste as sweet, it definitely has that fizz and I was able to quit drinking soda with carbonated water.
What about chips or sweets? I found before I try to eat any chips, to try eating a cup of cashews or fruit before hand. If I do, I realized I only end up eating 1/4 of how much chips I would normally eat. You can start to decrease the amount as you go. Keep one thing in mind, no matter how much money you have, no matter how many people love you, you are not going to be able to enjoy what you deserve if you don’t have health, let’s try our best to keep eating food that are actually good for us. Stay strong!