there is no finish line...enjoy the ride...

Food for Thought

 

Alzheimer’s, Parkinson's and other Neurodegenerative diseases are on the rise within cultures around the globe that have adopted the North American lifestyle and diet. One of the scariest things we face as we age is losing our ability to function and reason on a coherent level. Celebrities like Michael J. Fox are bringing Parkinson's disease to the limelight and scientists are hopeful that a cure will be available within the next few decades.  I’ve lost two Aunts to Alzheimer’s and the prescription drugs are failing to inhibit progression, so the only thing we can do is to make sure we're getting proper cellular nutrition.

 

Scan any list of so-called superfoods on the web and you’ll find the same group of berries at the top of the list. They’re low in calories, fat free and a good source of fibre and vitamins.  But their superfood status is credited largely to outstanding polyphenol content, natural compounds linked with anti-aging, anti-cancer and heart health benefits.  But it gets even better.  A new study suggests properties in berries remove toxins that interfere with brain function.  Now berries can help your brain clean house.It seems that a berry-rich diet can activate the brain?s natural house-cleaning process, helping remove toxins and other compounds that can interfere with brain function. iStockphoto 

When it comes to anti-aging, previous studies have demonstrated the ability of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc to slow cognitive decline and improve memory in aged animals. It’s thought that polyphenols protect the brain through their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory characteristics.

 

A new study presented last week at the 240th meeting of the American Chemical Society suggests that berries do more to keep your brain healthy as you age than fight harmful free radicals and dampen inflammation.  It seems that a berry-rich diet can activate the brain’s natural house-cleaning process, helping remove toxins and other compounds that can interfere with brain function.

 

Brain cells called microglia are responsible for the clean-up and recycling of toxic proteins, a process called autophagy.  In aging, however, microglia fail to do their work properly and toxic debris builds up. In addition, microglia become over-activated and actually begins to damage healthy brain cells.

 

In the study, researchers from the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston exposed cultures of mouse brain cells to extracts of a variety of berries as well as walnuts, which are also rich in polyphenols. The extracts were the human equivalent to eating one cup of fresh berries or 14 walnut halves.  The berry and walnut extracts inhibited the action of a protein than normally shuts down autophagy and increased the levels of proteins that turn on the brain’s house-keeping process.

 

The main source of polyphenols is your diet. While berries like raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and walnuts are excellent sources so are cherries, cranberries, plums, pomegranate seeds, prunes and red and purple grapes.  Knowing the benefits these little nutrient powerhouses posses, I’ve made berries a key part of my morning breakfast ritual for years, and for the past year, in an effort to increase my consumption of berries to my diet, I have added a couple ounces of Youth Juice every morning.  Each bottle of YJ is locally grown and manufactured whole food product contains 7 lbs of the same berries featured in the study above. 

 

Other foods have also been shown to slow aging of the brain. Earlier this year, a large U.S. study revealed that individuals who had higher intakes of salad, nuts, fish, tomatoes, fruit, cruciferous vegetables, leafy greens and lower intakes of high-fat dairy, red meat, organ meats and butter were 38 per cent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease compared to those who adhered the least to this dietary pattern.  Another report concluded that a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and olive oil guarded against Alzheimer’s.

 

Brain cells should be protected more so than any other cells in your body for one very good reason - they do not regenerate. Once brain cells die, they're gone forever, unlike other cells in your body.  If you don't make efforts to clear out the free radicals in the brain, degeneration will begin to occur on a daily basis.  Think about it!

 

Enjoy the Ride….Rob

Would you like Lipitor with your Burger?

You know the world’s gone crazy when a group of British Scientists suggested that fast food establishments like McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s should give out cholesterol-lowering Statin drugs like Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor that we see advertized on TV all the time (you know the ones...they take 20 seconds of the 30 second commercial explaining all the negative side-effects) to counter increased risk of heart disease these foods present.  Leslie Beck from the Globe and Mail wrote a great article this week that I’d like to share with you. 

 

 

I'm curious what you think, but wouldn’t a better solution be to stop eating food that’s ultra high in sodium contributing to high blood pressure, excessive calories leading to obesity, refined sugars found in soft drinks, milkshakes, salads and desserts that increase blood triglycerides and depress the good HDL Cholesterol. 

 

Taking Lipitor with your Wendy’s “Baconator” may reduce your chance of a heart attack, but it provides a false sense of security for people determined to continue eating an unhealthy diet.

 

What do you think?

 

Enjoy the Ride ....Rob

 

Leslie Beck

Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010 7:13PM EDT

 

Last week, British scientists suggested that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs should be given out with fast-food orders in an effort to erase the heart risks linked with eating fatty foods.  The study, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, concluded that taking a low-dose statin can reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack to the same degree that eating a fast-food meal increases it. What’s more, the researchers reported that statins have a better safety record than fast food and they’re cheap – about the same cost as a packet of ketchup.

 

Even so, are we really ready to take the easy road and hand out drugs with greasy fast food? In my opinion, doing so would send out the wrong message. And it certainly wouldn’t wipe out all the health hazards associated with frequent fast-food consumption.

 

Statins, which include Lipitor (generic name atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin), Pravachol (pravastatin) and Crestor (rosuvastatin), are used widely to treat and prevent heart disease. They’re given both to people with heart disease and, in more recent years, to those who are at risk for heart disease but who have no history of it.  They work by slowing the liver’s ability to produce cholesterol and increasing the removal of LDL (bad) cholesterol from the body. In Britain, a generic statin called simvastatin is already available in low doses over the counter in pharmacies. Others are available only by prescription. In Canada, all statins are prescribed by physicians.

 

In the study, researchers used data from a previous large study to quantify how a person’s risk of heart attack increases with daily consumption of total fat and trans fat. Trans fat is the most dangerous type of fat in terms of heart disease risk – it raises LDL (bad) cholesterol and lowers HDL (good) cholesterol.  They compared this information with the decrease in heart attack risk from different statins, based on an analysis of seven randomized controlled trials including 42,848 patients, the majority whom had risk factors for heart attack such as diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.  The findings showed that daily consumption of most statins was able to offset the increased heart risk of eating a daily cheeseburger and small milkshake.

 

The researchers wrote they envision a future when “upon ordering an unhealthy meal, the food will arrive labelled with a warning message, and on the tray, next to the ketchup, will be a new and protective packet, “MacStatin,” which could be sprinkled onto a Quarter Pounder or into a milkshake.” While this makes me nervous, I do agree with the authors’ belief that the fast food industry should develop healthier menus and encourage regular physical activity and weight control.  Many fast food chains have, in fact, have added a spattering of healthier and lower-calorie options to menus. Results from Health Canada’s Trans Fat Monitoring Program also indicate that the fast food industry is doing a decent job at reducing Trans Fat in foods to meet regulated limits.

 

While salads, grilled chicken, snack-sized sandwiches and fresh fruit exist on many fast food menu boards, they continue to be outnumbered by greasy, salty fare. And it seems we still have an appetite for super-sized meals. Wendy’s Triple Baconator has 1,370 calories, 92 grams of total fat, 39 grams of saturated fat, and 2,380 milligrams of sodium. Burger King’s Quad Stacker – layers of beef and cheese topped with bacon and sauce – weighs in at 920 calories, 63 grams of fat, 28 grams of saturated fat and 1,670 milligrams of sodium. Add a medium-sized fries and soft drink to your order and you’ll easily consume at least a day’s worth of calories and two days’ worth of cholesterol-raising saturated fat and cholesterol. (Consider the average adult needs roughly 2,000 calories, no more than 20 grams of saturated fat and 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day. Kids, of course, need less.)

 

Canadians do like their fast food. According to the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey on any given day, one-quarter of Canadians – adults and children alike – eat something prepared at a fast food restaurant. While that might have been a salad or simply a cup of coffee, 40 per cent said they chose a burger, hot dog, pizza or sandwich. Even so, that doesn’t mean a side order of Lipitor is the answer. Yes, these drugs are important medications for people with (or at high risk of developing) heart disease. But a study published earlier this year suggested that statins do not save lives in people without heart disease, questioning their use in low risk people. What about the potential risks of letting people take statins freely, without medical supervision, kids and teenagers included?

 

What’s more, statins can’t atone for all of the sins of fast food. Putting the emphasis on fat in fast food and blood cholesterol seems short-sighted to me. A steady intake of fast food can cause the development of other potent risk factors for heart disease. High sodium levels in fast food can promote or worsen high blood pressure. Excessive calories can lead to obesity. And refined sugars in soft drinks, milkshakes and desserts can increase blood triglycerides and depress HDL cholesterol. Fast food meals also lack fruit, vegetables and fibre, components of a healthy diet that guard against heart disease.

 

Handing out statins with fast food could provide a false sense of security and detract people from making heart-healthy changes to diet and exercise. It could also detract from something that’s sorely needed: education on healthy eating starting at a young age. I think we’d be much better off teaching nutrition and cooking skills in schools – as a regular part of the curriculum, versus a brief, one-shot overview of Canada’s food guide – than promoting the notion of a magic bullet.

Coke vs Water

After my last post about Aspartame, a friend forwarded me these interesting facts about Coke vs Water. 

   WATER 

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, 
2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.
3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as 3%.
4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.
5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.
9. Are you drinking enough water every day?

 

COKE  

1. In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the 'real thing' sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola
7. to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
8. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminium foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
9. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 

• The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.
• To carry Coca-Cola syrup! (the concentrate) the commercial trucks must use a hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
• The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean engines of the trucks for about 20 years!
• Now the question is: would like a glass of Water, or Coke

Enjoy the Ride ..... Rob

 

Just Do It

My daughter posted the following blog today (www.morethanalogo.blogspot.com) that I thought I’d share with you as there is a common theme that aligns with my blog site’s purpose. 

Lately athletic shoe companies like Sketchers, Reebok, etc. have come out with a style of athletic/walking shoe they claim will become toned simply by walking around in their product.  As I’ve often said, exercise requires effort and it’s disingenuous for these and any vendor to market to the public otherwise.  There’s no such thing as the “7-Minute Ab Workout”, the ”3-Minute Bow Flex workout”, the 12-Exercises in “10-Minutes Workout” etc, etc that will sufficiently elevate your heart rate and provide the necessary training effect for overall good health.  At best, these new fad shoes may assist in improving posture, but that's as far as it goes.  That said, my wife owns a pair of these shoes and she loves the comfort they offer, but make no mistake, her good shape comes from riding her bike 100's of km's each week.

Most North Americans despise the very thought of regular exercise, so these vendors are marketing a short cut solution that appeals to the lazy nature inherent in most people.  Don’t be surprised that you'll never look like their models they feature simply by wearing a pair of Sketchers.  These models hit the gym, or participate in some other form of regular exercise to look as great as they do.  We don’t call it a “Work-Out” for nothing.  Good health requires work, and as the Nike ad above says, “The Ultimate Quick Fix ... These Shoes Work, If You Do”.

Enjoy the Ride …. Rob

 

Nike on Brand = The Ultimate Quick Fix

Having just finished my afternoon run, I came across Nike's new ad for the Nike Trainer One, which read "This shoe works if you do." My first thought after reading it, "Brilliant!"

 

Today, BrandWeek wrote about this ad and its retaliation to the popular toning shoes introduced by companies like Sketchers and Reebok. These toning shoes have generated considerable increases in revenue for these organizations, and the article suggests that Nike missed the boat and should have created a toning shoe to meet women's needs, and the ad was in defence of them not creating one of these shoes.

 

Well, I couldn't disagree with this more. Sure, maybe Nike missed the "opportunity" to create a toning shoe, but, if this is true, I would consider it a blessing in disguise. If Nike had created a toning shoe, an athletic shoe designed to make working out "easy", it would have gone against Nike's core brand philosophy of Authentic Athletic Performance. There is no authentic athletic performance in trying to get in shape without sweating.

 

Nike is about striving for excellence; being the best; going out there and Just Doing It! I mean look at this recent ad for the Write The Future campaign - there is nothing in this alluding to making athleticism easy:

 

 

It would be completely backwards for Nike to create an athletic shoe for people trying to avoid "Just Doing It".

 

However, the toning shoes make perfect sense for Reebok, who is repositioning itself as the sports brand that makes sport fun and approachable for everyone. But Nike is about being competitive, willing to go through the hurt and be the best. Walking around to tone doesn't fit the mold.

 

It's no wonder Nike is the market leader. In my mind, they are crystal clear on who they are, and they are willing to make the appropriate trade-offs to maintain their brand philosophy.

 

Just like the ad suggests, the quick fix is sticking to the fundamentals - in the case of branding, the fundamentals are your philosophy!

Why Aspartame is the Deadliest Artificial Sweetener

Being an advocate of health, I’m mindful to what I put into my body.  I’m also very aware of what my family and close friends eat and drink and have no problem letting know when I see them eating or drinking something I know is unhealthy.  So it goes without saying that I observe the general public’s diet with keen interest, because what they eat has a direct impact on the state of our unsustainable healthcare systems and yours and my taxes (or insurance premiums in the USA). 

 

There’s no better place to observe what “Joe Public” consume than at the check-out line of your neighborhood grocery store.  So I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I find it disturbing when I see what people purchase for themselves and their children.  

I was particularly shocked yesterday with the food the lady behind me at the check-out line at my neighborhood Sobey’s had in her cart.  She didn’t have a single food item that was natural.  Everything was processed, and many items contained artificial sweeteners.  What really caught my attention were the 11 super large bottles of diet Pepsi (yes, I actually counted them).  This lady was probably in her late 20’s, or early 30’s, but it was hard to tell because she looked like crap.  She was obese, with unhealthy looking hair, her skin was covered with blotchy red patches and she appeared exhausted as she dragged all her fatness up to the checkout counter.  This brings me to the topic of ASPARTAME. 

Let start at the end this time….

Aspartame, where to start?  Let me start at the end, because it’s too important to wait until the end of this blog post for my conclusion.  When it comes to this drug/poison, JUST SAY NO!  There, you don’t have to read anymore if you wish.  For the rest of you that want to know why this substance should never have been approved by the FDA, read on. 

Background/History

You could spend a month reading about the history of this drug and only scratch the surface, but I will attempt to summarize the high points. 

Aspartame’s discovery was quite accidental.  A chemist was testing a new chemical as a possible anti-ulcer drug when he spilled some of the liquid on his hand. He licked his thumb clean and was surprised at its sweetness.  Aspartame is commonly sold under the brand names like NutraSweet and Equal.  It was one of the first artificial sweeteners to hit the market. About 180 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame is now an ingredient in more than 6,000 products consumed in over 180 countries by around 250 million people worldwide. 

But did you know that aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent and that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other manufacturers produced a report in the early 1980s before it had been approved by the FDA. Their report warned that Aspartame affects the workings of the brain, change behaviour and even encourage its users to eat extra carbohydrates, so destroying the point of using diet drinks (hence the fat lady at the grocery checkout).  

 

 

One final thing many Americans don’t realize how this poison made it to market is that Donald Rumsfeld played a key role in pushing the approval of aspartame through the FDA.  Yes Donald Rumsfeld.  He became the chief executive officer of worldwide pharmaceutical giant G.D. Searle & Company in 1977 (later bought out by Monsanto, which reportedly he earned $15M ), 12 years after aspartame was discovered.  In 1981, after over 15 years of continual FDA disapproval of aspartame, Rumsfeld stated in a Searle sales meeting that he would use "political rather than scientific means" to get the FDA to approve the sweetener.  That’s just what happened, as aspartame was finally approved shortly after the beginning of the Reagan administration despite the huge objections of many in the scientific community.

The Dangers of Aspartame

If you think that low-calorie foods and drinks using aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are a dieter’s best friend, you are gravely mistaken, says Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of Sweet Deception. Studies show that aspartame may actually increase your appetite. You’re more prone to gain weight if you regularly consume aspartame-sweetened diet sodas.  If regular soft drinks that are sweetened with “High-Fructose Corn Syrup” (the major contributor to the Obesity Crisis in North America) that have a pH of 2.5, (which is equivalent to Vinegar) isn’t bad enough, read on to see in addition to this high acidity the kind of poison you’re subjecting yourself and your family to when you consume diet soft drinks sweetened by Aspartame.

So false weight loss promises aside, this is the least of your concerns when compared to other aspartame effects. It’s a little known fact that aspartame accounts for about 85 percent of all adverse reactions to food additives, including five reported deaths.

The Technical Stuff

Aspartame is composed of three chemicals: aspartic acid (40 percent), methanol (10 percent), and phenylalanine (50 percent). Aspartic acid is a known excitotoxin, a substance which overexcites cells to the point of damage or death. Methanol, (or highly poisonous wood alcohol), breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde–a deadly neurotoxin, Dr. Mercola explains. Phenylalanine is an amino acid present in your brain.

Those suffering from the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine, which leads to dangerously high and sometimes lethal levels of this amino acid in the brain. Consuming aspartame, especially along with carbohydrates, can lead to high levels of phenylalanine in the brain even in persons who do not have PKU.

 

The combined effects of these three chemicals can lead to a wide variety of health problems, some occur immediately, while others appear gradually.  As with all substances that are a source of long term Degenerative Diseases, the affects of Aspartame may not be immediately observed for most people, so there’s no immediate cause and effect to set off the emergency alarms.  Don’t let that slow you from stopping your use of this poison, because let’s be perfectly clear, this is a poisonous drug to be avoided at all cost.  According to Dr. Mercola, adverse reactions and side effects of aspartame include the following:

 

Birth defects

Cancer

Fibromyalgia

Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Diabetes

Emotional disorders

Epilepsy/seizures

Fatigue

Headaches/migraines

Insomnia

Memory loss

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Epstein-Barr

Post-Polio Syndrome

Lyme Disease

Grave’s Disease

Meniere’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease

ALS

Epilepsy

Lupus

Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

The sad truth is that this long list only begins to touch on the health hazards of aspartame. You can literally research this poison for months and still barely scratch the surface.  I encourage you to do your own research and to find out the truth for yourself.

 

Our healthcare systems are moving into very dark times and you and your family are going to need to be as healthy as possible for what lies ahead.  You won't get the truth from the mainstream media, because they’re either owned and/or supported through advertizing by the same corporations that produce these harmful products. 

 
 

The health of your family is too important to risk relying on the assurances of corporations who pay lip service to the health of our nation.  The truth is that aspartame is really, really bad for you.  I hope this will assist you in beginning your own personal interest into the products you purchase at the supermarket. 

Enjoy the ride …. Rob

If you’d like to learn more about the health and political manipulation that forced this poison on an unsuspecting public, watch the attached 11 part video series on You Tube called “Sweet Misery”.

 

 

 

The Free Market Prefers You Overweight - Why & What Should You Do?

I just wrote a blog about the disturbing state of North American’s sky-rocketing obesity rates and for this alarming trend to stop, or at least slow down it’s my opinion that it will take a crisisat the macro and/or micro levels.  At the “macro” level, we may find the universality of healthcare becoming less universal than it once was.  Corrective health procedures may be based on a selection criteria and wait times will impact an individual's quality of life for years, not just months!  Or at the “micro” level, personal health crisis' may occur and force individuals to make better lifestyle choices.  Health maintenance requires work and most people generally don’t like the discomfort associated with exercise and they love the convenience of processed food, versus the effort required to prepare healthy meals for themselves and their families, all the while ignoring their future health consequences of their poor choices.

When asked why someone begins an exercise program for the first time, or switches to eating a healthy diet, it’s usually an external or self impose mini or major crisis that forced them to change.  For example, “a doctor may urge a patient to eat a healthier diet because they’ve become a prime candidate for heart disease, or an overweight person may think they’re unattractive so they begin to exercise (vanity can often create a self imposed crisis).  It’s been my observation that all the health information in the world won’t motivate people to change their unhealthy practises until faced with a crisis. (for example: 20% of people still smoke cigarettes knowing this product kills).  My personal health crisis that motivated me to change my unhealthy lifestyle happened at the young age of 23, as I watched my mother die of cancer over a three year period (the picture below was taken in 1981 - 6 months before my mother's death, as myself (on the left) and my two IBM colleagues met my mother the day before we departed on a 2600km bike ride from Toronto to Ft Lauderdale, raising money for Leukaemia Research).  From the moment my mother was diagnosed with Leukaemia, I made health a priority in my life which ultimately became a positive lifestyle habit. 

The reason we see a minority of the population exercising daily, eating healthy food and seem impervious to "Big Food's" marketing machine is because they've made a commitment to health that's became an established habit.  For these people, taking a day off from their exercise regime is the anomaly.  Eating pizza or junk food is rare and drinking the poison we call Soft Drinks just never happens.  These positive health habits are as difficult to break as cigarettes are to smokers, or liquor is to an alcoholic.    

So why are positive health habits that become part of your DNA so important?   Because without them you're highly susceptible to the food industry's marketing gurus that wake up every morning thinking up new and ingenious ways to separate you from your money through whatever means necessary, with the subsequent consequences to the you or society’s long term health implications not even an afterthought.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Marketing, on the contrary.  If it weren’t for marketing, far more people would be smoking today and significantly more people would be dying of AIDS.

Marketing with the sole purpose of making profits at the expense of human pain and suffering is what I object to.  “Big Food” would like nothing more than people to be overweight and even better if you’re obese, because they make money on people's inability to make healthy lifestyle choices.  I’m also not a conspiracy theorist, so let me explain.

• Food producers earn more profit from processed foods – ie. potato chips vs potatoes, Popcorn vs corn. (have you been to the movie theatre lately, you know what I mean about excessive profits on processed food)
• Processed foods are high in calories, with a high glycemic index and low in nutrient value, and they will increase your appetite because your body carves nutrients, not empty calories
• Your increased appetite causes you to eat more food (more empty calories)
• And when you eat all the food in your house, you rush out to the convenience store or worse still, McDonald's and buy more “nutritionally free” food loaded with free radicals that further increases your appetite
• And the food producers make more money off your poor food choices

So what, it’s a free market, this should be alright….or is it?

According to Dr. Peter Ubel, in his new book – Free Market Madness – food producers and grocery stores spend significant money learning how to market their products that have the largest profit margins and high inventory turns to their customers.  Processed foods make significantly more profit for “Big Food” than their healthy original source (ie. Potatoes vs Potato Chips, Corn vs Pop Corn or Corn Syrup used as a soft drink sweetener). Since profit, not health and social responsibility is Big Food’s purpose, they focus on marketing Coca Cola and Potato Chips, rather than Corn and Potatoes.  The subsequent health issues are someone else’s problem (healthcare's), not theirs.  A friend of mine that used to work for Nestle's once told me for a food item to be successful, it had to contain, sugar, salt, or fat.  Nothing in a grocery store just happens by accident.

In some supermarket today, a marketing expert is wandering the aisles watching how you shop, observing whether your eyes roam the shelves from top to bottom or bottom to top, and measuring how long you linger in front of an end cap display promoting some high profit junk food when you have a toddler in tow.  They want to know where to place their highest margin foods, with no respect to food quality and long term health implications.  The simple fact is you know less about your own shopping behaviour than the people running the stores where you shop.

It shouldn't surprise us that our hospitals are overloaded with people whose degenerative diseases are the direct result of poor food choices, when sophisticated marketing specialists spend a career researching behavioural economics to seduce people into eating foods that are harmful to their health in the quest of profit?  Trust me, without healthy lifestyle habits ingrained in your DNA, you don’t stand a chance.

Western-style democracies pride themselves on freedoms: freedom to assemble, freedom to elect, and freedom to interact in the marketplace. Indeed, capitalism and democracy seem to go hand in hand.  The flip side of freedom of choice is the freedom to make bad choices.  In the current marketplace, companies make a practise of studying human behaviour, and your freedom of choice often leads to your own pain and misery brought on by degenerative diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, Osteoporosis, cancer, joint degeneration, etc.

We might think that we’re impervious to television ads and supermarket sales tactics, but marketers and sales experts know more about your purchasing behaviour than you do, and they know how to influence you without your awareness.

So, how do you defend yourself against all of the psychological tactics that the food producers and marketing gurus are continually throwing at you, if health habits aren’t ingrained into your DNA? 

Well, ensure that you have a plan whenever you enter a grocery store:

1. Before you go to the supermarket, decide what HEALTHY foods you NEED. (if you’re confused which foods you NEED, make it easy in yourself and use a cheat sheet by choosing foods that fall into the categories of vegetables, fruit, leafy greens, healthy carbohydrates, non-processed protein)
2. You shouldn’t have any junk food on your list.  You know what I'm talking about (Chips, Pop, Candy, frozen prepared dinners, etc)
3. Avoid the aisles that contain processed foods and avoid the junk food aisles like the plague.  It’s tempting to pick up junk food when you’re surrounded by it.  And don’t forget, the grocery store understands just where to place these items.
4. Write out your entire food list containing your healthy choices
5. And stick to your list.  Make no exceptions, unless it's a healthy item you forgot.

You’ll never look at the grocery store or the food they sell the same way again .... and that’s a good thing.

Make healthy choices a habit - Enjoy the ride …. Rob

Note – If you are interested in learning more about how the free market isn’t as free as you think it is, check out Free Market Madness by Dr. Peter Ubel.