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X-Large (Obesity in America Discussion)
218 pound 3-grader placed into foster care after a year of county working with mother to reduce weight. This kid has sleep apnea and wears a machine to help and monitor his breathing during sleep.
Post edited by 2bfree on
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What bothers me more is that we subsidize foods based largely on politics instead of what's good for you.
My Mom and I were dirt poor when I was a kid. On top of that, it was often too hot (we lived in Tampa and didn't have AC) to do much cooking (and too expensive to use the stove/oven), but I ate healthier then than I did as a teenager when we had more money and purchased more "convenience" meals.
I'd rather cook my own stuff.
Edit: Ninja'd.
On this topic though, I've just started a new diet, so it'll be interesting to see how my costs for food change over the next month compared to previous ones.
I eat junk food all the time, the healthier food I eat is by no means salad and gruel(in fact, I rarely eat salad, not really my thing), drink sugary sodas, drink plenty of beer and spirits and so on. I never set foot inside of a gym to exercise and play a lot of video games. And yet, I'm rail-thin and moderately healthy, Because I still have a vaguely reasonable diet - getting enough of all the stuff one needs, and I stop eating when I'm not hungry - and I exercise a reasonable amount, walking and biking places(not much of a runner, not my thing), playing with the dog, and other such things.
In fact, what they wanted to change was that tomato paste and puree wouldn't be insanely over-counted anymore - as it stands, one eighth of a cup of Paste/puree counts as half a cup serving of vegetables - and it was voted down. Which isn't the most enormous bungle in the world, really.
Basically, it was meant to stop Schools from crediting a volume of fruits or vegetables that is more than the actual serving size. What would it have done if it passed? Not a hell of a lot, changed a few school lunches, and made them a bit more expensive. What happens now that it doesn't pass? Literally nothing.
So calm the fuck down, internet. Pizza is not and never was a vegetable, nor was anybody trying to make it one. Everybody is blowing the whole thing WAY out of proportion.
What you should be bitching about is that it's measured in cups. A cup of, say, avocado is going to be wildly different(though probably somewhat more pleasant) than a cup of raw onions, but they both count for a cup of vegetable.
And Pizza, is pretty unhealthy as a whole when you look at the calories per serving and cafeterias ALWAYS have it. It's more of this concern than anything that fueled the interest with Pizza topic about Obesity in America.
Basically, it's another case of the internet basically being Fox News, but without the agenda, because you'd have trouble getting the internet to express a coherent unified thought, let alone a coherent agenda.
Aside from that, it's a perfectly acceptable way to put it - yes, it's a shortcut, but it's not like we're all nutritionists, or even that clued in about food and diet. Try explaining a perfectly accurate version of one's daily requirements, and people will not give a single fuck. Making it simple as is done with the "servings" version makes it much more likely that people will actually remember it, and at least take it under advisement.
TL:DR - Of course it's a shortcut, people are stupid and lazy. If it wasn't a shortcut, you'd probably all be even fatter. Yeah, because it's cheap and extremely easily fits the requirements without a problem - Each serving must be less than a third of the daily calorie requirement, less than 30 percent of the serving is fat.
As for the Sauce being just for a little bit of flavor argument, surprisingly, not so much. It actually comes out pretty well - An eighth of a cup of tomato sauce is not that far off nutritionally from, say, a half-cup of apples. Naturally, it blows it out of the water in terms of sodium and potassium, but otherwise, quite similar.
There is plenty more to rage about before you get anywhere close to talking about pizza sauce - like how only about 20% of american schools give even a single fuck about the government guidelines for fat content. Clearly, the only solution is to rig up a Ma Deuce so that it fires babybelles.
To be honest, I am surprised the tea party types and such don't seem to be screaming about this.
Cheese can work well as a protein source, but I'll always try and get a veggie pizza for myself. Especially when I can buy a single slice for lunch/dinner. I also know how to make personal pizzas with pita bread, so all in all, it's a matter of adapting stuff.
More often than not healthy food isn't better-tasting than the unhealthy one, but there are ways to make it taste great, and it's something I've had to live with since I can't digest fats well (I had my gallbladder removed). It's just that, as I mentioned before, people don't like to spend a lot of time cooking and prefer to have quicker but considerably less convenient food. Which then accounts for unhealthy lifestyles and weight.
While I could be a really good vegetarian (cheese and mushrooms fan), I know the key is eating a little bit of everything in a balanced way. excess in anything can make you sick (physically and mentally).