Obesity: Why are we getting fat? :epizza:

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by mynah

If MSG causes weight gain, is it because of the sodium content, rather than the glutamate?

Possibly a bit of both?
Nearly every processed food/meal (tinned soups & stocks especially) at the supermarket contains it. With perhaps the exception of cat food.

[Nitack]

To the salt arguments... Your body retains water when you consume a lot of salt in order to keep the right electrolyte (salt) to fluid ratio. You could simply drink more water, which would cause you to flush more salt when you go to the bathroom and consequently lower the amount of water that your body retains.

This is not directed at you Michael. All too often we have the latest diet guru/visionary/idiot say they have found the key to unlock the obesity epidemic. I think that all too often they see one little aspect of it and don't see the whole picture. Some of the links are just a little on the ridiculous side, and I think you would agree. Pointing to salt as the culprit for weight gain and completely ignoring the complete lack of exercise and 4,000 Calorie a day diet.

[paigetheoracle]

I don't know if this has been covered already but good fat as in olive oil, nuts and avocados stop you snacking because they tell the body it's full, where saturated fats as found in processed food do not, which encourages you to eat more (American research - sorry no details, just a news snippet).

As it says this helps people trying to diet and explains why fast food is addictive - it's like being at a petrol pump, with fuel pouring all over the forecourt because it doesn't know when to cut off. Dieters should be able to stick to diets, if based on non-fatty foods therefore because it cuts the engine off, not lets it keep revving away for no reason, like a smart arsed show off kid.

[Michaelangelica]

Behavioral Link Between Breastfeeding And Lower Risk Of Childhood Obesity

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2008) — Breastfeeding has a number of positive health benefits for baby: it can prevent ear infections and allergies, and lowers the risk of developing respiratory problems. It can also help prevent against obesity later in life, but the reason for this still isn't known
. . .
surveyed more than 120 mothers on whether they had breastfed or bottle-fed their babies, using either pumped breast milk or formula.

They found breastfed children could more easily determine when they were full.
Children who were bottle-fed with pumped breast milk were less likely to respond to the feeling of being full by the time they were preschool-aged.
Also, children who had a lower response to fullness had a higher body mass index (BMI).

Behavioral Link Between Breastfeeding And Lower Risk Of Childhood Obesity

[Michaelangelica]

The fat gene

listen now | download audio

In the past 10 years, people have become heavier. Carrying more weight causes disease later in life. The best advice is to eat less and run more. But achieving this is difficult. So work is underway to find a pill which controls a recently discovered gene which controls weight. Presently it is unknown how the gene controls body weight.

Guests

Frances Ashcroft
Professor of Physiology Oxford University
Frances Ashcroft — Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

The fat gene - Science Show - 8 November 2008

[charles brough]

We agree that there are multiple causes: genetic and viral susceptibility, not enough exercise . . . Other contributing factors: we eat rich, overly-processed junk foods. Still another is that researches show that, in animals, stress causes weight gain. We live with more stress than a half century ago.

[Michaelangelica]

Fast Food: Just Another Name for Corn
Chemical analysis from restaurants across the United States shows that nearly every cow or chicken used in fast food is raised on a diet of corn, prompting fresh criticism of the government's role in subsidising poor eating habits.
. . .
"We have a new President taking his place in the White House. It's a great opportunity to rearrange agricultural policy and to think about obesity," she said. "This study shows that it comes down in a lot of ways to one product."

Fast Food: Just Another Name for Corn | Wired Science from Wired.com



Corn is the only plant that cannot reproduce itself without man.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Fast Food: Just Another Name for Corn | Wired Science from Wired.com



Corn is the only plant that cannot reproduce itself without man.

Whats the problem with corn? I love sweet corn on the cob and corn bread and just plain corn, I grew up on a dirt farm in the mountains of WV we grew acres of corn, we feed all the animals corn, even the horse ate corn. Why is corn so bad?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Whats the problem with corn? I love sweet corn on the cob and corn bread and just plain corn, I grew up on a dirt farm in the mountains of WV we grew acres of corn, we feed all the animals corn, even the horse ate corn.
Why is corn so bad?

Corn syrup is implicated in obesity. Google obesity and 'corn syrup' for many references.
Because industry lobbies are heavily involved in food advertisng and research, and there is much money at stake, there is a lot of 'argy bargy' going on.
But if farmers use corn to make animals fatter quicker; and we humans are animals. . .then. .?
e.g..This article is well worth a read

Almost all nutritionists finger high fructose corn syrup consumption as a major culprit in the nation's obesity crisis
. . .
"One of the issues is the ease with which you can consume this stuff," says Carol Porter, director of nutrition and food services at UC San Francisco. "It's not that fructose itself is so bad, but they put it in so much food that you consume so much of it without knowing it."

A single 12-ounce can of soda has as much as 13 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup. And because the amount of soda we drink has more than doubled since 1970 to about 56 gallons per person a year, so has the amount of high fructose corn syrup we take in. In 2001, we consumed almost 63 pounds of it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA suggests most of us limit our intake of added sugar -- that's everything from the high fructose corn syrup hidden in your breakfast cereal to the sugar cube you drop into your after-dinner espresso -- to about 10 to 12 teaspoons a day. But we're not doing so well. In 2000, we ate an average of 31 teaspoons a day, which was more than 15 percent of our caloric intake. And much of that was in sweetened drinks.

Beyond soda

So, the answer is to just avoid soda, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple, because the inexpensive, versatile sweetener has crept into plenty of other places -- foods you might not expect to have any at all. A low-fat, fruit-flavored yogurt, for example, can have 10 teaspoons of fructose-based sweetener in one serving.

Because high fructose corn syrup mixes easily, extends shelf-life and is as much as 20 percent cheaper than other sources of sugar, large-scale food manufacturers love it. It can help prevent freezer burn, so you'll find it on the labels of many frozen foods. It helps breads brown and keeps them soft, which is why hot dog buns and even English muffins hold unexpected amounts.

The question remains just how much more dangerous high fructose corn syrup is than other sugars.
. . .
The process of pulling sugar from cornstarch wasn't perfected until the early 1970s, when Japanese researchers developed a reliable way to turn cornstarch into syrup sweet enough to compete with liquid sugar
. . .
fructose ... is about the furthest thing from natural that one can imagine, let alone eat."
. . .
"

Sugar coated / We're drowning in high fructose corn syrup. Do the risks go beyond our waistline?

"Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79 (4): 537–543

Conventionally raised cows and chicken are generally fed corn that has been ... corn is cheap and high in calories, meaning the animals get fatter faster

I am not making any value judgements about corn. "Just the facts mam"

A pity, I think, some of the older varieties with colours and pytochemical anti-oxidants have been replaced by sweeter and sweeter hybrids.

The history of the appearance of sweet corn in gardens shows it to be quite modern. In the New England Farmer, Aug. 3, 1822, it is said, "a writer in the Plymouth paper asserts that sweet corn was not known in new England until a gentleman of that place, who was in Gen. Sullivan's expedition against the Indians in 1779, brought a few ears to Plymouth, which he found among the Indians on the border of the Susquehannah."

Zea Mays, Corn, Maize, Gramineae - FOOD RESOURCE - OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Corn has now become a staple food crop for just about everything. The widespread use of corn syrup is highly correlated with rising obesity rates. Not that that proves anything by itself. However animal studies seem to confirm its effects on increasing appetite and fattening animals.

What happens when we eat these corn fed animals is another question.
ie

Corn fed animals facilitated the up-sizing of Big Macs and Chicken ...
www.dawnazon.com/obesity.doc

[charles brough]

Michaelangelo, you have presented a great case for how the food processing and food service industry is messing up a good product. I forgot if you had also mentioned the genetic engineering, but still, the question asked was what is wrong with corn? Nothing, it is what we are doing to it.

After all, it was and still is the staple of the New World and has been for over 2,000 years.