Instead of everyone getting a trophy, the winners get a new PS3 game taken from the losers collection. Seriously, our advancements in entertainment technology fuel and reinforce the sedentary lifestyle. Game console, 500 TV channels, a laptop, cell phone, and other handhelds? I would have never left the house.
Horseshit. Privately funded studies and research occur all the time and the USDA is not going to come in and shut it down because it threatens the food pyramid. Sure it's expensive and difficult and time consuming and some people are still not going to buy it, but saying the government won't allow the research is wild fucking paranoia. I'm a halfhearted follower of Paleo, not out of any strong philosophical belief in the rightness of the thing, but there are just better ways to get calories than pasta and if the ingredients in your food have to be manufactured in a lab, avoiding them is probably a good idea. What bothers me about the whole thing is the belief that some (certainly not all by any stretch) followers of Paleo subscribe to that not only is it right, but if you don't believe what I believe you're wrong. Attitudes like that are why I don't go to church anymore. Lighten the fuck up.
Could the issue be that kids aren't allowed to wander about unsupervised anymore causes them to play these games instead of playing outside? I don't know for sure if that's the case, I don't have kids, but from the sound of things it seems like parents don't let their kids off the leash as much anymore. Yeah, you're right, I should have said there will be no publicly funded studies, private studies can do whatever they want.
No seriously. Find Amish people who don't make bread out of factories and eat it. This is 100% wrong. No debates. That was the most absolutely retarded fucking statement I've ever read in my life, (about bread.) Did you click that link? Did you read that post? Let me quote it again. The idea that bread only tastes good because it has been "enriched" is wrong, stupid, and makes whoever says that sound like an idiot. I'm not saying I got this at a bakery, where they COULD have gotten enriched flour and yeast. No this is shit they grew, and made. It was delicious, not because some lab programmed the food to brainswash me, because bread is intrinsically delicious even in its purest, most natural form. The hand churned pure direct from cow butter helped a bit too. Sweety, no way you're 160, be easy on yourself. Gina Carano is 5'8 and topped out at 145-150, and is really super fucking built. Your ass is nice, but it isn't some ridiculous donk. Maybe compared to the whities around you in Canadia but c'mon...You're not fooling the minorities here. Get on an electronic scale, no shoes or anything in your pockets and take a picture. You run a gym, I'm sure you have scales lying around. I'd be surprised if you broke 140. I dated a girl that played hockey, she was 5'1, worked out pretty intensely, she barely broke 115 with Ds and a comparable ass. (AND THIS WAS WITH EATING CARBS! GASP!) Adding two inches does not scale to 160 and have you looking the way you do. Did you used to be fat or something?
I think by "enriched" she might mean that the grain is processed and then cooked. Raw grain is inedible. I don't want to put words in her mouth, though.
Processed how? They obviously can't take it off the stalk and toss it in the oven. You have to take the husk of the corn, peel an orange before you eat it. They don't factory/chemical/treat process it. DO YOU GUYS KNOW WHO THE AMISH ARE?
Enriched in this context means the nutrients that were lost in the processing are put back into the refined product. I think that's part of it. My wife and I grew up in urban NJ, and in the summertime it was "Be home at noon for lunch, 6:00 for dinner, then when the streetlights come on," and even then, we usually hung out on the stoop. We live in a very nice, low-crime suburb of Dallas now, and we rarely see kids playing outside other than our neighborhood park, which given the number of kids we see and then number that live in the neighborhood, is vastly underutilized. Stickball? Street hockey? Two-hand touch? I might as well be speaking Latin. Lots of basketball hoops in driveways, not many basketball games. On the other hand, there are literally dozens of martial arts dojos that cater to the youth set as well as gymnastics studios, and the town offers leagues in t-ball, baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, and tennis for both genders, but those aren't everyday activities, either.
I think you're confused about how wheat is used. It's not like an apple, where you pull it off the tree and it's ready to be eaten. It first gets harvested, then they separate the wheat from the chaff. Once it's separated it has to be cleaned to get rid of dust, gravel, dirt, etc. After the cleaning process it gets ground. Either by hand or at a mill, they crack it to break through the tough exterior (the "bran"). At this point, they can either separate the bran out or leave it in and grind it up. If it's separated out, most mills add vitamins - and some bleach. This process is typically called "enriching" and is not done if the bran has been left in because the vitamins are already there. I don't know, when processing it by hand, if this is ever a process that occurs. This whole procedure takes time, effort and energy and the end product is ultimately quite different from what originally came out of the ground. Not like an orange that's been peeled; it's been ground and sifted and heated (it has to have a certain moisture content for this to work). Hence the term "processing."
I don't think you know who the Amish are. They don't do any of that. There is no bleaching and enriching. Can you Google "The Amish" for me? I understand what enriching is. Yes. I understand the process you've described. But did you know bread was made before all of that even was known as a process? Like when they made bread back in the 1700s? Like how THE AMISH do it? They do it by hand, leave everything in and grind it up. That is pure bread, not "processed." That's what I'm saying.
Also, by your own admission there are around 1,500 Amish in Canada. Why are you using their methods and tools as a benchmark for how people should eat? To my understanding, the Amish possess the tools and the knowledge to live simply. Do you think the rest of Canada or America, if they woke up tomorrow in an Amish household, could function well and be useful? I don't know if you've ever lived someplace where you're hauling water by hand, doing everything manually and cooking on a charcoal stove, but it isn't easy and requires some skill. I appreciate bread, pizza, etc. tastes good. That's exactly what it's designed to do. Now, is it good for you? I don't think so. So it's not unwise to consume it in moderation and with awareness. Not zone out in front of the TV and eat all of it because you go kinda catatonic and eat everything that's in front of you.
You said this. No I'm arguing against that stated a few pages ago that bread tastes good soley because laboratories programmed it to be trigger the same receptors as coke and other drugs. That's the point I'm going against. I'm saying that statement is wrong, because I've had breads that don't fall under that category and it is delicious to my brain, naturally. TLDR: Unprocessed bread tastes good naturally to our brains. So your statement is wrong. I'm not arguing the process of enrichment. Amish bread is not enriched, it is made naturally, I ate it, and it tasted good. It tasted good to the rest of the 30 people in our group that was visiting. And it does pertain to health and this thead because part of that is misinformation that is out there. Apparently you're reading some of it and sharing it on this board telling everyone bread isn't naturally tasty to human beings when in fact, in its purest form, it is. Also, I didn't eat this bread at their bakery, I ate it at their land. Went on a live how the Amish live trip to get a better understanding of cultures outside of ours.
Last response to an off-topic remark. READ MY FUCKING POST, ASSHOLE. I just described how wheat is processed - and at the end where I talked about enriching, I mentioned that I don't know if someone processing wheat by hand or in their own mill would add vitamins back in, or if they would even bother to remove the bran. That step is only done if the bran has been removed. Now, quit harping on the Amish. They have very little do do with a discussion on health, wellness and obesity unless they're used as a case study as an isolated group that's remained relatively healthy. They also eat grass-fed meat, pure dairy and real sugar. They also work by hand and do quite a bit of manual labour. Quit focusing on the bread you ate at one of their bakeries once. You're missing the entire point.
So, are the Amish to blame for the obesity epidemic in the US, or are they the solution? (Thought the thread needed to be "enriched.")
Focus: People are more unhealthy and/or overweight than ever, and there is simply do way to deny it anymore. Main causes? Solutions? What sort of sledgehammer blow does society need to wake up to this, or is it "just a theory" and eating fast food five times a week is perfectly fine? I think the biggest point of contention throughout this entire conversation is that everyone wants to argue towards what's the one glaring issue that we need to address to fix our obvious obesity/declining health epidemic. The problem is that it's a multi-faceted issue that can't be addressed by making simple arguements such as eat less calories or do more exercise or only eat non-processed foods or just take this pill to help with your diabetes. First and foremost should be the issue of education about nutrition across the board. Many people have brought up the point that most people argue that the obviously unhealthy people they see/meet are seemingly uneducated about what actually is and isn't good for you these days. A big part of that comes from government "standards" that people have been fed for the past few decades, which most experts will tell you these days as more and more research is being done, are constantly being re-evaluated. People keep bringing up the food pyramid and for years it was the basis (good or bad) for almost all nutritional guidelines and teachings. How many people here even know that the food pyramid was replaced a year ago by a newer system called MyPlate. Now it still recommends a balance of grains/fruits/vegetables/protein and a side serving of dairy, (which still isn't quite at the Paleo level of adherence, but I digress) but it takes the huge reliance off of 6-8 grains servings a day and promotes a more balanced portioning with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables and also stresses quality foods over pre-packaged items. Is it the best system? That depends on your personal opinion on what you think the ideal diet should be, but at least it's a step in the right direction. And without bringing the presidents politics into the discussion, I think that having someone in such a position of power as the first lady making directives towards educating people about food portion and quality and encouraging kids to be active is a good step to at least starting to combat this issue. The second part that ties somewhat directly into the above, is food quality. Without getting into the paleo/non-paleo fight, (however, for full disclosure, I do advocate and practice a paleo diet for myself and those in my household) the "food" people are eating today has little to no relation to the food our parents and grandparents ate just 30 or 40 years ago. Genetically Modified Crops have become overabundantly used in commercial farming without any consideration to the potential long term effects caused by the usage of genetic modifiers. In addition, the rampant usage of HFCS in almost any processed food is out of hand. I can't find the specific figure at the moment, but I just recently read that the average persons dietary caloric intake consisted of approximately 20% just HFCS. The problem lies with the fact that others have already pointed out: Corn Subsidies. (Anybody looking to learn more about this whole process should find a copy of King Corn. It's a documentary about the whole process.) The US is the worlds largest corn producer and it's not even close. Of the top 10 producers in the world, the US produces more than the rest of the top 10 COMBINED. Of that production, 80% is used primarily as animal feed and 12% is either directly or indirectly included in foods consumed across the country. Until we can somehow get the government to stop paying people absurd amounts of money to grow corn and instead shift the subsidization to foods that are actually consumed by people and have some semblance of nutrition to them, the situation is only going to be exacerbated. There are obviously many more variables that contribute to the issues at hand, but to me, these are two of the biggest that need to be addressed hardest before any real consequential change can be made.
I'm a lurker but wanted to chime in here. I don't understand the hatred put upon breads and pizza and pasta. There are entire cultures predicated on it. I am of Italian descent and my grandparents would have eaten bread and pasta at minimum once a day but usually twice a day. Both lived into their nineties dying of natural causes. The same is true of their brothers and sisters and extended families. I haven't seen any studies but is the health crisis in Mediterranean Europe the same as in North America? Perhaps bread and pasta and pizza become a problem only in combination with a sedentary lifestyle that is more and more becoming the norm in North America.
By asking if they are the solution, are you asking if we should eat the Amish? If so they'd probably be pretty healthy which would appease the paleo people, it would lower the population which would appease Rflag and they are people who don't contribute to the economy so downndirty shouldn't mind either. Win, win, win baby.
Wait, are you seriously criticizing him referencing the Amish when you are advocating eating like a "caveman"? I can't tell of you are both trolling or just being stupid.
An interesting article on what modern wheat does to the brain, and it ties in with the book "Wheat Belly" that I mentioned earlier: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.betterbrainbetterlife.com/brain-wheat-staff-life-wreak-havoc-2/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.betterbrainbetterlife.com/br ... k-havoc-2/</a> Ultimately, is the science proven? No. I don't think ANY nutritional science is proven at this point. The best we can do is try things out and see what works. For a lot of people right now, eliminating grains increases their health. Will that change in five years? I don't know, but for now I've seen personal health benefits from reduction of wheat.
This. It's funny how there are a million other factors in play, including being sedentary, but it must be the grains right? Grains are easily available, so of course they're going to be a factor in a diet of someone who is lazy, but we're basically taking the viewpoint of: Person is sedentary and unhealthy. Person eliminates grains, but also is more aware of eating portions and exercise. Person becomes healthier. It must have been the grains. I realize this is incredibly simplified, and doesn't take into account things like celiac disease, but cmon. I don't know how it would work if you were completely sedentary and intaking a huge caloric surplus while eating paleo. A lot of times people that are willing to make that drastic of a change in their diet also are willing to put in some work in improving their fitness, so we tie them in hand in hand. Also, here is an interesting piece on "Wheat Belly".