Re: Re: oreos

[Guest guest]

Mike-

>To suggest that this is nabisco's fault is absurd and ridiculous.

>Again the market drives these things.

Remember, in an earlier post I said I didn't consider Nabisco the prime

evil in this situation. They didn't choose to replace lard with PHVO out

of the blue, on their own.

But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to sell poison to minors.

And also remember that a ban on selling Oreos to minors won't stop minors

from eating them. Lousy and/or ignorant parents will still be able to buy

them and serve them to their kids at home. It'll just mean that oreos

can't be sold directly to minors.

>Do I think they are

>responsible for people buying their horrific products? Absolutely

>NOT! People buy their products because they choose to walk down

>that asile, pick up a bag, walk it to the register, stand in line,

>trade their hard earned money for it, rip it open and eat it and

>feed it to their kids. Its just that simple.

So you believe advertising and marketing have no influence?

>Kids who don't get

>sugar and junk at home generally speaking don't eat sugar and junk

>out. Do some violate that yes, do most? NO.

But why are you willing to consign innocent children who have lousy parents

to the dustbin of health? I'm not clear on how a ban on selling poison

directly to children (and remember, we're not even talking about a

substance with some redeeming value, or which can be safe in moderation or

when prepared and utilized properly, like sugar) contravenes your

values. Would you really like the ultimate free market in which absolutely

nothing, including nuclear weapons, is banned?

-

[Guest guest]

-

> " What the

>market demands " is an easy excuse for corporations, implying that

>*they* are poor, hapless victimes to the market.

Good point. Why is it bad to " make excuses " for parents but good to do the

exact same thing for corporations? Surely being exhausted and overworked

and following the advice of doctors and health officials is a nobler or at

least better excuse than following the market even if it wants rat poison.

-

[Guest guest]

<<Every person on this group, every WAP member grew

up in this same environment, without any special benefits or

skills. >>

That is simply not true. My mother never allowed white bread in our house, nor

desserts except birthday cake, or pie at Christmas. My grade school had no

vending machines. We brought lunch to school every day, as did the majority of

the kids I went to school with. We sat down and ate a " balanced meal " every

night and never went off to school without breakfast. I had zero opportunity

during the day to eat crap, not because I wouldn't have wanted to but BECAUSE IT

WASN'T THERE TO EAT. I learned good habits by force of circumstance.

Did I leave them behind later in life? Yes. But here I am now, remembering many

of the things I " learned " as a child, and comparing the way we ate in my school

to the way kids eat today, and all the absolute garbage that is being shoved

down their throats, both literally and figuratively. Was I raised WAP? No, but

neither was I raised to think that sugared cereal, white bread sandwiches, and

oreos were a balanced diet! Junk food and fast food literally did not exist as

options in our life (much easier in those days - I'm 44).

If kids don't develop a taste for certain unhealthy foods and habits at certain

ages, they will not have as much trouble with those foods and habits later in

life. Children who learn to think of fruit and vegetables and meat and milk as

food will continue to think of them as food when they are older, even as they

experiment with other options. (I'll never forget the first time my little

brother saw unhomogenized milk- he thought we were trying to kill him with " sour

milk. " And yet I, eight years older, who had as a child experienced

milkman-delivered unhomgenized milk, and also goat milk on a family friend's

farm, had no such aversion or mistrust.)

I think it's nonsense to say " maybe a child will eat an oreo and discover how it

makes them feel and not eat them anymore " - that's just silly. Oreos are, to

most people, delicious. That is how science designed them, and they did a damn

fine job. Anything that is self-reinforcing has the power to create cravings and

positive associations for that food. If I want my child to not have that

experience in the place she is being conditioned to think of as a learning

center, then that is a good and valuable goal and shouldn't be dependent on some

sort of superhuman parenting skills.

Get the frigging vending machines and sugared soda pop and corporate food

sponsorships and junk food and diet propaganda out of our schools. Period. They

do not belong there and they harm children.

Christie

Caber Feidh ish Deerhounds

Holistic Husbandry Since 1986

http://www.caberfeidh.com/

[Guest guest]

>>>>>>>Get the frigging vending machines and sugared soda pop and corporate

food sponsorships and junk food and diet propaganda out of our schools.

Period. They do not belong there and they harm children.

-------------> y' go, girl!!!!

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

[Guest guest]

Absolutely. The whole market thing is terrbly simplistic. We live in a

community not a market. The only way things have a prayer of working is

everyone takes responsibility. Parents have a responsibility for being

informed and making good choices, producers have a responsibilty to tell

the truth about their products, regulators have a responsibility for proper

evaluation and regulation and the health community has a responsibility for

proper dissemination of information. All parties must take responsibility

for society to work not just parents.

Irene

At 07:05 AM 5/16/03, you wrote:

>Mike,

>

> > To suggest that this is nabisco's fault is absurd and ridiculous.

> > Again the market drives these things. No is a fun word to use. And

> > is easy to use against marketers. If nobody wanted oreos, no oreos

> > would be sold.

> >

> > Do I think Nabisco sucks and that they are a morally depraved

> > company knowingly selling harmful " food " ? Yes. Do I think they

>are

> > responsible for people buying their horrific products? Absolutely

> > NOT!

>

>I take a different approach that I seem never to hear anywhere.

>Without taking away from the parents'/individual's responsibility, I

>think it's wrong to say it is only their responsibility. " What the

>market demands " is an easy excuse for corporations, implying that

>*they* are poor, hapless victimes to the market.

>

>I believe that, just like in marriage, both sides bear 100% of the

>responsibility and both sides should take their responsibility as

>such. Corporations *can* refuse to sell dangerous products --

>particularly food products. If people aren't buying their products,

>they can put the money into educating, or marketing, why their

>product is preferred. They certainly seem to have enough money to

>convince us we should want/need their crappy products.

>

>Corporations aren't responsible for people buying their horrific

>products, but they *are* responsible for producing them.

>

>We won't get a mass movement of individual responsibility until it is

>taken to the higher level of responsibility *across the board.* What

>good is it to teach the individual must be responsible, but the

>corporation is a victim to the market? Our society needs an

>atmosphere/expectation of responsibility and that isn't created by

>saying responsibility is only for some, ie, the individuals.

>

>(This same issue applied to television drives me insane! One side

>says it's the parents' responsibility. The other side says it's the

>television producers' responsibility. When will the day come when

>*both* sides say " It's my responsibility " and mean it? I know that's

>way off-topic, but I get infuriated by the finger pointing on both

>sides.)

>

>As an aside, my health is poor (CFS) and I just got back from a

>vacation, so if you respond to this and then I don't respond for a

>while, it's nothing personal! I've got a few more posts I want to

>respond to later in the day (have to get off the computer now) and

>then I don't know if I'll be on the computer this weekend.

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

-

Excellent post, by which maybe I mean I agree completely and couldn't have

said it better myself. <G>

>I think the point here is that sugar is addictive and devastating; trans

>fats are deadly; colorings, flavorings, and excitotoxins are toxic -- so

>candies and junk foods should not be allowed for sale period.

-

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/03 2:14:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

Idol@... writes:

> WTF? Any links on that? That just sounds too bizarre to be real. Not

> that I'm doubting your word or anything, I'm just having one of those

> moments of incredulity.

It was posted to the list pretty recently. Maybe try searching the archives

or maybe the person who posted it remembers where it was from. Quite sure it

was on this list.

Chris

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

Mike,

Native Americans smoked tobacco because they thought it promoted body warmth

and actually thought it had benefits. And this is without advertising.

Stupid? The San in the Kalahari took up smoking as soon as they discovered

it, and it didn't give them any problems. They remained more or less

disease-free, except a handful of infectious diseases of European origin. It

wasn't " obvious " to either group that smoking was bad for them, and they all

remained in far better shape than most people, including non-smokers, are in

today.

That smoking is bad is obvious to us for " obvious " reasons-- we've been

bombarded with this information at every level at every corner for quite a

long time now. Smoking is pleasurable, increases mental efficiency, has a

positive effect on mood, etc. To someone like you and me who have some basic

understanding of carcinogenesis it *becomes* obvious that inhaling smoke is

bad, but clearly to people without this scientific knowledge, it is anything

but. And if you require scientific information to understand soemthing, that

makes it ipso facto not obvious.

Chris

In a message dated 5/16/03 3:16:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

mmarasco@... writes:

> You know what Irene I'm not a very smart fellow but I'm smart enough

> to know that sucking in smoke is probably not a great idea. I don't

> need them to tell the truth, I don't need a study or warning label.

> The good sense that I was endowed with tells me that putting my

> mouth on the end of my exhaust pipe of my car is also a bad idea.

> No warning labels, no legislation, no studies just a teeny tiny

> amount of critical thought.

>

> Just because someone or some company says something is so, don't

> make it so.

>

> The way the market gets the truth is by being smart and doing its

> homework and making a commitment to not be sheeple. Anything less

> is an active choice for a life of crud.

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

>. The 5 year

>old girl then ran 10 feet, ran back and asked again. Mom said no. This

>banter went on like this for about 3 minutes! Mom was adamant and so

>was the girl. But Mom didn't give in. You can imagine what's going to

>happen when the girl is out of sight at school with the other kids -

>that's prob. the source of her love affair/addiction....

A lot of it is advertising. Kids want to buy things they see on TV -- and

playing games with brand-name food at school is just incredibly potent

advertising. The fact that schools need that money is true, and it is

shameful. America, land of the corporations.

I don't like the idea of bans -- but labelling does a lot. For GMO foods,

for instance, just requiring a " contains GMOs " would allow parents to make

a choice. Ditto with irradiated foods. Ditto with trans fats. Ditto with

allergens. One of the ideas on the Oreo issue was to mark all foods clearly

with how much trans fat they contain. This does not take away

responsibility at all -- it just allows an informed choice.

Addictive substances like cigarettes I do not think should be banned either

-- it just creates a black market -- but it is easy enough to ban

advertising, and frankly, I don't miss the Marlborough ads AT ALL!.

Free-speech advocates might complain, but there are already a lot of rules

about what can and cannot be advertised, and most of them make sense. But

even advertising on TV is something a parent can avoid the kid being

exposed to -- advertising at school is " hitting below the belt " , in my book.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2003 10:21:46 AM Eastern Standard Time,

mmarasco@... writes:

> However their responsibility is exclusive of ours. The truth is

> they ARE in fact " helpless " when subject to a marketplace

> that

> doesn't want their product.

A little quick to absolve " personal responsibility, " no? The company is only

helpless insofar as they're only responsibility is to make money, more money,

and more more money. Since corporations are made of *people*, how about all

people be held to the same moral standards?

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

Smart kid!!!

> Besides all that, whenever we're out and we're faced with choices

> that are all second- or third-rate choices, I opt for the

> choice that

> offers animal fat and minimal refined grain/sugar. LOL!

Me too!!!

:-)

[Guest guest]

,

Since hydrogenated oils aren't actually food, do not grow, etc, etc, I support a

ban on them just like I would support a ban on deep-frying in motor oil.

But as for sugar and other junk-- do you really want the same governemnt that

gave us the food pyramid dictating which foods we can and cannot eat? Geez,

that would be a disaster!

Look at that agency in Britain trying to consider fresh meat and fish as

*hazardous waste*! Government always has a tendency to support the big boys in

regulating, and without them there, we wouldn't need any regulations in the

first place. I do *not* think it's the governments job to tell me whether or

not I can eat butter, or whether or not I can eat sugar. (and guess which one

they'd ban first!)

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>Look at that agency in Britain trying to consider fresh meat and fish as

>*hazardous waste*!

WTF? Any links on that? That just sounds too bizarre to be real. Not

that I'm doubting your word or anything, I'm just having one of those

moments of incredulity.

-

[Guest guest]

Mike-

This is only partly true. Yes, companies go down the tubes all the time

because they fail to satisfy the market, but companies can also

dramatically reshape the market, and not just by lobbying the Dread Demon

Government, but by careful PR campaigns and the promulgation of

pseudo-science. Government is far from the only tool they use.

There's no better book on the subject than _Trust Us, We're Experts_, by

Stauber and Sheldon Ramton. You can look into it at

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1585421391/qid=1053120144/sr=1-1/r\

ef=sr_1_1/104-9288758-6795103?v=glance & s=books

and even read a few sample pages there.

>Companies are NOT helpless to act, but the are helpless if a

>marketplace, community, etc... says " we hate you and your stuff and

>we won't buy it. " The only thing the company can then do is die or

>provide something of value to that marketplace. As it should be.

-

[Guest guest]

Mike-

Well, then what do you say to my question about why it should be OK for

companies to sell poisons to children? As says, forget about actual

foods, like sugar. There is absolutely no possible virtue to putting PHVO

in food. Zero. It's not found in nature, it's not healthy in any

dose. It's no different from adding a little cyanide to cafeteria

meals. There's no conceivable medical or health reason for it to be

there. The same could probably be said of many preservatives and food

colorings. Why should they be there, force-fed to hapless, ignorant children?

> you missed the point.

-

[Guest guest]

>

>-------------As for arguing the other side. They get the right to

>advertise at the school from the school. The advertising they do

>isn't graffiti on the wall saying " drink coke and eat oreo's " they

>pay big money and the schools say fine.

OK, but I'm one of the parents and I'm one of the ones trying to make it

NOT all right. I'm one of the parents entrusting the welfare of my kid to

the school, so I get a vote too.

> The schools and parent

>whine that the schools need the money which is baloney. Education

>is not expensive. If Real education was expensive nobody would be

>able to home school and every inner city kid ever would be an

>illiterate derelict.

Well, I grew up in the inner city and a big portion of my class WERE

illiterate derelicts! Homeschooling is inexpensive, but when you grow to

class size it gets amazingly pricey. We tried a small group school, which

was a wonderful school, very minimalist, but it still cost a lot to run

(and ended up losing money and had to close). There are a ton of rules that

apply when you teach other kids besides your own. There IS some waste in

the system, for sure, but no, education IS expensive.

Homeschooling is " cheap " mainly because you are not paying the Mom's

salary. If I am worth, say, $20,000 a year, then my kid's schooling would

cost $10,000 a year each, which is NOT cheap. And the fact is, I'm worth

more than $20,000 on the open market. Having a stay at home Mom is

priceless: it is NOT cheap!

As for the progression of events -- it is more like:

1. Government cuts funding for schools.

2. Schools look for alternative funding.

3. Corporations step in to take up the slack.

4. Parents figure it is better than nothing.

This whole " give the power back to the people " bit is really

government-speak for " give the power to the corporations " . I don't like

some of the government stuff, but in general there is more public oversight

for government agencies. Giving MORE power to the Enrons of the world does

not sound like a safe life to me.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

Theresa-

>I am coming from the perspective of seeing nothing as inherently bad, but

>there are certainly bad decisions.

Your example of fire is not a good analogy to PHVO. Fire has positive uses

as well as negative ones, but there is no time or situation in which PHVO

has any positive use in food -- except as a tool to increase corporate

profits. It's never harmless or beneficial to any consumer's health, it

just allows an Oreo to be sold more cheaply and/or with a higher profit

margin than if the Oreo were made with lard or a tropical oil.

>And who knows, maybe that child will still try to experiment and

>hurt themselves. The most powerful lessons in life come from attempts gone

>awry. Would you not at least agree that part of learning is trying something

>and seeing the results?

Certainly, but again, there's a huge difference between playing with fire

(or a hot stove) and eating PHVO: the consequences of the former are

directly and immediately connected to the action, whereas the consequences

of the latter can be delayed by many years. If I touch a hote stove, I'm

burnt immediately. If I play with matches (and like many little kids, I

did) maybe nothing will happen the first few times, but eventually the fit

is going to hit the shan in one way or another, and there's going to be

zero question about what happened or why. If I start eating PHVO, there's

almost certainly going to be no immediately obvious effect. The effect

will probably be gradual and cumulative, and it won't become evident for a

long time, probably years, especially if I started out in good health.

It's one thing to let a kid try to walk and stumble and fall, to try to

ride the bike and fail at first, to try different things and risk

failure. These are not generally life-threatening efforts, and the

consequences are immediate and therefore are of great aid to

learning. Consuming a slow-acting poison is just not analogous.

-

[Guest guest]

>>>WTF? Any links on that? That just sounds too bizarre to be real. Not

that I'm doubting your word or anything, I'm just having one of those

moments of incredulity.

---->that's what I had when Heidi said her kids couldn't bring homemade food

to a public school. I think I woke up on the wrong planet this morning

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?objectid

=12924297 & method=full & siteid=50002 & headline=Uncooked%20fish%20and%20meat%20n

ot%20food

Uncooked fish and meat not food

May 6 2003

By Probert, Birmingham Post

When is food not food? That is the ?50 million dilemma

facing

British retailers as the Government prepares to bring

in EU

regulations which result in uncooked meat and fish no

longer

being classed as food.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

is

planning to recommend a move to Ministers which will

mean

fresh or frozen meat can no longer be thrown in the bin

but

must be incinerated to prevent the spread of disease.

Ministers must decide within the next few weeks whether

uncooked meats should be classed as food or as animal

by-products.

The proposals form part of the EU Animal By-Products

regulation, which has also left farmers facing huge

costs to

dispose of dead livestock which can no longer be buried

or

burned on farmland.

The rules are being introduced to curtail the spread of

the

dis-ease and with Britain's record on BSE and

foot-and-mouth

dis-ease, it is unlikely the Government can refuse to

implement

the legislation and could be obliged to class uncooked

meat as

animal waste.

The British Retail Consortium said that by choosing to

define all

uncooked meat as waste, a retailer who had just one

packet

of unsold sausages on their premises each week for a

year

could face an animal waste disposal bill of at least

?832.

The bill for Britain's 68,000 food retail businesses

will run to at

least ?50 million a year for disposal either through

incineration

or rendering, the process which separates meat

particles using

heat and steam.

Bill Moynes, director general of the British Retail

Consortium,

said: " We are shocked by this bizarre move to recommend

Ministers adopt an insane definition of what is waste

and what

is food.

" If the Government decides that meat and fish are not

food, it

will not only add a huge, unnecessary cost to British

food

retailers, but will be proof that Defra's bureaucrats

have no

understanding of the food sector they are meant to

oversee. "

Lamb, spokesman for Birmingham and Solihull

Chamber of

Commerce, said: " Quite often these regulations can be

very

sweeping but everyone has just got to put up with it.

High

costs are inevitable but I hope these aren't passed on

to the

consumer. "

As householders are exempt from the proposals, Mr Lamb

said

it was likely some smaller retailers would end up

disposing of

unsold goods at home.

Ministers must make the controversial decision before

the end

of this month, when the EU regulation is due to come

into

effect.

A Defra spokesman said it would be looking at ways to

ease

the burden on retailers if Ministers press ahead with

the plans,

following similar attempts to help farmers through a

subsidised

disposal scheme.

He said butchers would not be affected by the plans as

they

already have to dispose of produce through incineration

or

rendering.

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

[Guest guest]

Suze-

Thanks for posting that. (Or no thanks: I wish I weren't living in a world

this screwed up.) It still boggles my mind.

Oh well, this is what you get from people whose mental function has been

impaired by decades of PHVO and high-fructose corn syrup. <g/2>

>---->that's what I had when Heidi said her kids couldn't bring homemade food

>to a public school. I think I woke up on the wrong planet this morning

-

[Guest guest]

DMM,

Maybe most kids don't eat junk food away from home in a junk food free home.

Mine do. It is a constant fight. They never even tasted sugar tell they were 4

yrs., unless it was a rare occasion. But, once they hit school, it was all

over. They are in middle school now. They trade with their friends and buy it

at school and the local grocery. I see the evidence they leave behind. They do

know better, but tell me they can't help themselves. They even consider

themselves addicted. I feel I did the best I could to educate them. And to

tell you the truth, I'm tired of it. The constant nagging. They both say they

don't know anyone who is sick from eating this way and all of their relatives

are healthy, who are older. This is all true. I say it is preventative. They

don't care. I do think they eat less junk than others, but it is like talking

to a wall. They are otherwise great kids, and we have a good relationship.

It's just getting to be too great an issue between us.

I do offer healthful alternatives, but they don't like them as much. My

daughter actually brought in a cup of soup from a friends house the other day

and made it when I was out.

It's quite a predicament. I do the best I can with a difficult situation.

Jafa

" Dr. Marasco " <mmarasco@...> wrote:

Christie you missed the point of what I said.

We all have grown up in this culture, filled with corporate

advertising, horrible western diets and peer pressure. Certainly

each of our experiences are different but the culture is the culture

and while the circumstances have changed its been a corporate junk

food culture for the better part of the last 60-80 years. Its just

worse now.

I agree the vending machines shouldn't be in schools. But kids who

don't get vending machine food at home don't eat vending machine

food away from home. So while there are things we can do to help,

it begins and ends at home. If parents continue to feed their kids

crap they'll continue to eat crap in and out of the home regardless

of vending machines.

DMM

> <<Every person on this group, every WAP member grew

> up in this same environment, without any special benefits or

> skills. >>

>

> That is simply not true. My mother never allowed white bread in

our house, nor desserts except birthday cake, or pie at Christmas.

My grade school had no vending machines. We brought lunch to school

every day, as did the majority of the kids I went to school with. We

sat down and ate a " balanced meal " every night and never went off to

school without breakfast. I had zero opportunity during the day to

eat crap, not because I wouldn't have wanted to but BECAUSE IT

WASN'T THERE TO EAT. I learned good habits by force of circumstance.

>

> Did I leave them behind later in life? Yes. But here I am now,

remembering many of the things I " learned " as a child, and comparing

the way we ate in my school to the way kids eat today, and all the

absolute garbage that is being shoved down their throats, both

literally and figuratively. Was I raised WAP? No, but neither was I

raised to think that sugared cereal, white bread sandwiches, and

oreos were a balanced diet! Junk food and fast food literally did

not exist as options in our life (much easier in those days - I'm

44).

>

> If kids don't develop a taste for certain unhealthy foods and

habits at certain ages, they will not have as much trouble with

those foods and habits later in life. Children who learn to think of

fruit and vegetables and meat and milk as food will continue to

think of them as food when they are older, even as they experiment

with other options. (I'll never forget the first time my little

brother saw unhomogenized milk- he thought we were trying to kill

him with " sour milk. " And yet I, eight years older, who had as a

child experienced milkman-delivered unhomgenized milk, and also goat

milk on a family friend's farm, had no such aversion or mistrust.)

>

> I think it's nonsense to say " maybe a child will eat an oreo and

discover how it makes them feel and not eat them anymore " - that's

just silly. Oreos are, to most people, delicious. That is how

science designed them, and they did a damn fine job. Anything that

is self-reinforcing has the power to create cravings and positive

associations for that food. If I want my child to not have that

experience in the place she is being conditioned to think of as a

learning center, then that is a good and valuable goal and shouldn't

be dependent on some sort of superhuman parenting skills.

>

> Get the frigging vending machines and sugared soda pop and

corporate food sponsorships and junk food and diet propaganda out of

our schools. Period. They do not belong there and they harm

children.

>

> Christie

> Caber Feidh ish Deerhounds

> Holistic Husbandry Since 1986

> http://www.caberfeidh.com/

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Adrienne-

>They are in

>the pockets of you name it adm, rjr, phizer,merk and the like. It is no

>wonder to me that the current dietary guidelines are beneficial to them

>and will prolly stay that way.

As far as this goes, I completely agree, and it's in all these entities'

interests for us to stay sick and medicated, because medications are very

profitable. However, it's possible to take the idea too far, and I'm

reminded of all those conspiracy theories about population control and

population reduction. None of these companies or governmental agencies in

corporate pockets would seek population reduction because it would reduce

the number of consumers available to buy things! So I don't think these

people literally want to kill everyone and drive people criminally insane

en route to their graves because this would actually seriously curtain

profits. Jailed lunatics aren't good consumers. To the degree that

they're pursuing this course I think it's because of short-sighted greed.

>Why are they hydrogenating lard and coconut oil now? Immigrants make

>up a large population in the us. They have to target them as well as the

>rest

>of us.

For two reasons. Immigrants want lard and coconut oil, and lard especially

keeps better and is cheaper to handle -- and therefore more profitable --

if it's hydrogenated. It would be interesting to learn whether the

companies which make partially hydrogenated lard have any interest in heart

disease medications, though.

>I personally feel it could set the economy in the country in a tailspin if

>decent food were available to all. Just think of the untold thousands

>possibly billions of dollars a day on just antacids.

An overnight transition would in fact be catastrophic, ironically enough,

but there's no way to effect an overnight transition. Even if somehow we

do manage to turn back the tide, the transition will be gradual.

And think about the long-term effects: money will shift away from the

producers of Twinkies and the vendors of cholesterol drugs and towards the

producers of good food. The money won't just disappear into a black

hole. And to whatever degree that we as a country have to spend less on

good food and less medical care than we do on bad food and more medical

care, there'll be more money available to spend on other consumer goods and

services, education, and so on. So, sure, we wouldn't necessarily want to

put all the people employed by the pharmaceutical and agribusiness

industries out of work overnight even if we could, but we can't, and what

we can potentially do certainly won't be too fast for the economy to adjust to.

-

[Guest guest]

Jafa-

>They even consider themselves addicted.

Then maybe try giving them more animal fat (if you can afford

it). Potentially a lot more. I know all about sugar addiction, and the

only way I can control myself is to avoid carbs and eat tons of animal

fat. (And I practically mean " tons " literally.)

-

[Guest guest]

Heidi-

Amen.

>I don't like

>some of the government stuff, but in general there is more public oversight

>for government agencies. Giving MORE power to the Enrons of the world does

>not sound like a safe life to me.

-

[Guest guest]

We can't prevent anyone from lying or cheating but we can hold them

responsible for lying. But there really is no market vehicle for that. When

the first hundred people died of lung cancer it was not associated with

smoking. You might have known one of them but not all 100. And for every

person that died of lung cancer after smoking all their lives you could

find someone else who smoked all their lives and live until 90. The market

has its place, it just doesn't have a remedy for that kind of malfeasance.

To say we can't prevent someone from lying is sort of like saying that we

can't prevent someone from stealing so you had just better protect

yourself. Protecting yourself is a good idea but we don't hesitate to haul

someones butt to jail if they are caught stealing!

Irene

At 01:07 PM 5/16/03, you wrote:

>We cannot prevent corporations from lying or anyone else for that matter. But

>when the first hundred people died from lung disease after smoking all their

>lives, we could have, as individuals, taken that as our first hint to quit

>smoking.

>

>Theresa

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mike-

I was raised without sugar, and from my personal experience and from

watching other people like me I can assure you that's just not true.

>Children raised

>without sugar generally don't like sugar.

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