As we reported yesterday, overweight people don’t eat enough food … of the right kind.
Similarly, while many may assume that overweight folks are lazy and are not motivated enough, the truth is that they may be too stressed out.
Specifically, stress increases appetite.
And it is well-documented that stress causes people to crave high-fat, high-carbohydrate junk foods which pack on belly fat. For example, the National Academy of Sciences reported in 2003:
[The stress hormone cortisol] (GCs) … increase the salience of pleasurable or compulsive activities (ingesting sucrose, fat, and drugs, or wheel-running). This motivates ingestion of “comfort food.” … GCs act systemically to increase abdominal fat depots…. In stressed or depressed humans chronic stress induces either increased comfort food intake and body weight gain …. We propose that people eat comfort food in an attempt to reduce the activity in the chronic stress-response network with its attendant anxiety. These mechanisms, determined in rats, may explain some of the epidemic of obesity occurring in our society.
And while many would assume that overweight people are lazy and sleep too much, a lack of sleep actually increases obesity. For example, the Chicago Tribune reported last year:
In 1960, Americans averaged 81/2 hours of sleep a night …
Study after study showing that a lack of good quality sleep—seven to nine hours of uninterrupted slumber—is making us fat. And it’s not just overworked adults who are gaining weight. Long-term studies are finding that sleep-deprived children also are piling on the pounds.
“You’re fighting against the tide to lose weight when you’re sleep-deprived,” said Dr. Amy Aronsky, medical director of The Center for Sleep Disorders in Portland, Ore., and a board certified sleep specialist. “Good sleep is as important as a good diet and exercise when it comes to weight loss.”
***
Studies have shown that when sleep is restricted, the hormone ghrelin increases and the hormone leptin decreases. Ghrelin tells our brain that we’re hungry, while leptin tells it we’ve eaten enough.
Average leptin levels decreased 18 percent when sleep was restricted to four hours per night over two nights, according to a study published in the journal Sleep Medicine by Dr. Eve Van Cauter, Average ghrelin levels increased 28 percent when sleep was restricted.
In other words, when we don’t get enough sleep we feel hungry, even if we’ve eaten enough.
In another Van Cauter study, healthy young volunteers showed signs of prediabetes when they were restricted to four hours of sleep for six nights in a row.
The stress hormone cortisol also surges when we’re sleep-deprived. When that happens, we crave high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods (“comfort foods”) to increase our serotonin levels to calm down, said Dr. Michael Breus, author of “The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan.”
Other studies consistently show that adults sleeping fewer than six hours a night increase their likelihood for becoming overweight or obese — even when exercising and eating right, Decker said. Among adults ages 32 to 49, those averaging five hours of sleep were twice as likely to be obese after nine years compared with those averaging seven hours.
The news for kids is just as alarming. A study of 8,234 children (starting at age 38 weeks) found that the odds of being obese by age 7 increased 50 percent for children averaging fewer than 101/2 hours of sleep. Another study found that 58 percent of obese kids averaged fewer than eight hours of sleep, while just 11 percent of non-obese kids averaged fewer than eight hours of sleep.
In addition, numerous studies show that melatonin reduces body weight and burns fat. Our body produces melatonin when it is dark. If we don’t get enough sleep, it means the light is on too much, and our body can’t produce enough melatonin.
Finally, reducing stress and getting enough sleep gives people extra energy to exercise. On other other hand, if people are stressed out and sleep deprived, they’ll be focused on just getting through the day, and will thus be less likely to exercise.
Of course, exercise is a powerful stress-reducer and cure for insomnia … so it goes both ways.
Hairball I was being sarcastic about you being amazing. But in this post you are sounding reasonable Of course people need to quit eating the junk, and need to get some exercise George's obesity posts are meant to educate. I've been reading obesity research for years, and knowlege is power. It's not to say that as long as you sleep alot you can eat twinkies and doritos all the time and never move. Personally I pretty much follow all the things I have read in studies about controlling weight and some I've just come up with on my own, and it is all good to help in the battle of the bulge.
People just don't know a lot of this stuff yet. Many seem to think that eating Lean Cuisines and sleeping 5 hours a night is gonna work for them, but it totally didn't work for me when I did that. That was the worst weight gain period of my life when I was eating Lean Cuisines. They made me voraciously hungry. Getting plenty of sleep and eating only real food has worked for me better than anything.
LMAO, Hairball's too damn stupid to realize you were being sarcastic. Too funny.
Actually research has shown people often gain more weight drinking diet soda than regular because the brain senses you have eaten something sweet. When the brain detects no calories were consumed after the perception of sweet taste,it activates hunger. Kind of a cruel irony for the obese or, as some theorize,made by design. Makes one wonder...I mean it costs a fraction to make diet soda vs regular and the side effect is having people eat more? Sort of a win win scenario for big food. Of course regular and diet soda both are health disasters in a can. Makes me sick to think mothers are giving their children either. I pity you having to watch that. Hard enough to read the patient charts let alone experience it in action.
Miffed:-)
I can eat fifty eggs.
If you could mix those eggs with beans, cabbage and broccoli then we wouldn't have to frack Pennsylvania any longer.
you need a license to buy guns, drive, even drink one can of beer, but any dumb idiot can have kids and become a 'parent'.
also with feminism, women have to work fullltime too to afford same piece of shit house, so mommy doesn't have time to prepare real food. microwave or McDonalds does the cooking.
Gun license? What is this gun license you speak of?
He's a typical statist troll, using any chance he can to get in a "shout-out" for some big government slavery scam (Like slave badges, drivers licenses, permission to drink, whatever)
But even I am baffled by his reference to these so-called "gun licenses?"
oT
http://www.mediacoalition.org/Arizona-House-Bill-2549-Censoring-Electron...
Please god pass this in Washington so I can sue Patty Murray for spamming me.
GW,
I bet you are a fatass 350 lb slob who pigs out on Malted Milk balls, Payday candy bars, fried Snicker bars, Oreos, fatback, Habbersatt Scrapple, fried eggs, Suzy Q's, white bread, Frosted Flakes, Klondike Bars, and Coca Cola.
But this is my heartfelt thank-you to you for posting this article. Although the article is inherently worthless with no redeeming value whatsoever, it is the first one I can recall ever reading by you on this forum that didn't absolutely motherfuck America and openly spew vile hatred at this country.
One other thing. When it comes to posting articles that are halfway worth a shit to read, your confidence exceeds your ability by light years.
Respectfully, Smokey
Smokey1 - you ASSuMe.
With No Respect, The Navigator
lmao!
Life is great. Intelligence now ranking me as subversive. Very soon, they will use the dreaded "T" word.
Moving slowly to the top, what I like the most is being discredited to my mother in law.
When people like you, you never know what they think. But when they hate you, their mindset is crystal clear.
7 digits monitoring. What about that, suckers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7IUA8W8xuM
AVERTISSEMENT : TU VISITES UN COMMENTAIRE SURRÉALISTE, SUR UN SITE SURRÉALISTE, QUI EXPLIQUE EN QUOI CONSISTERA TA RETRAITE SURRÉALISTE DANS UN MONDE PEUPLÉ PAR LES CANIBALES.
Once again.....EXCUSES ARE LIES!!! ALL LIES!!!!
Food doesn't kill people. Forks do. PUT DOWN THE FORK.....YOU FAT BASTARDS!!!
I subscribe to the "only eat (and drink) shit that existed 150 years ago" diet, and i've shed 30 lbs since Jan 1. Cut out the soda (diet or otherwise), and processed foods and engorge yourself on BACON! Well, in moderation.
As an amateur historian and genealogist, I can tell you that my great grandfather who was born in 1851 and NEVER exercised a day in his life, was skinny as a rail his whole life. He also ate meat and potatoes every day, but not an ounce of preserved or GMO food. Something is wrong with the food we're getting from stores and restaurants these days - whether or not they are contributing to obesity, I can't say, I'm not a food scientist nor a lying statistician. BUT, something (pink slime!!!!) is going wrong with our food supply system and something is wrong in Denmark.
If you rely on your government to provide the truth, good fucking luck. Do your own homework, read/research, and then decide and react.
Right, and saturated fat isn't as bad as western medicine has assumed. Western doctors freaked out about fat - and especially saturated fat - so they took good fats out of foods,and and food manufacturers added sugar in everything to make up for the lost taste. That, in turn, raises fat production and bad (small-molecule) cholesterol, and leads to "metabolic syndrome" ... which can kill you.
Metabolic syndrome is real. Waay to many carbs>fat deposition (typically abd). Next, insulin resistance leading to type II diabetes, CAD, HTN, systemic inflamatory problems due to chemicals secreted by the excess fat tissue. You get arthritis, plantar fasciitis, higher risk of CVAs, MIs, etc. It's a mix of more tissue to perfuse (more workload on your heart), more tissue (weight) to haul around leading to excess wear on joints +higher blood pressure> higher risk of stroke and heart attack. Losing weight is the primary treatment. Just shedding mass could get you off oral meds, or at least, limit the amount you need.
Though much of the media harp on cholesterol, they miss the bigger picture. Cholesterol has a role in repair of damage to the intimal lining of vasculature. In my view, damage here is due to inflamation and/or infection episodes- your body is trying to plug a leak. Cholesterol slowly builds, tears, platelets glom on , and you have your MI. Bumping up your Vitamins C, D, E are all good things to do to improve your chances. (Google Linus Pauling and Vit C)
Drop your caloric intake to about 1200-1500 calories/day. Reduce total carbs to less than 100/day and get your protein intake up to 100 grams/day. The protein gets your body to not be hungry so quickly. The carbs are taken up fast and swing your blood sugar up and down, making you want to eat a lot more (quantity and frequency). It's not just us being slobs by choice. It's more like nicotine or alcohol dependence- insideous start and then you are stuck. Once you get over the first several weeks, you WILL feel better. The effects compound on the way up and the way down.
Spicy meat on bed of salad = teh Awezome. Like Vietnamese salad.
I am having fun with waaaaay less starches, and my body is pissed. Healthier, but definitely pissed at me. Now when I eat some pretzels I feel stuffed and icky. Funny things those refined starches.
Here is my advice. Cut back those American sized portions by 2/3s. It's like the frog in boiling water. You don't notice what is happening. But when I visit home, I sure as hell notice the size of everything.
I am particularly amused by the popcorn and drink sizes at the movie theater.
Trust me on this. 2/3s
I have found that it is easy to eat 2/3 less when eating the 150 years ago food diet, but hard when eating the modern diet. If I eat processed foods it makes me hungrier for 2 or 3 days after.
Yeppers, on our current diets the body not only craves more food because substances like sugar and MSG are addictive, but it also craves nutrients. Net result is you are always hungry. Combine that with a stressful and inactive white collar job and you can see where it could become an upward climb to stay fit. (But not impossible)
As a side not, if a person will discipline him/herself to eating healthy much of the junk food will become repulsive to the taste and the body.
Unemployment contributes its share..go to the grocery store at 10am...
11am..
1pm...
2pm...
3pm...
7pm..
9pm..
packed all the time with many whom are unepmloyed and find comfort in food.....
It's a fact.
I agree.
But you still have to make sure you eat REAL food ... if the remaining 1/3 is all twinkies, you're not going to be healthy.
i don't know if i agree. sugar consumption is responsible for obesity(and all the related issues) and heart disease. sugar is addictive so sugar junkies need to replace that source of seratonin with another source to control their addiction. sugar is ubiquitous in processed foods from a can of beans to bacon to mres(civilian style). the other culprit are the preservatives(sodium benzoate) used in precessed foods that make the body retain water.
the problem then becomes the physical and mental damage caused by obesity resulting from sugar and salt intake. the body moves slower and is less agile when carrying significantly extra weight and the mind does not think clearly in a manic sugar state or the post sugar crash. so yes, fat people are lazy and stupid.
lack of sleep and more stress may make weight control more difficult but sugar and salt consumption levels are the bottom line culprits.
Except there are studies showing that people who regularly eat candy tend to be thinner than people who don't regularly eat candy. I still think it is a multitude of things making people fat, not just sugar intake. And I don't think salt intake is related to obesity at all.
I have no doubt that stress and lack of sleep contribute to weight loss but overweight people can be stressed and sleepy and lazy
I mean who isn't stressed
Amazing people still don't know why fat grows everywhere
Cheap food for middle and low class is full with thousands aditives and many of them are pure poisons. Eating that junk food your body reacts and BUILDS FAT (which is not a problem since food is saturated with fats and sugar) because body tries to reach equilibrium or dilution rate level built in our selfdefensive gene.
Unfortunatelly , it's self feeding positive loop - more junk food = more poison = body create more fat
Destruction of low class by thousand chemicals and aditives
Always be wary of studies that discuss obesity in terms of BMI. That famous chart was devised by a 19th century mathematician with no medical training.
BMI takes no account of body shape. In my spare time, I am a weightlifter, sitting at 12% body fat, yet the BMI index considers me morbidly obese. For me to move out of the 'morbidly obese' category to merely 'obese,' I would have to be at 168 lbs, which I know is around 7.5% body fat for me. At that weight, I am so weak, a brownie scout could kill me with a plastic spork.
Also, in the elderly, a little bit (not much!) excess weight increases life expectancy. The theory is, it's padding to prevent a broken hip.
Another theory is that some fat on the bones helps prevent ketosis in old geezes that forget to eat.
Some Docs think a bit-o-fat helps post surgery.
I think there's a merit badge for that.
If you're a broker sitting on your ass sucking down a pepsi listen up.
If your a BLS employee trolling this site, open your ears and follow my advice!
Cortisol is only part of the story that Senor Jorge W. here is mentioning. Our endocrine systems have been reset by the past 10-15 years of high fructose corn syrup. I do not generally believe in magic bullets, but there is one...and...there is ONLY 1 that works for losing weight everytime. The real (not herbal) HCG human chorianic gonadotropin will reset your system. I've seen it work over a dozed times for acquaintances of mine. 30-40 lbs off permanently. Remember, to always MASS load calories before you diet for 30 days. If you don't, you cannot trick your system into a reset. Your liver will burn fat calories while you sleep. literally you will wake up 4-6 lbs lighter after the first two nights.
Goog Dr Simian
Do it sublingually, not sub-cutaneously. NO HERBAL
Note: Making money is no fun if you can't see your schnitzel while urinating. Spending the fiat currency you make through currency exchange loses its appeal to those who have double chins.
ack
this article was excellent....
"An Oxford University study has found that people living in wealthy countries that depend on "free markets" are more prone to becoming obese due to monetary stress. "
"The countries with the most liberal "free market" systems (US, UK, Canada, and Australia) also have the highest obesity rates of the 11 countries."
January 8, 2011
http://www.examiner.com/extreme-weight-loss-in-national/economic-systems-and-monetary-security-tied-to-obesity#ixzz1qujl5hmy
This confirms your thesis, George.
Wait let me add more:
"An Oxford University study bunch of fvcking commies has found that people living in wealthy countries that depend on enjoy the benefits of "free markets" free markets are more prone to becoming obese due to monetary stress. due to the fact that food is so fvcking plentiful and cheap when you have a free market system or Capitalism, and some people can't control themselves and give in to GLUTTONY GLUTTONY AND binge on horribly unhealthy processed foods and junk foods until they become huge fat cows.
That "monetary stress" rider has got to be the biggest piece of commie anti-logic crock of shiite I ever read. I guess there was no "monetary stress" in Ukraine for Holodomor?
You are basically right. Food is so damn cheap in Western (almost) Capitalist countries that we have a big problem with gluttony. GLUTTONY GLUTTONY GLUTTONY. Ever seen the "Walmart shoppers?" They have got multiple cases of HFCS drinks or diet sodas drinks in their cart. They are deliberately pouring poison down their throats.
I favor freedom of choice so fvck them, if they insist to die early hundreds of pounds overwieght what am I supposed to do to stop them short of enslaving them (for their own good?)
BTW no obesity problem in North Korea (except for dear leader) He heroically ate all the
caviar and foi grasse in NK to save his countrymen from the horrors of obesity
Overweight people are just too short for their weight. If more of them were about a foot taller (lets say 6'9") they would be at the perfect body mass ratio.
The fat creases culture green mold and they won't even bath. Too much real estate is never a good thing.
On the bright side: Pink Slime is out! Supposedly...
1 down, 237 to go...
Wrong again "George"
They are lazy
and stupid
and want stuff for free
LasVegasDave
Here's something that will make many here blow a mental fuse.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/02/taxpayers-on-the-hook-for-anti-sod...
Taxpayers on the hook for anti-soda lobbying campaignsMembers of Congress are turning up the heat on the Obama administration for doling out millions of dollars in grant money that was used to attack soda and, in some case, lobby for higher taxes.
As part of President Obama’s stimulus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided grants to communities for a variety of anti-obesity measures, including advertisements. The funding is part of a $230 million initiative called “Communities Putting Prevention to Work.” In many cases, the funds were used to attack American-made products like Coke and Pepsi.
Now lawmakers want to know why some communities, including the city of Philadelphia, appear to have used the federal funding to lobby for new taxes on those products.
During a recent congressional hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked to explain the administration’s position on lobbying with federal grant money. She implied it was appropriate for communities to spend the money on such activities — at least until Congress prohibited it last year.
At least five grant recipients — Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii Iowa and the county of St. Louis, Missouri — used the money to secure support for legislation. Several others, including Delaware, Missouri, Nevada, New York and Philadelphia, lobbied for the introduction of legislation.
An even larger number — Philadelphia, Cook County (IL), King County (WA), Jefferson County (AL), Delaware, Nevada, New York and Chicago — reportedly used the money to lobby for tax increases.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter has personally led a campaign to tax soda products. Documents showed how the city used a federally funded advertising campaign to press for passage of the tax hike. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month:
This isn’t the first time the anti-soda campaign has faced criticism. In Philadelphia, the city spent $2.4 million on ads attacking soda. That was enough money to add 52 police officers, 54 firemen, 57 paramedics, 58 teachers or 88 EMTs. New York’s “Pouring on the Pounds” campaign used grotesque pictures and misleading information that even the city’s chief nutritionist called into question. The city received $15.5 million in federal funding for its anti-obesity efforts.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) recently introduced a bill to counter this growing trend of anti-obesity ads. DesJarlais’ legislation would prohibit the use of federal money for advertisements attacking soda.
GeneMarchbanks
Since everyone is a kneejerk scaremonger, or just plain scared of everything including food because of scaremongers, I thought I would share this.
I know you none of you bothered to do any research just follow the herds. Jesus talk about your sheeple.
Anyway read it and weep bitches.
http://maureenogle.com/want-a-little-history-with-that-pink-slime
March 28, 2012
Want A Little History With That Pink Slime?“Pink Slime” made the headlines of my local newspaper this morning (said paper being the Des Moines Register, that’s not surprising; the Register, even in is current scaled-down version, still covers news of interest to agriculture).
The point of the story, versions of which appeared in most major newspapers, is that pink slime’s days are apparently numbered. Food activists have succeeded in forcing grocery stores and restaurants to stop selling the stuff. As a result, beef prices will likely rise.
Whereever does this historian begin in making sense of the Pink Slime Propaganda campaign? (Maybe the better question is: Where should I end this rant?? There’s so much I can say . . . .)
First a word about PS: It’s beef, people. Plain ol’ beef. It’s created by using a deboning process that removes every last morsel of flesh from beef carcasses. During the cutting, slivers and bits of bone end up with the beef, but those are reduced to mush in the processing that follows.
Second, a bit of history. The Wikipedia entry for PS and most newspaper reports create the impression that PS dates to the 1980s. Wrong.
In the BEEF industry, its use dates back to the mid-1970s, although poultry and fish processors were already using the technique. Beef packers began using in the in mid-seventies because, at the time, all meat prices, but especially beef, were in the stratosphere. A host of factors pushed those prices up (you can read all about this in Chapter Five of my forthcoming --- 2013 --- book Meat: An American History), including a global food famine, inflation, rising fuel costs, unemployment, etc.
Meatpackers were having a tough time turning out meat products at a price consumers would pay. Consumers were outraged; they organized boycotts; the White House imposed price controls. Etc. (Five years of research for this new book taught me one thing: American consumers demand cheap food, and especially cheap meat, and when they don’t get it, there’s hell to pay.)
So pushed by consumers on one side, and soaring costs on the other, meatpackers asked for, and got, permission from the USDA to use a “mechanical deboning” process that allowed them scrape meat off carcasses so that what had been waste could be eaten. (*1)
I gather from the Wiki entry and other reports that in the 1990s, a guy named Eldon Roth, who also founded Beef Products, Inc., the nasty, evil company that makes the stuff (yes, I’m being sarcastic) developed a method of sterilizing deboned beef. I’m assuming the timing was not a coincidence: In 1993, there was an outbreak of e. coli-related illnesses (and a few deaths) caused by eating fast food burgers. (*2)
Food activists object to PS on two grounds (no pun intended):
First, they argue that this is not real beef but is being passed off as such. They’re wrong. It’s beef. If you’ve eaten a hamburger in the U. S. at anytime since the mid-1970s, you’ve eaten PS.
Second, they object to the use of ammonia to sterilize the meat.
In the words of a couple of critics:
According to Marion Nestle:
And Jamie Oliver:
I’m all for food safety, but in this case, the reaction is irrational. If PS were unsafe, we’d have learned that, oh, about 35 years ago. Really. There’s nothing unsafe about this. The reaction is also simply wrong. This is meat. It’s not “byproduct.” It’s BEEF.
The real problem, as near as I can tell, is that many food activists simply don’t understand how meat is manufactured; don’t understand how demanding average consumers are (see above about boycotts, etc.), and how difficult it is for meatpackers to make a profit on beef in particular.
The only reason companies like IBP or Tyson or Cargill earn a profit on beef is that they control the materials from farm to grocery store; they run highly efficient packing plants; they produce in huge volume; and they subsidize FRESH beef by also making “value added” products. (Think microwavable pizzas with beef, or cans of chili con carne.) It’s incredibly difficult to make a profit on FRESH meat in general and beef in particular.
You get my point: Pink Slime isn’t unsafe. You may not like its appearance, but unsafeness (is that a word) does not follow from unpleasant appearance. (LOTS of things in life are unpleasant to look at, but it doesn’t follow that they’re unsafe. Think, oh, I dunno: giving birth? Slaughtering an animal?)
What I find most interesting about the PS uproar is how much, alas, it resembles the prohibitionist movement of a century ago: Fear-mongering. Half truths. Appeals to emotion rather than fact and reason.
Don’t get me wrong: I agree with the food activists on many points. Many. What I object to is the, how shall I put it? --- tone of hysteria attached to their work. The self-righteous “we don’t like it and therefore it’s bad and screw the truth and facts” tone of their approach.
Again, I side with the pro-food group more than I don’t. But in this case, they’re engaged in a witch hunt, creating unnecessary fear and alarm, doing an industry a great disservice, and, yes, if the deboning process is banned, beef prices will like go up. It’ll be the equivalent of culling a hell of a lot of cattle from the nation’s herd.
They sound so much like prohibitionists that it scares the hell out of me. Where, I wonder, will their fear-mongering and disregard for fact and reason lead?
________________
*1. At the time, Ralph Nader and Michael Jacobsen of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (if you’ve read my beer book, you KNOW what a fan I am of MJ and the CSPI...) objected to the process, filing complaints with the USDA and FDA. (I’m being sarcastic about MJ and the CSPI. I do NOT like scolds, food or otherwise.)
*2. The e. coli episode was caused by meat that had not been cooked at a temperature high enough to kill bacteria. The outbreak began when people ate hamburgers from Jack In the Box, a fast food chain in the northwest, and then expanded when primary carriers made contact with others. Sadly, many of the infected were kids, and when they went to daycare, they infected other kids. If I remember right, one child died.
*3. Both quotes from "Pink Slime Maker Suspends Some Plant Operations."
http://maureenogle.com/pink-slime-and-history-redux
March 29, 2012
Pink Slime and History, Redux
No, I don't plan to blog obsessively about Pink Slime (PS to you and me) --- but I had another thought after I posted yesterday's rant about PS and history.
My brain kept coming back to this comment by Marion Nestle:
Where do I start? How about with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years of human history. Think about the stereotype of the "French housewife," making practical use of every bit of food that comes her way.
Think of peasants from prehistory to, well, now --- also making pracitical use of every bit of food that comes their way. With food always in short supply, and hungry people to feed, humans have, for ages, used up every bit of food.
You know? Like scraping every. last. bit. of meat from the bones of a carcass. Like dumping the bones and their remnants of meat into a pot of water and cooking it until the bones are softened and those last jots of protein have fallen from the bone.
Only someone who has never wanted for food would equate "pink slime" with dog food. Only in the extraordinarily affluent U.S. would people attack an industry for trying to make use of rather than waste food.
As I've noted here before, Marion Nestle is prone to playing fast/loose with facts. (*1)
In this case, she goes too far. Way too far. To refer to meat as "dog food" simply because she doesn't like where that meat comes from is more than wrong-headed. In this case it borders on immoral.
There is another critcism of PS that's also worth mentioning (along with, yes!, a bit more history):
Some critics argue this: If the stuff is safe to eat, why do its manufacturers use ammonia-based (and other) processes to sterilize it?
Folks, you'd be amazed at how much of your meat gets sterilized these days before it hits the table. In this case, the procedure was added to the deboning process back in the 1990s, presumably after an outbreak of e. coli-related illnesses. (See yesterday's blog entry for that point.)
Here's the thing about e. coli: As I hope most of you know, we all carry this bacteria. It's in us all the time. Cattle also carry it in their digestive tracts.
Critics argue that e. coli has become more common in recent years because meat inspection has become lax.
Maybe. Maybe not. (I favor the "not" side.)
But here's another point that most people don't know (because only a nerdish history-head like me would know stuff like this):
e. coli first became problematic back in the early 1980s. At the time, that puzzled scientists --- but eventually they pinpointed the likely reason why e. coli had suddenly become a problem:
For more than a century, one of the main missions of the US Department of Agriculture has been to eradicate livestock diseases, whether "Texas fever," pleuro-pneumonia, bruccelosis (I probably spelled that wrong) or the dozens of respiratory diseases that afflict poultry. The USDA combatted livestock disease because those cause high mortality rates among livestock, reduce herd and flock sizes, and drive up the cost of food.
(As I said yesterday, it's impossible to overestimate the impact of Americans' demands for cheap food.)
By the middle of the twentieth century, the USDA had succeeded in eliminating and controlling most livestock diseases. The department's campaigns were so effective, in fact, that cattle grazers and feeders reduced the number of vaccinations they gave their livestock, or abandoned the shots altogether.
The unexpected consequence was that, for the first time in a century, the e. coli that cattle naturally carry had a chance to flourish unimpeded, and rather quickly became a problem for humans. (We have a much harder time with e. coli than do cattle.)
Meatpackers have always used various materials and substances to "preserve" meats --- meaning to prevent the growth of bacteria in those meats. The method used to sterilize PS is just one of those methods.
Any chance we can all just step back from the witch hunt hysteria and think about this matter? Fearmongering, whether by politicians or food activists, is bad policy because instilling fear becomes a convenient way to prevent otherwise rational people from thinking a problem through.
So. How 'bout a little reason and a few facts with that Pink Slime?
_________________________
*1. Just so we're all clear: I've got nothing personal against Nestle. I don't know her. Have never met her. It's unlikely I ever will meet her. My point is that she commands attention and it's unfortunate that she chooses to abuse her power by playing so fast/loose with facts.
Pink slime disgusts me. I'm sticking with hot dogs, sausage, bacon, bolognie, pate de foie gras, spam, knockwurst, liverwurst, head cheese, bratwurst, Braunschweiger, pepperoni, chorizo, and hagus.
With a carrot ...
One, most people just want it labelled. The Meat packing industry doesn't want people to know what is in the meat. If they were upfront to begin with, people could make a choice.
Two, there different types of ecoli. For an author that has done research, this missing fact is a glaring warning light for all she has to say. Yes, ecoli is a naturally existing bacteria, but the kind that can kill you is the result of feeding cows in feedlots on grain/chemical feedstuffs- feeds those same crazy activists had to get changed so the beef industry would stop using dead cows in cow feed and dead chickens in chicken feed (mad cow disease).
Three, the beef industry and others have been actively supporting and getting legislation passed that makes it illegal to provide damaging information or film production practices.
Four, with this kind of history and probable future, why should we trust the industry? Go to an auction sometime- see the kinds of cattle bought by the fast food giants.
Five, want to go local? Too bad. The USDA does not allow any butchering of animals( except chickens with some rules)unless you go to a USDA approved facility.
Six, oh those poor slaving meat producers. They just can't raise prices- the consumer won't let them! What a pile of bullshit. They just do what ever they can to please people and are never appreciated! More bullshit.
Gully the Beef Troll.
Get the government out of the food supply and the farmers and ranchers will do just fine- especially the small farmers. It's those magnificent industrial monopolists that might lose all their market share.
Speaking as a microbiologist, the main issue regarding pink slime for me is that you are combining the parts of multiple animals, sometimes hundreds, to manufacture a product that is distributed to numerous locations. Food born poisoning used to be a local occurrence, now it can occur nationally or even globally because of this process. You speak of E coli as the problem and yes you are correct that all animals carry E coli in there colon. However, this is not regular E coli but E coli 157:h7 which has cause the majority of the illness/deaths. This is a modern pathogen created by modern farming techniques (agribusiness). It was unheard of when farming was local and not central. I'm not even going to go to the possibility of Prion exposure with pink slime which is really a frightening thought. Google that if you dare. Mad cow prions cannot be sterilized. that's why no lab wants to test for it....if you get a positive the lab is contaminated forever and any other positive is suspect ( did you detect mad cow in the sample or did you redetect the contamination)
Miffed :-)