I’ve been watching the BBC series The Men Who Made Us Fat with great interest. I am angry, shocked and absolutely terrified of the amount of power food companies have over, well, everything. But especially the government.
I probably can’t tell you what it’s all about without getting my facts mixed up, so I’d strongly recommend you check it out, but this I can tell you. It’s amazing that any one of us ever manages to lose weight with the bombardment of food advertising and the sheer availability of unhealthy and fast foods.
I talked a bit about trying to get my portions under control in a previous post. This is discussed in the series, with research showing if you are given bigger portions, then you will eat bigger portions whether you are hungry or not. The food companies know this. And they use it. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t make such an obscene amount of profit, especially at the expense of our health. It’s absolutely disgusting.
I always believed in calories in vs calories out, which in essence must be true, but there’s so much more to it than that. Here’s a little quote from an article in The Guardian that can explain it better than me.
So high fructose corn syrup has been banned, right? Nope. It’s cheap, sweeter than sugar so you need less of it, and the public are consuming it like crazy. How can we fight against all these massive corporations then? Well, for me, by not giving them any more money. I haven’t had a McDonald’s in over 9 weeks. And I’m telling you now, I am NEVER having one again.
The third part of the series hasn’t been shown yet because of the tennis overrunning (oh well, it made my mum happy) but I’m eager to see the last episode. I’ve taken a lot away from it already, and also on my banned list is having snacks in the form of sweet treats, snacking being an invention of chocolate companies. Absolute insanity.
In the meantime I’d love to read Pure, White and Deadly by John Yudkin. It’s about the consumption of sugar and the consequences of it, but sadly it’s out of print. John Yudkin was discredited, but it seems everything this man said has come to pass. I wish he had been listened to, or maybe I wouldn’t have 6+ stone to lose.
I do though, and it’s coming off despite the food companies working against us. I’m going to beat the system!
The book is being reissued by Penguin in November. ..£8.99
That’s good news indeed. PDFs are all well and good but you can’t take them in the bath with you.
There are some direct links to download it here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5261610-pure-white-and-deadly
I would say it would make for a nice bit of bedtime reading but I have a feeling it will be more harrowing than anything else.
I was always a man that would have 2 or more sugars in my tea and coffee. Not once did I ever consider that something as simple as sugar would have such wide reaching health implications. After watching the second episode of this earth shattering program I made the choice to cut all sugar from my diet. This means no tea, coffee, sugar, sweets, diet coke etc. All sugar that I can cut from my diet has gone. For the first four days I had a blinding headache and was irritated at everything, on the fifth day I woke feeling 10 years younger and have lost just about 6 lbs. It’s hard to start with but well with it.
Similar symptoms to nicotine withdrawal! Well done for giving up sugar Gary. I find that many more men than women take 2 sugars, I think women realised the weight implications a while ago, personally I gave it up for the dental implications. I too would like to read Pure, White and Deadly by John Yudkin, he was wise before his time.
There is a pdf of johns book kicking about tinternet. Just a matter if looking. And its free!
This programme gave the impression that ‘High Fructose Corn Syrup’ is an American only produce and failed to explain that it is in many many foods in Uk, but listed as ‘Glucose-Fructose Syrup. It’s the same product and causes the same prolems, used in soft drinks, jam, cakes etc as it is cheaper than sugar. After some years of digestive problems I have isolated G-F syrup as an irritant which causes me severe digestive problems. I need to read every food label on anything I buy to avoid it, I wish it was more widely known about.
Thank you for mentioning this, it’s something I’ve been meaning to keep an eye out for. At the moment I’ve been eating a lot of meals made from scratch so it hasn’t been a huge issue, but from what I hear it can pop up in the most unexpected places.