Comments on: Redefining Food: A Radical Proposal to Reduce Obesity

By: Adam Pieniazek

Adam Pieniazek — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:38:27 +0000

This is a brilliant, brilliant idea and would hit home for lots of people. Still, the bigger issue are corporations and their psychopathic pursuit of profit with a complete disregard for their negative impact on society, the environment and humans. In our current state, corporations will never let this logical system fly, but if we were to reduce the power of corporations and return power to actual human beings, perhaps this system could get implemented.

By: Kavan Wolfe

Kavan Wolfe — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:01:36 +0000

@James, why do you think nutritional science is corrupt?

@Michael, good points. I hadn’t noticed that Canadian food was salty, on the West Coast at least.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:00:31 +0000

I guess it would not necessary to exactly determine how bad a paticular piece of food is. Instead, it should be sufficient to fight the really bad ones (Pop drinks- excessive sugar, fast food- excessive fat, sodium, etc.). There will always borderline cases, which should probably just be left alone.

Turning back the diet 250 years sounds good- however, keep in mind that you would also eliminate many good things such as tropical fruit. Also, winters used to be times of limited fruit, veggies etc. Note- people did not live very long back then, e.g. because of limited medical care, so the comparison is kind of hard…

The elimination or strong reduction of refined sugar is certainly not wrong, although I’ve seen studies that found the strongest correlation between waist size and diabetes, not sugar intake and diabetes. Also, excessive sodium in Canada (and trust me- many foods still taste salty for me, after living here for almost two years (I’m from Germany)) seems to be the single biggest nutritional problem, believe it or not.

By: james

james — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:35:51 +0000

I like the idea, but I think nutritional science is too full of holes (and corruption) to pin down which foods are really the worst. We all know processing food ruins it, white flour and sugar being particularly bad, refined salt, and so on. I don’t necessarily agree on the saturated fats part, it’s a little muddy considering how little un-screwed-up food people actually eat.

We all keep hearing about how heart disease and diabetes, cancer, … rates are going up. Well the obvious question is what has changed? Surely the simplest way to undo the damage is just to reverse the changes? Turn diet back 250 years and remove sugar and that’s probably quite good (unless unhealthy populations are used).

By: Kavan Wolfe

Kavan Wolfe — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:06:00 +0000

@Michael and Mich

You both make good points. I think a more general principle here is that the cost of an item should reflect not only the cost of producing the item, but also the costs to society of consuming that item. From this perspective, junk food, cigarettes and gasoline are generally underpriced and Organic foods, bicycles and bus passes are generally overpriced.