Stupid Article...

RE: Stupid Article... (MikeOO17)

Sat, 03 Apr 2004 04:03:27 GMT

The number of hours we work has been going up, double-income is the norm now...

Ever wonder why that is? Because we're all selling our souls to the metaphorical devil, the almighty dollar. For some reason our society has decided that success is judged by the amount of "toys" we have amassed. You know what I'm talking about! The PDA's the mp3 players, 54 inch widescreen televisions and the bling blingin SUVs. We're all green eyed monsters when it comes to other people property. As soon as your friend gets his new state of the art surround sound system that blows you over from 50 feet away, it boils our blood and fuels our greed. For some of us, we only see one way to attain money, more hours at the office.

Me, I've got other plans. Call me a dreamer, but thats what our nations were built on. I'm going to do the school thing over the next 4 years, get my dream job and work my ass off for a couple years to pay off certain debts I've racked up. After that, I'm going to take the low road and save enough money to invest in other ventures. Until I have enough money coming in from outside my 9-5, I can live with a slower computer or a smaller tv. Theres a world out there just begging to give me money. Give me enough time to get my feet planted and I'll be happy to take it.

We already spend one third of our lives sleeping and another third working. By the time we're done that we barely have enough energy to do anything but sit down and watch the idiot box (bet you havent heard that term in a while). Wait, I take that back. We think we barely have enough energy! Most of us are so weighed down by our lathargic routines that anything above our normal call of duty seems like torture. I read a quote once. "Drive your energy, dont let your energy drive you." It makes a lot of sense too. I know people who bounce from one thing to the next with energy to spare because their bodies have adapted to that lifestyle. These days people poudly call themselves weekend warriors and draw all the envy of their peers. Me, I dont envy them. I have nothing but pitty for that type of lifestyle.

RE: Stupid Article... (Powerhaus)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 14:21:11 GMT

Oh yeah, kids these days, just a bunch of lazy lardbutts. Why, back in OUR day we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get to school, and our shoes were made of cardboard, and all we had to eat was air and mung beans, but we were GRATEFUL!

Let's see, off the top of my head:

1) Many parents are afraid to let their kids play outside unsupervised anymore, for fear that they'll be abducted. Never mind that crime rates are way down from 30 years ago.

2) Schools are cutting PE, along with everything else that's not on the "No Child Left Behind" test.

(It does bother me though that when Orchestra gets cut a few people complain and nothing changes, but when they try to cut football or basketball, suddenly the parents show up with either torches and pitchforks, or bucketfulls of cash, or both.)

3) There's a lot less home cooking and lot more eating out than there was 30 years ago. The number of hours we work has been going up, double-income is the norm now, and by the time parents get home from work, they're TIRED and cooking is the last thing either of them wants to do.

(I am not saying that all women should be staying home making biscuits and babies, I am saying that it would be nice if women AND men had the OPTION of spending less time at the office and more time with their families. I know LOTS of parents who wish they could afford to do that, but they can't.)

There's less manual-labor type jobs now than there used to be, we drive a lot more than we did in the 1970's, there are a lot more entertainment options that involve sitting, food is actually less expensive as a proportion of our total budgets than it used to be.... who knows. I don't think people have become fundamentally lazier than they were 30 years ago, but they certainly have become fundamentally fatter. I try to limit my concerns about it to myself and my children, and I'm happy to say all three of us are pretty slim.

RE: Stupid Article... (MikeOO17)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 13:43:16 GMT

Maybe they should blame obesity on the internet... or the cable companies for providing so many channels. Or how about those evil UV rays that eminate from the sun causing horrible cancers and keeping us indoors. Fare enough, our diets are getting worse and its pretty damn hard to find "clean" foods these days without busting your ass to find a place then bustin your wallet buying the crap. But lets face it, the overall population is getting much much lazier. Kids used to play football with all their friends. Now they play football with all their friends.. on a playstation2. Everyone is makeing the easy choice these days because they're afraid to get their hands dirty. Its time we woke up and smelled the freakin roses. No... seriously, get your fat ass up, go outside and smell the freakin roses!!

RE: Stupid Article... (Powerhaus)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 13:14:43 GMT

HFCS is used in processed foods, and processed foods are usually, well, crap. It's used instead of regular sugar because it's cheaper.

I wouldn't say it's not a "natrual product" though, it's not like trans fat, which contains chemical structres that don't occur in nature. Sugar is a "natral product", even though they have to, you know, dry out the sugar cane juice first. HFCS is just a component of corn that's been filtered out and distilled or something.

I am a little surprised to see that HFCS only has 14% fructose though, but of course, without knowing which simple sugars make up the 31% disaccardies, it's impossible to get the whole story. Sucrose is a disaccaride, one fructose, one glucose (a.ka. dextrose), so it's 50% fructose. So if fructose is so awful, the sucrose they were using before they switched to HFCS should have been worse...

It's a complicated issue, it's hard to say if HFCS is really THE problem.

RE: Stupid Article... (oel503)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 12:42:24 GMT

The article is not stupid. It's very informative. What's stupid is the people that eat those things all the time and wander why they get fat. Then they blame the ingredients in the junk food they eat. LOL. They need to realize that it's 90% their fault they look the way they do.

RE: Stupid Article... (BucketMan)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 10:25:27 GMT

I know, but I thought it was stupid that for examples, they used "Soft drinks, candy, cookies, syrup, etc...

RE: Stupid Article... (Twin Peak)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 09:59:46 GMT

Its not that stupid, high fructose corn syrup is well known to screw up the adipostat and phenotype.

Stupid Article... (BucketMan)

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 09:43:04 GMT

If You're Fat, THIS May Be to Blame

Quick! Go get your favorite packaged food. Look at the label. Does it have an ingredient called high fructose corn syrup? If so, beware. It could be making you fat--and you don't even know it.

Food manufacturers love to use high fructose corn syrup because it's cheap and sweet. In October 2003, researchers at the University of Michigan concluded that fructose in high levels elevates dangerous triglycerides by as much as 32 percent and makes the body's fat burning and storage system sluggish, which causes weight gain.

Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s, reports The Associated Press. Specifically, the data showed an increase in the use of high fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s that was "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity," said one of the researchers, Dr. George A. Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System's Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The research was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th century until the late 1980s," Bray told AP. "At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward."

High fructose corn syrup is not a natural product. Called HFCS for short, it is processed from hydrolyzed corn starch and contains:

* 14 percent fructose
* 43 percent dextrose
* 31 percent disaccharides
* 12 percent other products

Over the past 15 years, our consumption of HCFS has increased a belt-busting 250 percent. By some estimates, we get as much as 9 percent of our daily calories from fructose.

What foods are likely to contain high fructose corn syrup? Soft drinks, juice, candy, baked goods, cookies, syrup, yogurt, soup, ketchup, breakfast cereal, and pasta sauces.

Still, Bray insists there is not enough evidence to say there is a direct link between high fructose corn syrup and obesity. Spokesmen with the food and beverage industry agree. "It's not about the high fructose corn syrup being a part of foods, it's about how many calories we're eating against how many calories we're burning," Alison Kretser, a registered dietitian and director of scientific and nutrition policy for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, insisted to AP. She may be right. Even the USDA report lays the blame on people for eating too much and not exercising enough.

What foods are likely to contain high fructose corn syrup? Soft drinks, juice, candy, baked goods, cookies, syrup, yogurt, soup, ketchup, breakfast cereal, and pasta sauces.

LOL! If you are eating those, of course your going to be FAT!