Scapegoat Activism.

I was about to go to bed when I saw an article being promoted by @HuffPostFood on Twitter that said, 'the dark side of soda'.  Curious, I clicked on the article and discovered it was yet another ridiculous piece from Michael F. Jacobson of the ill-named Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The article blames soda for amputations, impotence, and painful dentistry.  Clearly, this is meant to shock people.  I don't know why I expected anything reasonable from that organization.

We live in a time where we can have as much of whatever it is that we want.  With that, we should be mindful of overdoing it; eating too much(guilty), drinking too much, et cetera.  Anything consumed in excess will carry with it certain negative consequences.  Anything.  

Knowing that, should we proceed on a route of zero tolerance, with the logic that if we can't have too much of something then we shouldn't have any of it or should we proceed with the totality of the diet in mind and try to engage in all things in moderation?

Jacobson talks about how we used to enjoy 6.5 or 10 fl oz servings of Coke or Pepsi, but now we have 20 fl oz and up of these beverages and... well, you know... amputations.  He goes on to mention Big Soda, by which he means Coca Cola and Pepsico.  He doesn't mention smaller companies that make the same sort of beverage to sell in organic groceries... 

He goes on to promote an animated short called The Real Bears, which is an attack against the aforementioned Big Soda.  Once again this should be of little surprise to people.

Michael F. Jacobson and the CSPI commonly engage in what I call, 'Scapegoat Activism'.  You see, they have built a big, expensive institution that must be constantly fed with new members and donors.  'All things in moderation' is not a very good recruiting tool, but fear, hysteria, and misinformation are.  So what they do is pick a villain, put the word 'Big' in front of it to signal to you that this is a big, profit hungry corporation that not only doesn't care about you, but hopes to separate you from your money while killing you, and then blame all of society's ills on that one villain.

The villains are things like conventionally grown fruits and veggies, Happy Meal kid's toys, food coloring, and of course, big soda.

They employ a couple methods for scaring people to their side.  One is through giving you some information, but not enough to dissuade you from becoming irrationally afraid.  For instance, they'll have an article talking about the evils of caramel coloring and how it will lead to cancer, but they'll leave out the information about how much of that coloring you would need to ingest to maybe get cancer and how that number means you could never drink enough cola to get there.  Two is through using the same logic that Bush used as rational for a whole manor of policies.  It's the whole, 'if A = B and B = C, then A = C' crap.  Oversimplification would be a vast understatement.

The problem with that method is that food doesn't really work that way.  Our diets are fungible, meaning that we have a certain number  of calories/sugar/sodium and the sources of those things will change from day to day.  You can spend a lot of calories on certain things and still be ok so long as you make room for it.  This is how Michael Phelps could eat 12,000 calories a day and weigh 165lbs and not 1,000lbs, because he offsets the caloric intake with exercise.  It's how that one guy was able to eat a Big Mac every day for 25 years and not be fat.  There is absolutely no data showing that people got amputations, impotence, or cavities from soda alone.  It's the totality of the diet that matters, not a short term indulgence, and not one item in the diet.

He needs new villains to drum up membership, donors, and credibility so more people believe him and so he can publish another article with a new villain to start the process over again.  That, my friends, is Scapegoat Activism.  Don't let yourself get played.

Nanny Nanny, Boo Boo.

 First, please read NPR's story about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's large sugary drink ban, then read my response.

 Health is relative to the person, not relative to the food. Let me repeat that: HEALTH IS RELATIVE TO THE PERSON, NOT RELATIVE TO THE FOOD. 

Too many calories are saved as fat. Too much sugar can lead to insulin problems. I know diabetic people that drink a minimum amt of pop or even none, and I know perfectly healthy, normal, people that drink a ton of Mtn Dew. HFCS is no different than sugar, which is the whole reason coke/Pepsi are able to use it instead of cane/beet sugar. 

I DO NOT support this because it's not going to work and it's too difficult to enforce. This sort of legislation is the exact sort of thing that the right cites when giving examples of left wing over-reach. It doesn't work, for one. This will amount to a tax on these drinks and we have seen that such measures do not impact levels of obesity. Why? Because people will just drink twice as much pop when they get home or eat more calories. 

Another problem is how can you possibly enforce this? Are regulators going to set up Cops In Shops style stings? What about people from outside of the city that purchase a big drink and bring it into NYC? Will their drinks be confiscated... or dumped out as some beat cop is writing out a ticket? This is nothing but a plan to shame people, which only serves to alienate them more and keep them inside where they shouldn't be if they are already way overweight. I know my progressive friends mean well, but you are going about this the wrong way and creating a group of people even more ignorant of science who shun ANYTHING that has an industry behind it.

Childhood Obesity

 This is sort of a blog request from @WineePamela after some tweets I wrote about how to fight Obesity.  I've written about weight loss before, but I really feel weird about doing it because I'm a pretty big guy.  I guess I'm like a coach, where I know all about the game but I wasn't the greatest player.


If you are really concerned that kids are too fat, then you have to approach things from a more pragmatic standpoint and stop with all the slogans, easy answers, and non-expert speculation. So to fight childhood obesity...


1. Parents:


When kids are little, all parents ever do is tell kids to stop running around, slow down, sit still... and finish your dinner.  I thought all the hoopla over Kids meal toys at McDonald's was silly because most kids I've ever seen eat there waste more than half of their food.


So maybe be glad when the kids are doing winds sprints while giggling and if the kids don't finish their dinner... give them a little less.


2. Coaches:


What I remember the most about playing sports in middle and high school was all the punishment exercise and yelling.  I got horrible anxieties before practices.  Coaches do more to limit physical activity later in life than any video game console.  When one guy screws around, the football/basketball/wrestling coach has everyone run wind sprints, do laps, or do some form of calisthenics as punishment.  This is a horrible message to send.


3. Teachers:


Coming from a food science background, I naturally think it's an ideal subject for high school students to tie together chemistry, biology, and chemistry, but it also gives you a great background in nutrition.  Kids should know what a calorie is, how to calculate the number of calories they need to maintain/lose/gain weight, and how to track their caloric intake.  it's also a great way to learn which foods are the best sources of protein/iron/vitamins/calcium/potassium.  This is very practical knowledge that also reinforces what the kids have already learned in school, while also reinforcing scientific method and critical thinking skills.


4.  Other Kids:

Kids are mean and being fat seems to be one of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination in this country.  This is a tragic combination.  Fat people in general get very little sympathy because they are just seen as sloth-like lazy buffoons.  Other kids can help by not shaming or being cruel to obese kids.  Furthermore, they can make friends with obese kids and include them in their physical activities.  Shame does not work.  If your feeling down on yourself, you slow down, stay out of view... you don't go for a walk or go exercise.

5.  Food Activists:

I know you think everything is all a big conspiracy and that all processed foods are poison... but seriously, knock it off.  Misinformation serves only to confuse people and prevents them from reaching a solid, science based understanding of food.  Misinformation also allows people to peddle their ridiculous weight loss schemes and bilk the public for billions of dollars a years.  Please stop.

6. Fashion Industry:

Pencil thin models give people an unrealistic yard stick to judge themselves and others by.  We no longer think hometown girls are cute because they don't look nearly as hot as the model.  This also creates a much bigger gap bewteen the beautiful people and the obese.  

If you are a big kid, your clothes aren't only bigger, but they're completely different.  Why?  Why can't you get big sizes from Gap, Adidas, Champion, and Nike.  How easy is it to get active wear in big sizes in the same style as the smaller sizes?  And while I'm at it, stop putting flames or dragons... or flaming dragons on big & tall clothing.  What is that?  So not only do fat people feel ostracized, they have special fat clothes that look completely different.

PayPal

You should see a PayPal Donation button in this blog post and on the side of this page.  I'm currently out of work and behind on rent.  I've done this blog for two and a half years and have many great, informative posts.  If you can spare anything... even $5, it would be greatly appreciated. The donations are anonymous, so you don't have to worry about getting an awkward half sobbing thank you from me or me pledging a life debt to you.  Rent is overdue and I hope to get hired on somewhere... for something, sometime soon.  So if you've read and liked my writing over the past couple years, please send a dollar or two my way.  Even if you think I'm a tool, give me a buck so I can keep writing and giving you more to complain about.

Mountain Dew Bottlers Trying Out New Caps?

 
Here, you see a normal screw top cap for a plastic, 20 oz Mtn Dew bottle.  Notice the soft plastic lining as well as the many short plastic threads on the inside.  This bottle was dated for July 10th, 2010.

Compare that cap with this one.  This cap has less threading on the inside and those individual ridges are longer.  Pay particular attention to the lack of a lining.  The lining acts as a gasket, making sure the product is sealed and maintains pressure.  This cap features a ridge that you can see running just inside of the cap.  The ridge is angled to be thicker at the bottom(top of the cap).  This is fairly ingenious because as the cap is screwed on, the mouth of the bottle squeezes between the ridge and the cap, creating a tight seal.  No need for a liner.  I can tell that this cap definitely feels different when unscrewing.  This bottle had the same sell by date as the other one.  So the question is this; is this the new bottle cap design and are we going to see this in the rest of the PepsiCo line-up?

Here are both caps, side by side for comparison.