How America Is Making the Whole World Fat and Unhealthy It is hardly news that the United States faces epidemic health problems linked to poor diets. Nearly two out of every five Americans are obese. But according to a press release from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, "The West is now exporting diabetes and heart disease to developing countries, along with the processed foods that line the shelves of global supermarkets. By 2030, more than 5 million people will die each year before the age of 60 from non-communicable diseases linked to diets."
[...]
De Schutter, whose work usually focuses on ending hunger, just published a new report saying, "The right to food cannot be reduced to a right not to starve. It is an inclusive right to an adequate diet providing all the nutritional elements an individual requires to live a healthy and active life, and the means to access them."
posted by infini
on Apr 4, 2012 -
59 comments
Swole.me is a completely free automated diet planner that creates meals according to your goal calorie intake and how many meals you’d like to eat per day.
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posted by netbros
on Jan 30, 2012 -
51 comments
IBM is
currently putting together database and barcode tracking to allow farmers and grocers in China to track your porkchop, from the pig to the plate. Using supply chain tracking (similar to what is done already in other industries), the goal is to limit and hopefully prevent disease outbreaks by tracking the health of the animal, including which other animals it has come into contact with. So the next time you sit down for some nice ham, you might be able to scan the barcode (or RFID tag) to see whom else on your block shares your own porcine six degrees of separation.
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posted by Old'n'Busted
on Dec 19, 2011 -
21 comments
Why Wal-Mart Is Making Our Health Its Problem - "So what's behind
the [healthier-eating] initiative? In a word: scale. In
a recent article in HBR, Chris Meyer and I argued that we'll see companies taking more and more ownership of externalities they could ignore because of changing sensibilities and better sensors (meaning detection and reporting of impacts by third parties). But we also identified a third driver: the scale of modern business. Whereas in the past, a single grocer could not have much impact on society, in today's highly consolidated market, Wal-Mart touches a significant percentage of the nation's food intake. Once you reach a scale where your decisions have ramifications for millions, it is hard to pretend that the impacts, even as distant ripples, are not your problem."
posted by kliuless
on Jan 24, 2011 -
75 comments
Suddenly everything you eat or drink tastes horribly bitter and metallic, with the bitterness persisting at the back of your tongue after each swallow. The symptom recedes somewhat after a few meals but still persists after days.
What's wrong with you? Brain tumor? Liver failure? First check if you ate pine nuts a few days ago - if so, you've probably just got
pine mouth.
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posted by dfan
on Apr 20, 2010 -
36 comments
One hamburger sent a 23 year-old woman into a coma for nine weeks. When she awoke, she could no longer walk. A
lengthy expose in the NYTimes follows the secretive chain of events bringing E. coli into her life. Contemporary carnivores read at your own risk...
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posted by pjenks
on Oct 4, 2009 -
157 comments
Body fat
causes cancer according to a scary report from
the American Institute for Cancer Research and the
World Cancer Research Fund that reviewed 7000 studies. Obesity creates "a low-grade chronic inflammatory state" that promotes cancer. This report seems more foreboding than others of its ilk, e.g.: "Even small amounts of excess body fat, especially if carried at the waist, increase risk." Drinking is also carcinogenic: better limit yourself to 2 drinks a day if you're male and 1 if you're female. (Of course,
breathing is also bad, and so is
sunlight. ) Conclusion: you can live a really long time if you don't like to eat or drink, though you want to avoid taking this to
extremes.
posted by cogneuro
on Oct 31, 2007 -
115 comments
"Sleeper": Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.
Has anything changed?
posted by caddis
on Sep 19, 2007 -
11 comments
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security.
...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted by ZachsMind
on Aug 29, 2007 -
110 comments
Can microbes make us fat? Of the trillions and trillions of cells in a typical human body — at least 10 times as many cells in a single individual as there are stars in the Milky Way — only about 1 in 10 is human. The other 90 percent are microbial. These microbes — a term that encompasses all forms of microscopic organisms, including bacteria, fungi, protozoa and a form of life called archaea — exist everywhere. New evidence suggests microbes in our bodies can determine how efficiently we process food and affect our hunger centers.
posted by caddis
on Aug 13, 2006 -
29 comments
Are you HUNGRY or do you just crave the
flavor?
(my favorite is that Mustard is under the heading Exotic.)
posted by Phantast
on Aug 17, 2005 -
29 comments
USDA releases new food pyramid(s). Instead of one cogent nutritional guideline for all Americans, the USDA has
released a dozen because "one size doesn't fit all." Dietitians have advocated
revision for a while now but change has been slow. According to author
Marion Nestle, the nutritional guidelines have become
highly politized by industry lobbyists: "My first day on the job, I was given the rules: No matter what the research indicated, the report could not recommend 'eat less meat' as a way to reduce intake of saturated fat." Newspeak for sweets appears to be
discretionary calories; are we doing any better?
posted by fatllama
on Apr 19, 2005 -
29 comments
After reading that
beef has been recalled from my local grocery store, I spent some time reading
Mad Cow USA a book written back in 1997 but not widely published because of fears of repercussions under the Texas food disparagement act. AlterNet has an
article written by one of the book's authors summarizing some of the key points of the book. Some claim that only ground beef is infected, while
others claim that's bull.
mad-cow.org has a lot of good information on the topic, and it seems the powers that be are going to
blame Canada.
posted by woil
on Dec 30, 2003 -
14 comments
Teenage Girls Not Getting Enough Meat... At least, not according to the American Beef Industry, which concoted this laughably ridiculous "lifestyle" site to appeal to god knows who, ostensibly focused on teen girl issues (prom? dating?), but with a thinly veiled meaty agenda beneath it all. Bonus points for the horrifically Avrilesque domain name. Marketing. It's what's for dinner.
posted by jonson
on Feb 1, 2003 -
59 comments
If it tastes good, eat it? Food scientists have discovered that AMP, " a naturally occurring substance ..... found in a wide range of natural foods - including breast milk" can be used to make bad tasting food taste good. Will it save humanity from the "unholy trinity" of sugar, salt, and fat, or are we all tumor meat as soon as this stuff gets some traction?
posted by BGM
on Feb 1, 2003 -
29 comments
FDA now officially useless? Well, it's looking that way.. They are now about to allow
unverified health claims on food labels. They say this is a good thing. I wonder... What function does the FDA have now if it's not to protect the consumer from wild and potentially false claims on their food products?
posted by eas98
on Dec 27, 2002 -
13 comments
