Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 4.

Cont'd from Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 3.

"You tend to get what you accept" Tillerman (don't ask). The following music video sums it up.


If you give someone an inch, they'll take a mile. Why do people put up with the following piss-takes?


If you accept crap, you get crap. Therefore, demand non-crap.

I used to think that I couldn't do certain things, e.g. perform in public, due to extreme shyness.
Now I do things like this...






Almost anything is possible, if you put your mind to it!

FIN.

See The Elephant in the Room.

Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 3.

Cont'd from Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 2.
 
Derren Brown shows how easy it is to manipulate your thoughts, by the use of subliminal images.


I may have mentioned it somewhere on this blog, but everyone is different. The reactions of the kids in the "I ate all your Halloween candy" video in the previous blog post varied from total melt-downs, through feigned deaths, through tears, to "That's all right!". Candy/sweets have different importance to different people and people's suggestibility varies from "Very easy to manipulate" to "Very hard to manipulate".

There's engineering of foods to be as moreish as possible. "The trouble is, they taste too good!" (Crunchy Nut Cornflakes), "Bet you can't eat just one!" (some savoury snack made from refined starch, salt & flavourings) and "Once you pop, you can't stop!" (Pringles). As Harry Hill once said "The problem with heroin is, it's rather moreish!" Although addiction to pure table sugar isn't a thing, addiction to hyperpalatable foods is a thing (which can be reduced by Naltrexone). See Food cravings engineered by industry and Sugar addiction: pushing the drug-sugar analogy to the limit.

Then there's the incessant marketing, including direct adverts, sponsorships, product placements, celebrity endorsements, tie-ins etc. See The Money Spent Selling Sugar to Americans Is Staggering and It’s Not Your Imagination: Celebrities Hawk Pretty Much Only Junk Food.

Then there's the bribery lobbying of government to:-
1. Water-down Dietary Guidelines so that crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle (CIAB) meets them. As people get fatter and sicker, the Guidelines and the government get the blame.
2. Subsidise the ingredients of CIAB so that it's cheaper than produce.

Then there's corruption of science e.g. getting doctors to advertise cigarettes years ago. Organisations with vested interests are created, to promulgate conflicting dietary information. Is it any wonder that the public distrust science and scientists?

Edward Bernays' manipulation techniques have worked exceedingly well. If you're too fat and someone says to you "Nobody made you over-consume that crap", point out the above.

What can you do? You can't sue Food Product manufacturers, as their products don't immediately harm you. See How Ultra-Processed Foods Are Killing Us. Hit them where it hurts i.e. in their bank accounts, by eschewing CIAB and basing your diet on whole, minimally-refined animal and vegetable produce. CIAB should be treat foods, not staple foods.

Finally, here's a video on how to form good habits for life.


Cont'd on Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 4.

Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 2.

Cont'd from Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 1.

Remember the video "YouTube Challenge - I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy 2015"?


Some of those kids reacted as if their life had just come to an end!

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about psychotherapy, so I don't know how accurate the information is in Hypoglycemia and Neurosis.

Please don't pacify crying babies/toddlers/children with sugary crap.

Cont'd on Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 3.

Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 1.

Cont'd from Public Service Announcement: Calling all Low-carb, Low-fat and Veg*n advocates.

I feel a music video coming on.


Start of clarification.
I've noticed some confusion over the term "Crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle" (CIAB). My previous post received the following comment, which I'll annotate.
"Is highly processed the problem? Yes.
Tinned tomatoes are processed, what's wrong with including those in your diet. Nothing, other than the fact that they're too salty for me if they're tinned in brine.
What about low sugar baked beans? Nothing, other than the fact that they're too salty for me.
What's wrong with a burger if all it is, is minced beef? Nothing.
Other processed food:
Smoked mackerel Fine.
Frozen peas Fine.
Milled porridge oats Fine.
Parma ham Fine.
Cheese Fine.
Nitrate free bacon Fine.
Prunes Fine.
Almond butter Too calorie-dense & moreish for me.
Filtered milk Fine.
Low sugar jam Fine.
Roasted chestnuts Fine.
Haggis Fine. I think."

CIAB is stuff like French fries/chips, chips/crisps, "fast food", take-aways, pizzas, biscuits/cookies, chocolate, sweets/candy, sugar-sweetened beverages, sugary cereals etc.
End of clarification.

In How to lose weight and get slim by eating "fast food" for 180 days. I showed that it's possible to be healthy on a diet of fast food, if you have a plan and you stick to it. The vast majority of people who eat fast food don't have a plan!

Between the ages of 5 & 8, I spent my 12d/week (that's 5p/week, for those of you who are too young to remember £,s,d.) on sweets. Aniseed balls were 4 for 1d. I also ate French Fancies (small sponge cakes covered in fondant icing) and drank Corona Lemonade (~15% sugar content) at home.

How did I get such a ferocious sweet tooth? Here's the probable answer:- Farley's Rusks.

Look at the health-washing.
"Farley’s Rusks have been loved by mums and babies for generations. Each rusk is lovingly baked using baby grade ingredients."

Let's take a look at the baby grade ingredients:-
"Wheat Flour, Sugar, Palm Oil, Raising Agents (Ammonium Carbonates), Calcium Carbonate, Emulsifier (Monoglycerides), Niacin, Iron, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin A, Vitamin D."

The first three ingredients are refined starch, refined sugar and refined fat. The refined sugar content is 29% by weight. Perfect food for a baby! The previous sentence may contain traces of sarcasm.

Cont'd on Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 2.

We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.

If you don't recognise the words in the title, here's the classic song from which they came.


An increasing number of people are becoming like birds in gilded cages. See The perfect crime.
"What's fascinating is this: the marketing is so powerful that some of the people being hurt actually are eager for it to continue. This creates a cultural feedback loop, where some aspire to have these respected marketing jobs, to do more marketing of similar items. It creates a society where the owners and leaders of these companies are celebrated as risk-taking, brave businesspeople, not as the modern robber barons that they've become."

Did I ever mention?...

Marketing Food to Children: Anna Lappe at TEDxManhattan 2013.

As per title.

We have free will, huh?

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Who, these guys?

From https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kz6jc

No. I'm referring to Manufacturers of Crap-in-a-Bag/Box/Bottle (CIAB), or MOCIAB for short.

In Obesity is multi-factorial, spectra and other stuff, I mentioned Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg's ban on the use of cups larger than 16oz for the sale of sugary sodas. Note that Mayor Bloomberg is not trying to ban sugary sodas or tax anything. People are still free to buy as many cups of sugary soda as they want. However, the whining from people is deafening!

Surprise, surprise! MOCIAB have retaliated with the usual dirty tricks.

1) Lies, damned lies and MOCIAB statistics.

Cherry-picked studies, much?

2) Have a number of MOCIAB/pro-MOCIAB groups/sites drown-out good advice with bad. This is a standard marketing trick pioneered by Edward Bernays. Some examples of MOCIAB/pro-MOCIAB groups are:- Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, https://www.ameribev.org/, https://www.consumerfreedom.com/, https://www.letsclearitup.org/ and https://www.livepositively.com/.


In Psychological manipulation, there was a link to a story about a hypnotist who used his freedom of speech to influence women into "freely" handing him cash. So, why is he not allowed to use his freedom of speech to influence people (Italian police were hunting him) whereas MOCIAB are?

EDIT: I'll repeat it here, in case you missed it in the other post. Confessions of a former Dirty Rotten Scoundrel.

"The Diet Debacle" debacle.

What's that funny smell?

According to Robert H. Lustig in The Diet Debacle,"If a calorie is a calorie, then any food can be part of a balanced diet; and, if we are what we eat, then everyone chooses what they eat."

Firstly, the first nutritional maxim isn't "A calorie is a calorie". It's actually "Where bodyweight is concerned, a calorie is a calorie". Leaving out the first four words makes a huge difference to the meaning.

Secondly, the second nutritional maxim actually means "Your body is made out of what you eat. Therefore, if you eat/drink rubbish, you get a rubbish body.

Apart from that, the rest of the article is absolutely fine*.

*The above sentence ending in "*" is pure irony. See also Review & Critique: The Skinny on Obesity ~ Intro and Part I and Review & Critique: The Skinny on Obesity ~ Part II Sickeningly Inaccurate.

The sad thing is that I actually sympathise with Robert H. Lustig's aim, which is to reduce the humongous amount of sugar that Americans shove down their throats in solid or liquid form each year.

I don't want to come across as a Socialist Asshole (it's Arsehole, Sean!), but intervention is sometimes needed to stop certain humans and groups thereof (e.g. companies/corporations) from harming other humans and groups thereof (e.g. the general population).

In City of New York Bureau of Food Discipline, Sean wrote "Never mind that the record of government diet intervention is abysmal, this time it will work." I can't speak for the US, as I don't know how things work over there. Here in the U.K, DEFRA aims to maintain standards in the way that crops are grown and in the management of farm animals. The FSA aims to maintain standards for food safety, although they do occasionally issue some dubious nutritional advice (read the comments to see some familiar names).

Just because government agencies occasionally cock things up, does that mean that we should have zero government intervention where food is concerned? I obviously think not!

See also What Is Food? and Former Coke executive slams ‘share of stomach’ marketing campaign.

Addendum: If (as I believe) corporations should be prevented from unduly influencing the general population in their food choices by banning all advertisements for foods & drinks, then governments should also be prevented from unduly influencing the general population in their food choices by banning food policies and crop subsidies. All that governments should do food-wise is enforce food safety standards.

Testing hypotheses - a rant.

My brain just exploded! On Why conventional view of obesity / FR is wrong, ItsTheWoo wrote "...there is not a doubt in my mind obesity is entirely 100% an illness, a disorder... "

According to ItsTheWoo's hypothesis, the increasing incidence of obesity all around the world since 1970 is 100% caused by the increasing incidence of illness all around the world since 1970. Seriously, WTF?

According to Nigeepoo's hypothesis, the increasing incidence of obesity all around the world since 1970 is significantly caused by the increasing influence of Crap-in-a-Bag/Box/Bottle (CIAB) manufacturers on the population by cunning marketing and on the Government by bribery lobbying since 1970.

The former results in increasing consumption of CIAB and the latter results in increasing subsidies on the raw materials used for manufacturing CIAB, making CIAB cheaper (also more profitable) than natural foods, thus increasing consumption of CIAB. See Why are Twinkies cheaper than carrots?

There are other factors causing increased obesity e.g. increasing numbers of towns/cities which discourage walking. See also Determinants of the Variability in Human Body-fat Percentage.

Highly-engineered and highly-calorific CIAB encourages subconscious over-eating via Food Reward. The hyper-secretion of insulin (compensatory hyperinsulinaemia) caused by the subconscious over-eating of CIAB causes subconscious under-moving by inducing drowsiness and lethargy, sometimes followed by the munchies if blood glucose goes too low. Insulin is just a hormone that is secreted for the storage of stuff and a reduction in the burning of stuff. Don't blame insulin for doing its job. If you have zero insulin (e.g. untreated type 1 diabetes), your body stops storing stuff and starts burning stuff uncontrollably. Before the invention of insulin injections, people with type 1 diabetes usually died within 2 years.

Subconscious over-eating is good for the profits of CIAB manufacturers. An increasing number of dyslipidaemic/hypertensive/depressed/diabetic/demented/w.h.y. people is good for the profits of health-care providers and drug manufacturers. These organisations currently make huge profits, so it's not going to be easy to change anything that will reduce them.

I deleted the last part of my rant as it was a bit too ranty, but I'm reinstating it in a toned-down form as I've mentioned it in the comments.

ItsTheWoo continually conflates subconscious over-eating and under-moving with conscious over-eating and under-moving (gluttony and sloth). The vast majority of over-fat people become over-fat due to subconsciously over-eating and under-moving. A tiny minority of over-fat people are gluttonous and slothful.

Telling people to consciously Eat Less, Move More doesn't work. This doesn't mean that Eat Less, Move More doesn't work. It means that Eat Less, Move More has to be done subconsciously. This is where low-carb/paleo/real food diets come into their own.

Rant over.

Determinants of the Variability in Human Body-fat Percentage.

There are extremely skinny people, very skinny people, skinny people, average people, fat people, very fat people and extremely fat people. However, all healthy newborns have roughly the same body-fat percentage.

As we grow, we gain weight. That's normal. However, the percentage of our bodies that's body-fat can and does change. I'm not going to start another pointless "is a calorie a calorie?" debate as whether it is (as I believe) or it isn't (as others believe), isn't particularly relevant.


What makes some people gain more body-fat mass & less muscle mass than others?

Where nutrients end up depends on the relative insulin sensitivity of the target tissues.
Fat cells are usually always sensitive to insulin unless they are so full of fat that they cannot accommodate any more, in which case either pre-fat cells get turned into new empty fat cells, or if there are no pre-fat cells left, the result is type 2 diabetes.

Muscle cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin. Inactivity lowers insulin sensitivity and intense exercise increases it. Body-builders do a lot of intense exercise so as to maximise muscle cell insulin sensitivity in order to get the maximum amount of nutrients into muscle cells rather than fat cells.

Liver cells vary in their sensitivity to insulin depending on how full of glycogen they are and how much visceral fat (fat around the internal organs) there is.


What makes our weight go up?

1) Eating
2) Drinking
3) Putting on clothes
4) Oxygen breathed in


What makes our weight go down?

1) Defaecating
2) Urinating
3) Taking off clothes
4) Carbon dioxide & water vapour breathed out
5) Energy losses due to movement & heat losses due to conduction, convection, radiation & evaporation
6) Miscellaneous (loss of various bodily fluids, loss of skin cells/hairs/nails, ketones in urine/sweat/breath)

Some factors are controllable/reversible and some aren't. Over a period of 24 hours, our weight goes up and down by a few pounds due to the above factors. Whether our average weight over a 24 hour period changes over the course of days, weeks, months & years depends on the balance between the things that make it go up and the things that make it go down.


Why do we eat & drink what (and as much as) we do?

1) Parents
When we are young, what & how much we eat is determined by our parents (also schools). They dictate the foods and the portion sizes. Poor parents (also schools) often buy the cheapest possible foods. Poor parents encourage "plate-clearing" as they cannot afford waste.

2) Genetics
Some of our ancestors lived in hot countries and some lived in cold countries. Some habitually ate meats and some habitually ate shoots or roots or fruits or grains. This has an effect on our bodies. My ancestors came mostly from Northern Europe which may explain why I achieve better appetite control on a meat-based diet rather than a grain-based diet. The ability to digest lactose (milk sugar) is determined by the habitual milk-drinking in adulthood of our ancestors. Only 4.7% of white English people are lactose-intolerant compared to ~98% of Africans, who would have drunk warm raw milk that had lactase in it.

3) Peer pressure from parents, siblings, friends, business partners & significant others
"Go on! One (more) *insert name of junk food/drink here* won't hurt!"

4) Religion/tradition
It's become commonplace for English people to stuff themselves silly at Christmas, eat lots of chocolate eggs at Easter, pancakes etc.

5) Culture
Certain foods that are very nutritious are either culturally-unacceptable or have fallen out of favour e.g. rabbit/horse/cat/dog-meats & offal (brains, stomachs, lungs, pancreases, hearts, kidneys, bladders, necks, feet).

6) Time
Increasingly busy lives make some people buy pre-prepared meals/snacks which are usually refined carbohydrate-based e.g sandwiches, Subway/Maccy D/BK/KFC. Some workers only have access to vending machine foods & drinks or canteen food which may be of dubious quality. Others blow-out on business lunches.

7) Habit
How many people eat by the clock rather than when they are hungry? School children & many workers have no choice and have to eat at set meal times.

8) Media
There are lots of cookery programmes with celebrity chefs endorsing some diet or other and TV adverts for all sorts of manufactured foods but not many adverts for meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese etc (whatever happened to "Beefy & Lamby" & "Go to work on an egg"?). There's always some "expert" telling us what to eat & what not to eat. A lot of mindless eating occurs while watching TV.

9) Physiological & psychological reasons
When we're feeling ill, sad or depressed or have unstable blood glucose levels, we may fancy foods which are high in sugar and fat (mmm, chocolate!). People who are very sedentary and/or lacking sufficient Vitamin D may have unstable blood glucose & insulin levels resulting in extreme lethargy after meals followed by ravenous hunger. People with Anorexia Nervosa often starve themselves or purge after meals.

10) Allergies & intolerances
People avoid foods that make them feel ill.

11) Geography
If we live in a country that grows a lot of a certain foodstuff e.g. rice, wheat, beetroot etc, we are encouraged to eat a lot of that particular foodstuff. When we feel hot, our appetites decrease and when we feel cold, our appetites increase. This is why we don't get fat when we put more clothes on to make ourselves feel warmer.

12) Season
This isn't so relevant, now that most foods are transported around the world and sold in supermarkets, but locally-grown seasonal foods bought from farmers' markets are tasty & nutritious.

13) Boredom
The saying "the Devil makes work for idle hands" applies to our brains & stomachs as well.

14) Exercise
Some people's appetites decrease when they exercise and some increase. I used to fall into the latter category. Over-training at high-intensity on insufficient carbohydrate intake can drain muscle glycogen to the point where muscles rapidly suck glucose from the blood causing low blood glucose. Apart from faints, shakes & sweats, this hugely increases appetite as the brain is crying out for something to raise blood glucose a.s.a.p.

15) Beliefs
Lacto-ovo-vegetarians, pescatarians, vegetarians, vegans etc will not eat certain foods for ethical/moral reasons.

16) Senses
The sight & smell of food & the sound of food cooking can increase our appetites. TV adverts and supermarkets use this to increase sales.

17) Hunger
The emptier the stomach is, the more ghrelin it secretes, which increases our appetites.

18) Comfort
If clothing becomes uncomfortably tight around the waist, that can suppress our appetites. Keep your belt on the same hole, to discourage over-eating.

19) Self Shaming
If we catch sight of our bodies in a mirror and don't like what we see, that can suppress our appetites. People who have Anorexia Nervosa see their bodies as fat/obese when they are actually skinny/emaciated.

20) Societal Shaming
In Japan, it's frowned upon to be too fat. Ditto in "Rich" areas of some countries. Fat-shaming can suppress appetite.

21) Current fatness
As we get fatter, fat cells secrete more leptin, which suppresses our appetites. Very fat people's fat cells secrete so much leptin that the brain can become insensitive to it, resulting in poor appetite suppression.

22) Willpower
Some people find it harder than others to resist the enticements listed above to eat/drink more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor junk.


If I've left anything off this list, feel free to comment. Our bodies are pretty complicated and contain many regulatory Negative Feed-Back (NFB) loops, so we humans have managed to survive famines & disasters over the aeons by our ability to store an excess of proteins, carbohydrates & fats as muscle & body-fat (also food in food-stores) and are now at the top of the food chain (except in lion, tiger, wolf, hyena, bear & shark territory!). Our biggest threat today is excessively-cheap & over-promoted manufactured foods which are calorie-dense & moreish and lifestyles that encourage us to over-eat, under-move and under-sun our skins. When people get too fat, their blood glucose control becomes impaired, which encourages even more over-eating and under-moving, thus creating a vicious circle.

I think that manufactured foods should be taxed and the revenue used to subsidise natural foods. One problem with such a plan is that the Government doesn't always use revenue for the purpose intended e.g. Road Tax. Another problem is in defining manufactured foods e.g. does churning milk to make butter count as manufacturing? Ditto pressing olives to make EVOO? I personally think not, but it's a grey area.

I also think that there should be a ban on the advertising of manufactured foods, as adverts encourage us to buy & consume foods we don't need. Marketing is more persuasive than you think.

See also Eat Less, Move More: Solutions to problems.