Really Interesting Documentary on Nutrition

I'm only about 3/4 of the way through this, but there's some really incredible info on nutrition in this documentary:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333994/

A lot of it I've actually been reading a lot about on these forums recently. It just goes to show how wrong and backwards some of the info out there is on what's really good and bad for you.

Thanks, I always enjoy a new food documentary.

Man this has just completely change my view on carbohydrates. It's amazing... at one point in the movie one doctor points out that the same grains which are recommended in bulk to humans to make us healthy and thin are what are fed to cows to fatten them up.

Yep. In general, grass seeds are not good for you.

This answer to "Super Size Me" of course never got the recognition that the former did, shame. To me it's becoming more and more apparent that people have the same relationship with food that smokers do with cigarettes. The "I could quit at any time, I'm not addicted", mentality is pervasive in todays age; except nicotine is replaced with candy, soda, pizza, and cake. Until the general populace wakes up to the reality of their predicament, there can be no change.

True, and it's going to be hard when you've got Little Debbie products on sale all the time!

BlLL said:

This answer to "Super Size Me" of course never got the recognition that the former did, shame. To me it's becoming more and more apparent that people have the same relationship with food that smokers do with cigarettes. The "I could quit at any time, I'm not addicted", mentality is pervasive in todays age; except nicotine is replaced with candy, soda, pizza, and cake. Until the general populace wakes up to the reality of their predicament, there can be no change.

I respectfully disagree. Let us not quibble about terms, but to describe the habit of eating enormous amounts of foods is barely a addiction but rather a form of general lack of discipline an/or intelligence. I believe that labeling something as "addiction" is just a way of discharge a person from their own accountability. That way, the destructive behavior becomes a externum, something you are not responsible for - an unfortunate trend in todays society.

I recently learned, that the term "food addiction" is often used in american english to describe people who constantly eat a large amount of food without regard to their health and body composition. That strikes me as a weird term. Before the age of political correctness, that would have been called "gluttony" and the mentioned people would have been told to eat less and exercise more. Nowadays, it is obviously an addiction which has to be carefully treated and discussed, so that no feelings will be hurt...

I am looking forward to the day that term arrives here in germany. General evidence shows that it will take about two or three years.

I could write many pages in response to this, but I will simply say that perhaps you misunderstood my use of the term addiction. I use the term not for just physical dependencies like drugs, but also psychological and emotional dependency. A physical dependency we can easily see and understand, an emotional one does not follow suit. Think of an emotional addiction like an anti-phobia. Why are people scared of spiders? Most are entirely harmless, all are fairly easy to kill, and on the whole they avoid human contact. Why do people eat cupcakes? Most are nutritionally barren, none could strictly be called healthy, and they are easy to avoid. Logically, both cases don't make sense, a dispassionate observer would conclude we should not fear spiders and we should not eat cupcakes. Yet the emotional connection the individual has with the object/habit is the wildcard an observer cannot account for. So while it is easy for you or me to say someone lacks discipline, the truth may be FAR more complex than either of us understand.

BlLL said:

I could write many pages in response to this, but I will simply say that perhaps you misunderstood my use of the term addiction. I use the term not for just physical dependencies like drugs, but also psychological and emotional dependency. A physical dependency we can easily see and understand, an emotional one does not follow suit. Think of an emotional addiction like an anti-phobia. Why are people scared of spiders? Most are entirely harmless, all are fairly easy to kill, and on the whole they avoid human contact. Why do people eat cupcakes? Most are nutritionally barren, none could strictly be called healthy, and they are easy to avoid. Logically, both cases don't make sense, a dispassionate observer would conclude we should not fear spiders and we should not eat cupcakes. Yet the emotional connection the individual has with the object/habit is the wildcard an observer cannot account for. So while it is easy for you or me to say someone lacks discipline, the truth may be FAR more complex than either of us understand.

So true. Over on my side of the pond we train our kids to go for this stuff from the time they're born and often even in the womb due to Mom's diet. When you train someone to do something for many years they cannot just flip the switch. That's however many years of actual neural connections in the brain, physical structures that manually support these behaviors. It takes a long time to rewire everything, so to speak, and it takes constant effort (which is something else that we don't teach over here). Small surprise, then, that we (Team America) have to keep making our smalls larger so that no one realizes how fat we are all getting.

BlLL said:

I could write many pages in response to this, but I will simply say that perhaps you misunderstood my use of the term addiction.

That might have been the case. That day, I was shocked after seeing that MTV decided ta air a show about a very overweight young female and her struggle to combine her everyday life as a freshman with her so called "food addiction". In a Trailer, she was shown eating massive amounts of food, that would have put every pro-powerlifter in a bulking phase to shame.

It just striked me as very odd and potentially dangerous, that instead of realizing her how destructive her behavior really is, she took comfort - I would say escape - in the fact, that she was addicted to eating food, and not "just" overweight.

Rower said:

BlLL said:

I could write many pages in response to this, but I will simply say that perhaps you misunderstood my use of the term addiction.

That might have been the case. That day, I was shocked after seeing that MTV decided ta air a show about a very overweight young female and her struggle to combine her everyday life as a freshman with her so called "food addiction". In a Trailer, she was shown eating massive amounts of food, that would have put every pro-powerlifter in a bulking phase to shame.

It just striked me as very odd and potentially dangerous, that instead of realizing her how destructive her behavior really is, she took comfort - I would say escape - in the fact, that she was addicted to eating food, and not "just" overweight.

It's not odd, and is definitely not potentially anything... that thought process is ACTUALLY dangerous! People take comfort in believing that things are out of their control, because they are not responsible. Any sentences after this delving deeper into the subject will turn this thread into a flameground, so that line of thought ends here.

At any rate, without assuming personal responsibility for one's health long term change is not possible.

It really is sad and disturbing to see people like the woman you are describing, and it's even sadder to realize that we have cultivated an attitude over here that encourages people to support individuals like her instead of saying "Sweetie, we love you but you really do have to change... what you're doing is dangerous and we don't want to see you die horribly in middle age. Let's get something better going and get you fitting into some healthier-sized clothes." That kind of thing seems to be considered rude in America, and that's F-d up in my opinion. It needs to be said. Said with compassion and understanding, but not with any kind of ambiguity whatsoever.