The Frito-Lay diet

I attended an evening lecture at the Nutrition Healing Center in Ann Arbor a couple days ago. The lecture was about ways to stay on their diet while dining out. It included mention of a website listing area restaurants that feature local and perhaps organic food. So, friend and debate partner, we might have some tasty exploring to do. Alas, the lecture wasn't all that insightful (I've heard similar things before) and it wasn't all that long (my drive to Ann Arbor was longer).

The evening wasn't wasted because after the lecture I was able to talk to my patient advocate Connie. I'm not sure what this person does and why I have both a "patient advocate" and "practitioner" and why both of those people do both jobs (though for different patients). In addition to some helpful advice she said a couple things that caught my attention.

The first bit: In a story related by Connie, my practitioner, Kerry, attended at least the nutrition classes in medical school (not sure of the details here). During one lecture Kerry pointed out that recent research linked heart disease with sugar. The instructor insisted the culprit was particular kinds of fat. Kerry persisted. The instructor said, I’m sorry, but for legal reasons I must insist the problem is fat. That's when Kerry decided to pursue alternative medicine.

I don't know if those "legal" reasons were federal law, state law, or a contract between the medical school and some outside party.

The second bit: Connie said that many dietician and nutrition conferences are sponsored by Pepsi, Frito-Lay and other corporate food providers. You can be sure what goes on in the meeting rooms does not contradict the goals of the corporate sponsors.

The lecture and discussion was short enough that I was able to travel across Ann Arbor (which isn't all that big) to the Whole Foods Market. It's a much bigger store than the last natural food market I visited and this time I had a better idea of what I was looking for. It is amazing how many varieties of "healthy" bread have soy in them -- soy being something I'm supposed to avoid. I've since given several partial loaves of bread (I like variety) to the guy who cuts my grass.

Sometime while I was on vacation a friend sent me an article about weight loss. It is on the Forbes website and says the reason why people have trouble losing weight and maintaining weight loss is because all that bad food is damaging the parts of the brain that control hunger. But in reading it I noticed something. At one point the article refers to a study about "a diet high in saturated fats and simple carbohydrates." But when listing harms the article heaps all the blame on fats, never mentioning carbs again. Though I am still working out what I'm supposed to be eating I have caught on the Nutrition Healing Center says that lots of carbs are bad and that fats, including saturated fats, are good. My traditional diet said that saturated fats are bad and polyunsaturated fats are good. NHC is saying the opposite (though both say trans fats are really bad). Back to the study -- though it claims the problem is fats, NHC says the problem is carbs.

Why the discrepancy?

From the clues above I'm going to guess. Corporations have taken over the food and diet industries and they are strong enough to prevent anything that will interrupt their profits. That implies these corporations are the reason why there is an obesity epidemic in America. As long as they get their profits they don't care how fat we get and how unhealthy that makes us. In the same way that cigarette companies sponsored studies that "proved" smoking is harmless and oil companies pay for research that "proves" humans aren't responsible for climate change, food companies are out to show that it is someone else's product that causes obesity.

These companies have a couple things going in their favor. It is easy to believe that eating lots of fat causes our bodies to store fat. Eating fat high in cholesterol causes high cholesterol and we are now well trained to believe this is what causes heart attacks. Is it true? I'll only say NHC is actively disputing it. Another idea food corporations have in their favor is that if a person fails in a diet that person is obviously at fault. The diet is fine, the person didn't follow it closely enough. Corporate diet programs like this idea because people who can't lose weight remain their customers longer.

Obviously, all these diet programs, whether through a corporation or through a health system, aren't all bad. Some of the things I've learned along the way -- eat your veggies, whole fruit is better than juice, watch portion size, eat until satisfied instead of stuffed, watch for trans-fats, eat plenty of fiber, and a few similar items -- appear in each of the diet programs I've used. And some people do lose weight and keep it off. But a large number, including me, don't.

It is quite possible that corporations have overtaken the food and diet industries in the same way they have taken over other aspects of our lives, no matter the cost to our waistlines and health.