patrick.net

Why is eating organic/local bad ToT?

I'm not a fanatic about it, but I drink milk and usually "O" brand organic milk from Safeway.

I guess it's that whole thing of not wanting to drink a daily dose of extra special mystery chemicals above and beyond what you'd expect your cow to provide.

Prefer growing my own tomatoes etc. now that we have garden space. Just getting good harvest off the winter crop of lettuce and greens now. We don't spray any pesticides on it.

Vicente says

Why is eating organic/local bad ToT?
I’m not a fanatic about it, but I drink milk and usually “O” brand organic milk from Safeway.
I guess it’s that whole thing of not wanting to drink a daily dose of extra special mystery chemicals above and beyond what you’d expect your cow to provide.
Prefer growing my own tomatoes etc. now that we have garden space. Just getting good harvest off the winter crop of lettuce and greens now. We don’t spray any pesticides on it.

I didn't say it is bad, I said it is unrealistic to expect most people to eat healthy, given the limited resources many have. It wasn't that long ago a huge bag of produce was like a copula dollars.
Now it's a a huge bag of burgers cost only a copula dollars.

The fat people are the Canaries not the cause.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3353401&page=1

discusses the benefits and drawbacks of organic food.

Tenouncetrout says

I didn’t say it is bad, I said it is unrealistic to expect most people to eat healthy, given the limited resources many have.

You don't have to eat only organic to eat healthy. A lot of people eat junk, and pay a lot of money for it. We were vegitarians for about 5 years. It was incredibly cheap ... and healthy. Granted it takes more of an effort, but there are other ways to eat than the slop most Americans consider to be "food." We still eat mostly vegitarian, but now eat fish & chicken, etc.

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providing health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids' soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

sam1 says

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providence health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids’ soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

What a crazy idea. Negative reinforcement is the way! We should make fat people sit at the back of the bus and not allow them to vote until they lose weight. If they're their ideal body weight, they shouldn't be afforded the same privileges that others are. This should include pregnant women, invalids, etc. We should electrify video games so that after 20 minutes, kids begin to be shocked at progressively higher amounts until they get up off their lazy (electrified) asses and exercise. ;)

this thread is crazy. People who are thin often don't understand how difficult it is to lose weight. Even starving themselves doesn't help. Focusing on the issue and chastising the overweight doesn't seem to be helping.

sam1 says

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providence health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids’ soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

I like your ideas. Another thing to consider would be a special penalty on parents that allow their kids to get fat. This is a form of child abuse, IMO.

RayAmerica says

. We were vegitarians for about 5 years. It was incredibly cheap … and healthy. Granted it takes more of an effort, but there are other ways to eat than the slop most Americans consider to be “food.” We still eat mostly vegitarian, but now eat fish & chicken, etc.

Well that's because you live in Unicorn village.

Wait a minute, you were a Vegetarian for about 5 years, and you now eat fish & chicken?

Perhaps you're just Gourmandly challenged.

Give me your address. I'll send you a tub of tofu.

You don't have to send me anything. I know how to eat, and while I'm defending fat people only in the fact that most don't have an alternative. Be poor and hungry and only have $2.00, and I bet you anything, you'll be spending that $2.00 on as may burgers as it can buy at a fast food value menu. And not on the two or three Carrots you be able to buy at the Grocery Store.

In America, obesity is not that closely correlated to income. You have a lot of fat people in affluent white suburbia too, though those tend to be in red states.

Ah, typo above, I meant "providing" not "providence".

Obesity is for poor people!

Vicente says

Obesity is for poor people!

How do you know she's not the one that's rich and loves slim, I mean him, for the person that lives inside that mass of human flesh?

Fat fact

President William Taft weighed over 300 lbs and once got stuck in the White House bathtub.

rpanic01 says

President William Taft weighed over 300 lbs and once got stuck in the White House bathtub.

By today's standards, Taft would be considered a light weight.

"Food ... I need more FOOD. Can't you see I'm starving?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337077/World-s-fattest-woman-Terri-Smith-told-Diet-die-hitting-50-STONE.html

Michelle Obama gets it ... she really, really gets it.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46303.html

Taxing gasoline at much higher rates might get at least some people to slim down as well.

Maybe we should consider taxing fat cats too (no pun intended)?

What is with the abiding hate on Fatties Ray?

I can't help wondering why you can't let this thread rest.

Vicente says

What is with the abiding hate on Fatties Ray?

Maybe you should direct your question to Michelle Obama ... she just raised the natiional security threat level for obesity to "orange."

I was thinking about Ray's Fat tax for a while, and still not sure if that's a good idea or not. It may not work even if it's a good idea, because congress will love to give a tax cut on it. Anyways....

I think the alternative could be, sending them to the boot camp. Not talking about sissy girl scout crap that won't do any good, but talking about seriously enforced program that does make them loose fat for sure. It is all about giving them a chance to lose fat, so that they can live w/o suffering from fat related desease down the road. Will this happen? LoL.

zzyzzx says

Taxing gasoline at much higher rates might get at least some people to slim down as well.

This reminds me of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II

Is there anything wrong in what Michelle Obama is saying?

http://www.breitbart.tv/michelle-obama-on-child-nutrition-we-cant-just-leave-it-up-to-the-parents/

FYI, many local codes are changing on January 1: window clear opening dimensions for egress has been notably increased. Some existing home owners contemplating renovations are upset, as double hung windows are resultantly required to be so long they don't allow furniture to be placed under the sill if the house was built with 8 foot ceilings - which is very common for single family homes, particularly if they were built more than 10-15 years ago.

Yes, it is due to people getting fatter, both occupant and fireman.

I had not considered the "egress problem" for fatties. Bigger windows eh? That's going to negatively impact your energy bill of course, every additional square foot of any kind of window bleeds HVAC money. Good grief what's next, loading dock doors?

Vicente says

Good grief what’s next, loading dock doors?

Don't know if I'd be surprised if the next revision includes a 1-2 hr. fire rated Area of Refuge for people who do not have the stamina to run out of their own house.

Not mentioned yet in this thread:

TV viewing - contributing factor to weight problems:

http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=obesity_noblame

Mike Huckabee comes to defense of Michelle Obama:

"Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or not trying to force the government's desires on people," Huckabee said. "She's stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/mike-huckabee-sarah-palin-michelle-obama_n_800130.html

“She’s stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country.”
Then Clearly Huckabee is as oblivious to the access to Healthful food in this country, and our Governments Health and Nutrition policy is somewhere in the middle of a Heart shaped rotating bed, under satin sheets with Food Corporations and Farmer conglomerates or, ending with a dirty Sanchez on the American people. 11 year old have full grown Hooters, just from the hormones. Is it really a mystery where all of the fat is coming from, and just how sugar and synthesized and altered sweets and fats, is cheaper and most common in the most available food. In MOST PART to our Government not only subsidizing these industries, and THEN gives the Poor people money to buy the stuff by the cart load.
These are the people that live off the stuff, it's THEIR sustenance. Everyone else can afford variety.
The current policy is to tax the Middle Class who consume these products at their discretion, to pay the Health bill for those that have no choice but to eat that shit.

Does Wholefoods take Food Stamps and EBT cards?

Tenouncetrout says

Does Wholefoods take Food Stamps and EBT cards?

Hey TTrout, good post but... out of curiosity what's your beef with Wholefoods? You seem to knock them almost as much as Ray knocks Obama.

My hatred goes along with their price range the coincedence that edible Vegtables now are synonymous with Organic or some how more wholesome than the unripe inferior specimens that are now available at all other Produce outlets. Like the neighborhood grocer.

It was only like 5 years or so, I could buy two large grocery bags of comparable Vegetables at roadside stands for $5.00. Now those same bags at Wholefoods would cost about $150. And there aren't that much selection at Publix to even fill two grocery bags.

Tenouncetrout says

Now those same bags at Wholefoods would cost about $150

Supply and demand. This should ultimately be good for growers. Demand for quality sometimes precedes the supply. How do farmers markets of 5 years ago compare to those now, when local grown stuff is in season ?

Seems to me that the farmers markets are still on the upswing, although hardly cheap.

Who owns Wholefoods?

Food and Commodities in general are the only Productive profit sectors in America right now.

And it has very very little to do with demand and more to do with who owns all of the supply and who is setting prices.

Our country has never thrown away more food than now. Stores would rather meats and the produce Rot on the shelves than to sell it for a cheaper. The margin they make on all of the other crap on the shelves is greater than the waste from the fresh isles. They buy inferior meat and produce and to make sure you don't buy it, they compete with Wholefoods prices.

It's a nice arrangement. The neighborhood grocer feeds the fat asses, and keeps HFCS and processed Cereal churning out lard asses. While if you want to eat "Right", then you'll have to drive over to affluent neighborhood up in the Hills whom snoots down their noses at the rats rummaging through the sugar shack down bellow. "Somebody oughtta tax those people!"

Click-a-da-link:

Calories are all the same

RayAmerica says

Back when I was a kid they had a thing called “Fat Boy Camps” where the parents would pay to send little tubby off for a few weeks in the summer to work off all that fat. Maybe that’s what you had in mind? It seemed like a good idea back then. I think the ACLU shut them down. A lot of those ACLU types were fat kids that grew up to be fat liberals … at least that appears to be the case.

Back when I was a kid they had a thing called sports. How about instead of taxing just fat people we just tax everybody to bring sports programs to full fruition in our schools ? Wait, we did that already and didnt like it ! Ok, tax the fatties

It wasn't until pretty late in life -- my 30s -- that I realized the President's Council jazz in elementary school was really about getting kids into shape for the Army.

"The President's Council on Youth Fitness was founded on 16 July 1956 to encourage American children to be healthy and active children, after a study indicating that American youths are less physically fit than European children, by then President Dwight D. Eisenhower." -- wikipedia

On another note ( pun intended ), we need to tax the fatties for music programs in schools. there aint nuttin' like marching around in the hot sun for a little while. Carrying a large instrument and kicking your legs up so high high high

Troy says

It wasn’t until pretty late in life — my 30s — that I realized the President’s Council jazz in elementary school was really about getting kids into shape for the Army.
“The President’s Council on Youth Fitness was founded on 16 July 1956 to encourage American children to be healthy and active children, after a study indicating that American youths are less physically fit than European children, by then President Dwight D. Eisenhower.” — wikipedia

Well, I remember carrying my school-sponsored Cello to school on rehearsal days. My arms were pumped after carrying that thing across town. and I am sure it could be equated with carring a gun across town too, but let us not ignore the intelligence factors involved with music
as well. Counting to 4 - priceless