Saturday, December 12, 2009

"Children in US Hungry. Epidemic." Misdiagnosis?



Huffington Post leads today with:

'SILENT EPIDEMIC'
Number Of US Children Going Hungry Soars

She links to "Missing more than a meal" in the Washington Post, where there are links to many more stories of growing numbers of children and teens feeling hungry much of the time. See also here.

All of these appear to focus on scarcity of food. Or not enough access to food.

But this is probably not the real problem.

(See the lady leaving the food center with a bag full of boxed stuff - see anything fresh looking? Here - have a big bag of cookies on your way out.)

That's why people feel so hungry. And are so overweight. The culprit is eating mostly nutritionless food. The body needs nutrition, not food-like substances it just piles on because it can't do anything else with it. Hunger is the only way the body has to call out: I need nutrients!

Check out the other image: How much nutrition is in the giant cola bottles on the table beside the mother and child?
Dr. Heidi, my nutrition professor friend, made my day worse. Here's what she said - from my notes...
Most of America's children and teens eat cereals and packaged snacks every day. But there is little nutrition in either the cereals or snacks. They're mostly sugar. That's why, no matter how much a person eats of that stuff (and pizza), they feel hungry shortly after. No nutrition. Read the labels - mostly sugar.
Then, off they go to McDonald's to get some cheap protein - say Chicken McNuggets. Little do they realize that those are not protein - but 56% corn (a carb) - and low grade industrial corn at that. With almost no nutritive value.
So then a mom buys juices, that should be good, right? Not. All the vitamins and enzymes have been boiled out of conventional juices in bottles, cartons or cans. The first ingredient (what it's got most of, in it) in almost all of them is either sugar or artificial sweeteners. The latter are known to be potentially poisonous to us.
Then there's the microwave secret.

To save time, Moms and kids throw whatever into the microwave. Fast. But. Anything microwaved has no nutrition left. The microwave distorts the food molecules.

It's not for nothing the makers of these things don't call them 'Radar Range' anymore. Bad PR. Who would use them if they knew the radiation destroys the food molecules they are about to eat? More nutritionless food down the hatch.
How about eat fruits and veggies? That beats anything in boxes, cans or crinkly bags or wrappers. Yes, right. BUT if they're the conventional stuff, the fruits and veggies have little nutrition because of how they're grown. Instead, you get a dose of pesticides.
Bottom line. It is not the lack of food that is causing the hunger and obesity in children and teenagers (and many adults). It's the lack of nutrition in the food we eat.

Which big food provides. Which so many Americans demand and consume like crazy.

Nutritionless is food cheaper to make, has longer shelf life and it's fast for everybody. And we buy more and more of it because we're hungry all the time. And away we go to become a nation of FATAFATs.

Child hunger and obesity: Not a crisis of lack of food. Our crisis is a crisis of choice.
"To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle." Confucius
Maybe they're right - It's in our nature to destroy ourselves for short term desires and pleasures.

4 comments:

Mary Nolan said...

Kim
Right on as usual...I have been without my own kitchen now for a coupla months and really miss it.
It is soooo easy in my own place to stir fry lots of veggies.. and to eat the whole fruit and raw veggies that my body yearns for because that is what I buy and know exactly where it is.. Not here.
We do organic here as much as possible. BUT.. too many packaged mixes and microwaving.
Just can not seem to get it across to my daughter, Bear, what the microwave is doing to all this lovely costly organic food she is growing herself and feeding her 4 year old.
She just does not believe it..
Any suggestions?
Mary

Michele Curtin said...

Right on target...we are the most overfed and undernourished nation in the world. Good thing there are folks like you, me, Dr. Heidi and others out there speaking the truth and changing lives one family at a time!

God bless you,

Michele Curtin

Unknown said...

GREAT article Kim!!!! This has been a sore subject for me for a very long
time. I'm the mother of two teens whom i've homeschooled. Our youngest is very
social and has always brought other kids home,( usually kids she feels sorry for
because the high school seems to be crammed with starving children!!!) I had no
idea there were so many kids from broken homes, abusive homes, no parents or
parents who just "kick them out just because they turn 18" in this country! These kids
are not taught proper nutrition OR how to survive in and out of high school. Most of them eat
whatever they can afford- which is junk and fast food. Makes me so angry that our fast food
places don't serve better nutrition. How about a fast food chinese take-out that serves noodles
and vegetable stir-fry??? (without the MSG!) That would be alot better than Chicken nuggets
made of corn. I also had an idea to start some program in schools to help the hungry kids----such
as protein shakes in the morning. Have you seen the new "blender-bottles? The more protein (i prefer whey)the less hungry they would be during the day---and crave less sugar!

Paul Eilers said...

Tell her to read this:

"10 Reasons Why You Should Throw Out Your Microwave Oven"

http://www.paulshealthblog.com/2008/06/10-reasons-why-you-should-throw-out.html