Food doesn’t grow on an assembly line. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We have almost been programmed to attach the word value to a dollar sign, yet can a dollar buy you a better golf swing or the ability to ride a bike? The value of our lives have been reduced to a fast food dollar menu. There could be nothing more ironic than ordering a burger off a dollar menu while shelling out $150 billion annually due to obesity related medical costs – much of which comes from taxpayer pockets, like yours.
Has industry dictated your values to you?
The western pattern of consumption that has led to the United States being the heaviest nation on the planet has also led us to believe that value should be attached to instant gratification. That culture of instant gratification leads to a perception of instant repercussions. If it doesn’t kill us today, it must be ok. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.
While large amounts of what has transpired to unite the world in a technological web as our post-industrial society matures are simply wondrous things, we also see some mistakes made along the way. Many of these we correct over time, such as pollution, but not until the damage is done. The marketing machines of industry attempt to maintain the status quo as long as possible, focusing more on the bottom line than any external long-term damage. Yet we must remember that the food industry is no separate monster from the rest of society, they fall prey to the same vices and falsehoods they generate.
The food industry is huge, but it is an organism that lives because people, many who have bought into the marketing they create, administer it. We must understand that individual change cannot start in the macrocosm of politics and industry, but in the home and community. This is drastically important since modern medicine has succeeded in eliminating the death sentence that many of our predecessors had to live under.
Extended living and quality of life
Very often we hear the term “quality of life” mixed in with the health care field and rightly so. Better living through chemistry isn’t just a cliché, it is a reality we all live with day in and day out. We have extended our lives to a point of almost ludicrous proportions. If we live a hundred years, why do we assign value only to the moment?
A lot of this can be attributed to the decades of food industry indoctrination that says salt and sugar are ok. Many people tend to not even consider the fact that they eat sugar for breakfast a bad thing. If it says coco on the box, it should be a desert. We start each day off wrong, as our parents before us and theirs before them. The problem may rest with the food industry in general, but the solution lies with us.
Value is an educated choice
Many populations in this country, specifically those in low-income areas fighting many socioeconomic battles, have a difficult and sometimes impossible task of getting healthy. They live in food deserts, areas where fresh food simply does not exist. Nevertheless, there are plenty of ways we can continue to push our individual initiatives for quality of life, but we must first learn what to value. Educate ourselves, our families and communities. With education comes knowledge, and with knowledge power.
Our biggest enemy in the war waged on obesity and the health costs that incur is misinformation in the form of billions of dollars of food industry advertising to convince you that the crap they produce is the healthy product you want.
Once you have a solid foundation of what really is known about nutrition and health you then have the power to make effective choices in your own life. Spread that knowledge on to your family and neighbors. The community becomes enlightened and we all become enlightened.
A note on research
Unfortunately, and something that will not be remedied here, is that most individuals don’t know how to research. The vast majority of the stuff you find online is garbage. The model of instant gratification extends to all aspects of our lives, including the electronic ones. Learn how to research, cross reference, and ask someone you know or enroll in a basic college course on research. Learn to read everything skeptically when you’re researching online or at the library. This tactic not only makes a better researcher, but will carry over into the reading of nutrition labels. Marketing you see on television will become suspect.
You should question this article.
Do you value dollars or quality of life more?
If you have to choose, and for the foreseeable future with the cheap food model prevalent in western society we do, what would you choose? Value is a subjective word. We assign it to whatever we perceive to be valuable to us. A dollar burger isn’t a value, it’s cheap. And when it comes to food, you get what you pay for now and later.
It is estimated that someone with diabetes spends roughly $7,000 more annually on medical costs than a healthy individual, and about $4,000 more annually than an obese individual. This generation and the one coming up have a 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 chance of getting diabetes, respectively.
That burger looks a bit more expensive now.
Related articles
- Is your diet your responsibility? (tipthecook.net)
