The other day I was listening to Alec Baldwin's excellent podcast interview with Dr. Robert Lustig on Here's The Thing. I've heard the claims about how poisonous processed sugar is for years and have suspected that the human brain reacts to these extremely processed sugars in much the same way it responds to other substances like heroin and cocaine. But after seeing the expose' they did on 60 mins a few months ago and listening to the podcast referenced above, I'm beginning to wonder if people either don't believe what hard science is showing them? Or, they simply are so addicted to sugar that they've chosen to ignore the facts.
"Children today are the first American generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, in large part due to obesity."
While my wife and I were shopping yesterday and looking for some reasonably healthy movie snacks, I couldn't believe that every single snack food I read the label of, was chock full of corn syrup. Did you know that the food processors didn't used to put corn syrup in everything and the only reason they do it is because they discovered it makes us eat more of their product? Did you know that McDonald's adds sugar to the salt shaker for their frys? Do you really think it has anything to do with seasoning? No. It's to manipulate your brain chemistry so that you'll buy and eat more of their product!
Did you believe like I did that the job of the USDA is to protect the food supply? Check out this exchange in the Here's the Thing podcast referenced above:
Alec Baldwin: We talk about regulation of like alcohol and tobacco and I want to say that that’s something that people have tried in public policy with sugar. They tried to stop food stamps being used to purchase soft drinks and I believe they lost that.
Robert Lustig: Right. Bloomberg petitioned the USDA to take soft drinks off food stamps and the USDA rebuffed it.
Alec Baldwin: Well, why do you think they did?
Robert Lustig: Why do you think they did?
Alec Baldwin: I mean other than the straight up political influence of the soda industry.
Robert Lustig: Isn’t that enough?
Alec Baldwin: How does the USDA do that? No one’s saying to the people who are on food stamps you can’t have soda; I just don’t want the government to pay for it.
Robert Lustig: The USDA’s job is to sell food. That mean sell it whoever’s gonna buy it.
Alec Baldwin: Right. So it’s about commerce.
Robert Lustig: Absolutely. And who controls the USDA? The USDA is basically the governmental arm of the food industry.
Alec Baldwin: Right.
Robert Lustig: And the job of the USDA --
Alec Baldwin: You don’t have a lot of faith in the USDA.
Robert Lustig: Not a whole lot, no. The job of the USDA is to protect the food supply and that includes protecting it from people like me.
Check out the podcast when you have a spare 20 minutes, it'll really open your eyes.
~ Skip Hunt