I couldn’t resist the headline from Reuters that popped up in Google News: “Junk food addiction may be clue to obesity.” Well, duh!
It seems there was a scientific study of three groups of rats: “One group ate a balanced healthy diet. Another group received healthy food, but had access to high-calorie food for one hour a day. Rats in the third group were fed healthy meals and given unlimited access to high-calorie foods. The rats in the third group developed a preference for the high-calorie food, munched on it all day and quickly became obese.” This is science?
This has to be a put-on. An eleventh-grader’s science fair project, maybe. Somebody actually financed this “research”? Now I know why America is lagging behind in brains.
Junk food, on the other hand, is a no-brainer, which is why it has its limits in our house. Chocolate-chip cookies from Costco are strictly rationed: one apiece at lunch every other day (unless we’ve just bought them, in which case we argue, quite reasonably I think, that freshness can’t go to waste). One of the pastries we brought back from our favorite bakery in Tucson last fall and stuck in the freezer is thawed every other Sunday (and plans are afoot for their replenishment). Ice cream comes in relatively small doses, especially since we read that too much sugar in the evening can keep you awake. Tortilla chips are allocated only with burgers or wraps at lunch. And the dark chocolate-covered nuts from Trader Joe’s are part health food, right? But otherwise no candy, and definitely no sodas. What’s that, you say, no fun? A while ago I weighed in on the proposal to tax soda, but why stop there? Anything containing HFCS oughta be fair game. As long as airlines are going to benefit by selling double seats, the government might as well get some revenue out of the situation.
But I think they conducted this “study” too soon (or maybe just in time?), because if pot is legalized in California, you’re going to see some serious junk food consumption on the left coast (so Ahnuld needs to get those taxes passed). Oh well, at least they’ll have a benchmark – as long as the rats didn’t inhale.
This has to be a put-on. An eleventh-grader’s science fair project, maybe. Somebody actually financed this “research”? Now I know why America is lagging behind in brains.
Junk food, on the other hand, is a no-brainer, which is why it has its limits in our house. Chocolate-chip cookies from Costco are strictly rationed: one apiece at lunch every other day (unless we’ve just bought them, in which case we argue, quite reasonably I think, that freshness can’t go to waste). One of the pastries we brought back from our favorite bakery in Tucson last fall and stuck in the freezer is thawed every other Sunday (and plans are afoot for their replenishment). Ice cream comes in relatively small doses, especially since we read that too much sugar in the evening can keep you awake. Tortilla chips are allocated only with burgers or wraps at lunch. And the dark chocolate-covered nuts from Trader Joe’s are part health food, right? But otherwise no candy, and definitely no sodas. What’s that, you say, no fun? A while ago I weighed in on the proposal to tax soda, but why stop there? Anything containing HFCS oughta be fair game. As long as airlines are going to benefit by selling double seats, the government might as well get some revenue out of the situation.
But I think they conducted this “study” too soon (or maybe just in time?), because if pot is legalized in California, you’re going to see some serious junk food consumption on the left coast (so Ahnuld needs to get those taxes passed). Oh well, at least they’ll have a benchmark – as long as the rats didn’t inhale.
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