Up To Date Presents Food For Thought Entry 1: Not Worth the Weight

 Up To Date Presents Food For Thought Entry 1: Not Worth the Weight

Sugars, fat, and salt; these are the three main types of ingredients that most processed food manufacturers use to reach as many consumers as possible. Unfortunately, their plans generally work too well, because obesity, diabetes, and diabetes caused by obesity are all major health crises America faces right now. Statistics from the CDC showcase this in stunning fashion. More Americans are dying from overeating and the resulting obesity than from starvation. Despite that, Americans are also more malnourished than they should be. However, the most dire news is that by 2050, nearly 70% of Americans will be diagnosed with diabetes, with the exact number being around two thirds of the national population. In short, the American public is not living a sweet life right now, despite a lot of what they eat.

If this crisis could be caused by a single ingredient, that ingredient would be high fructose corn syrup. It is used as a sweetener in sodas, candies, and in many other processed products. Its composition is much like that of table sugar, but it contains a higher percentage of fructose. The body does not process fructose like glucose, the other component of table sugar. Glucose is processed by the cells in cellular respiration, but fructose is stored in the liver instead (Harvard). This can lead to an affliction known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, which increases the possibility of needing a liver transplant (Duke 2010). In fact, that same team of Duke researchers found that only 19 percent of adults with NAFLD reported no intake of fructose-containing beverages, while 52 percent consumed between one and six servings a week and 29 percent consumed fructose-containing beverages on a daily basis.” This shows that there may be a strong correlation between HFCS and NAFLD, if not an outright causation. If the majority of people with NAFLD drank fructose-containing beverages, then it is reasonable to surmise that there is a connection between the two. However, NAFLD is far from the only affliction sugar can cause.

Diabetes is a condition in which the body has some sort of problem involving the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. Diabetes is a condition with two forms: Type 1 and Type 2. According to staff at the world-famous Mayo Clinic, these types have different initial causes. Type 1 diabetes is essentially an autoimmune disease, as the immune system starts attacking the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes is more common, and it revolves around cells becoming resistant to insulin. Either way, the body’s ability to process glucose is crippled, and blood sugar levels rise. Type 2 diabetes, in particular, has a strong correlation with weight. If weight is higher, the risk for diabetes is also generally such (Mayo 2020). This is important because Americans tend to overeat in an ill-fated attempt to compensate for malnutrition. This leads to weight gain and obesity, and that increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. While I have had little experience around this condition, what little experience I do have tells me how debilitating this is. I can’t imagine having to inject myself every day with insulin, and ending up in the hospital if I somehow forgot. No one should have to go through that level of pain for reasons that are often avoidable. Diabetes is no joke, and the rising rates of this condition are a major cause for concern.

With its harmful effects now clear to many, one could wonder why high fructose corn syrup is still being produced, and what the benefits of its production are. In fact, the main reason for its continued production is merely cost reduction in comparison to sugar (Warshaw 2013). To explain this, it is worth going into what the goals of any private company are. First and foremost, these companies  generally want their products to earn a profit, and more profit is seen as better profit. Therefore, it only makes sense why the companies would go for the cheaper HFCS over beet or cane sugar. Simply put, it’s cheaper for the companies to use, thus enabling its use.

Processed foods are not, contrary to popular belief, cheaper than home-cooked meals. For example, a standard McDonald’s order with two Big Macs can cost $28, whereas as a roasted chicken dinner made at home can cost half of that (Bittman 2011). Defenders of this thought process may say that the poor need fast food for cheap calories. Of course, this is a terribly classist viewpoint, and Bittman points out that “half of the people in this country (and a higher percentage of poor people) consume too many calories rather than too few” (2011). In his article, Bittman compares this thought process to that of drinking 95% pure grain alcohol just because it’s the cheapest way to get drunk. Following this logic, homemade meals are cheaper and healthier, and any argument otherwise can be easily rebuked.

Unfortunately, high fructose corn syrup is far from the only addictive substance in processed foods. In fact, other sugars, fats, and salt are all frequently added to these products. As Michael Moss of the New York Times explained in his article, Prego sauces have sugar as their second ingredient, behind only tomatoes (2013). As Howard Moskowitz, a well-established food engineer, was quoted in Moss’s article, “As the sensory intensity (say, of sweetness) increases, consumers first say that they like the product more, but eventually, with a middle level of sweetness, consumers like the product the most” (Moss 2013). Once that point is hit, all of the addictive ingredients come together to create such an alluring product that buyers will almost always come back for more.

On top of that, added sugar goes by over 60 aliases, according to Dr. Erin Gager, a Johns Hopkins dietitian. Aside from if it has ‘sugar’ in the ingredient name, the word ‘syrup’ and ‘-ose’ endings of words are dead giveaways that added sugars are present (Gager). They are just hiding in plain sight. From fructose and dextrose to high fructose corn syrup, added sugars are everywhere. As listed in Gager’s article, they are in many breakfast cereals, yogurts, and condiments, as well as in many different beverages. As is also written in Gager’s article, the American Heart Association recommends having a sugar intake of 25 grams per day for women and 36 grams a day for men. A number that low is certainly hard to reach with added sugar in so many popular products. That, in turn, compounds the severity of the obesity epidemic, especially since sugars are addictive. Sugars are hidden in plain sight, and knowing where to look can help with added sugar intake significantly.

It is well known that younger brains are more prone to addictions, and these are the people who are seeing sugary products marketed to them the most, especially in the case of candies. Also from personal experience, I can suggest that candy is highly addictive, to the point where it can definitely ruin a person’s dietary habits. This is why sweetened cereals and candies are primarily marketed to kids. Candies are nearly entirely made of sugars, so this addiction can progress to numerous other processed foods. One of these products is often found in parent-made school meals: Lunchables. This classic Kraft/Oscar Mayer product ended up becoming a massive revenue stream in the early to mid-1990s, but eventually, the brand had to expand. One solution was a Maxed Out variant, with “as many as nine grams of saturated fat, or nearly an entire day’s recommended maximum for kids, with up to two-thirds of the max for sodium and 13 teaspoons of sugar” (Moss 2013). Again, it is worth noting that the Lunchables brand is marketed towards kids. Nevertheless, this supersizing clearly worked, as Lunchables continue to be sold today, despite many warnings from doctors concerned about its lack of nutritional value. This is highly unfortunate. That is because with food products, it is not impossible to addict a consumer without them even knowing. Kraft probably knows this, but they still make this product. Worse still, children all over America fall into this trap year after year, making them unknowingly contribute to their own health maladies. Obesity, diabetes, and circulatory diseases are wracking an ever younger demographic, and products like Lunchables are exactly why.

As can be assumed by these products still being on the market, the companies themselves have not done nearly enough to combat the obesity epidemic. In fact, most efforts that were taken seem to have been largely performative. Consider that the big food companies held a meeting back in 1999 about the then-rising problem of rising weights among the American public. At this meeting, several things became clear. The first was that the companies knew that something was wrong, as evidenced by the VP of Kraft at the time, Michael Mudd, likening the food products to cigarettes (Moss 2013). The second was that the CEOs didn’t care that their products were problematic. In the article, Stephen Sanger, the then-CEO of General Mills, displayed a particularly aloof attitude, saying that taste was what kept the customers coming, and that they shouldn’t worry about “guys in white coats” concerned about obesity (Moss). Sanger’s argument caught on. Self-regulation of sugar, fat, and salt was so close to happening, and maybe in that reality, Americans would be less obese. However, the almighty dollar had to intervene, as profits are the cardinal reward of business. They were addicted to the profits like the consumers were addicted to their products, and that’s why the companies took no action.

Unfortunately, the government hasn’t been taking much lasting action to counteract the big food companies’ overly processed products. In fact, one could say they have been aiding and abetting a public health crisis, which is most certainly against the interests of the institutions being run, as well as the people controlled by them. More accurately, what the government has tried to do has resulted in intense pressuring from the food companies who effectively caused the crisis in the first place (Freeman 2011). This pressuring has, in the past, led to numerous loopholes in the laws regarding school lunches, such as the ridiculous Reagan-era move to call ketchup a vegetable. More recent controversy occurred in 2011, when a coalition of pizza-makers and potato growers attempted to protect their self-interests from USDA regulation. They did this by trying to get Congress to pass a bill that would limit the use of potatoes in school lunches, in addition to new sodium regulations. It also increased the amount of tomato paste on pizza needed to classify the paste as a vegetable from two tablespoons to a half of a cup (Bittman 2011). Schools are in societies to teach and influence children, and if processed foods are in schools, they will be bought more than healthier options. That will influence many kids down the path of processed food addiction. Metaphorically speaking, too much processed food in schools will send many lambs to the slaughter, and it will send many dollars to the food suppliers as well.

Finally, there is the story of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program. As detailed in the 2014 documentary Fed Up, the program started out as an attempt to call out the food industry for playing a major role in causing childhood obesity (Soechtig 2014). However, when industries get called out for causing crises, they desperately try to push back. In a way, the behavior of the food industry is not unlike that of the tobacco industry before them. As was explained in the documentary, the tobacco industry denied the well-studied harms of their products until societal opinion shifted. Smoking went from glamourous to gross in a generation, and its reduction in prominence is now hailed as a public health masterstroke (Soechtig 2014). This same behavior needs to happen to Kraft, General Mills, and other big food companies who depend on hyper-processing their products. In fact, according to Soechtig’s documentary, First Lady Obama’s program was initially like this, but one letter from Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar significantly reduced the impact of Let’s Move. This ended up refocusing it as an exercise program instead of a dietary one (Soechtig 2014). What could have been a transformative program in regards to childhood obesity was only mildly successful five years in as a result of this alteration (Liptak 2015). Perhaps if the former First Lady had stayed the course and not modified her message so significantly, childhood obesity would now be a somewhat more manageable issue. However, as it stands, childhood obesity is still a major public health crisis.

There are several measures that should be taken by the government and the people to curb the obesity epidemic. First, the politicians need to adopt a new approach, take a look in the mirror, and realize a simple truth. That truth is that corporations can’t vote, but that the people can. Then, our government can act on this crisis decisively, without fear of the food corporations. This will, in turn, help the politicians’ careers as they grow more popular among the voting masses, and the millions of funding dollars lost can be recouped elsewhere. If the powers-that-be fail to realize this, any changes made by the people and governing bodies alike will be weak and temporary. If both groups come together, then lasting change will likely occur. Maybe then, schools will cook somewhat healthy lunches for their students instead of outsourcing to Coke, Pepsi, and Kraft. Maybe then, the supermarkets will focus even more on organic food without added sugars. Maybe then, those added sugars won’t be nearly as common, allowing fewer kids to fall into that addictive trap. Maybe then, diabetes and obesity rates will be manageable, and no longer a grave threat to the future of our nation. Much like with tobacco before, the pressure must be enough to make any successful corporate resistance impossible. Only then, will America see its people become healthier, finally putting an end to the obesity epidemic. We can’t wait for the other shoe to drop, for every dire statistical projection to become reality. It’s just not worth the weight.

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