Search This Blog

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Eating More: The Why of the Diabetes Epidemic, Part 6

There is more food available now with the mechanization and all. Fish and vegetables are more plentiful. This is very good indeed but the trouble is this leads to overeating. The intake of saturated fat is highest in Europe and North America and where does this lead us? Yes, heart disease.

All these calories we are taking in should be spent to balance everything out, but no. Unlike our farmer ancestors who spent the calories they ate by working hard growing food, sometimes we do not even have to cook in order to eat. Why, we do not even have to wash the dishes; heaven forbid, we have dishwashing machines for that.

Just consider this: our ancestors had to wake up at dawn to farm in order to grow the food to eat. They had to tend to the animals in order to have the protein and milk. They even had to churn the milk to get cheese. They had to do back-breaking work to harvest the food they needed.

Back at home, they needed to pump water to wash the food. They had to cut wood to fuel the fire they needed to maintain to cook their food and heat their homes. Sometimes they had to hunt to supplement their food. And they had to work hard to store that food.

How about us? How do we obtain our food? Well, you know the routine. We jump into the car and drive to the grocery stores. There things are laid out for us to make everything as convenient as possible. Then our bags are put in a conveyor belt to take to our car.

Now with the advance in technology, we do not even have to go to the grocery stores. We just make a list in the computer and send it to the grocery store where they put the supplies we need together and put them in a delivery truck to send to our homes.

We have large freezers at home too so our poor fingers will not get tired making those lists as often. Then for every meal, we take out boxes of frozen foods from the freezers, popped them into the microwave oven and voila, we have food on the table. Then so that we don't get too tired, we eat out!

Eating out? Don't remind me. Think of the evolution of the hamburger. It started with one patty, then two patties, then a cheese on top, then a bacon on top. What will they think of next? A fried egg on top? Don't laugh because I think it's already here. I don't know where but I would like to have one, just a taste I swear, okay? Is it any wonder then that there is such thing as an epidemic?

Then as we eat more, our stomachs expand and get larger. The better it is to make room for more food. Right? Wrong, no not wrong on the stomach expansion but wrong in making more room for more food. Why? Because that would lead us to nutrition disaster. And now they want the schools to do something about the link between nutrition and diabetes.

No comments: