07/20/2007 the Krispy Kreme Diet And Leaving The Past Behind
Can we envision a day when we go to a fast food restaurant and order two donuts for breakfast, and expect to lose weight as a result? It's not as far off as you think. Or, to put it more accurately, it's off as far as you don't think.
The question is one of the future. How do we predict it? The answer, usually, is by analyzing the past. What worked before will work now, right? Such thinking is certainly alive and well in the food industry. Historically, people didn't think all that much about food in terms of health. Getting enough calories was the thing. Now we have widespread obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol, we have become more educated on the matter. This increased level of education has not lead to no progress on the issue of obesity whatsoever. As the food industry brings out all it's guns trying to keep us from holding it responsible, do we continue to agree that it isn't? And if so, how do we solve America's eating problem?
The answer is first to identify it. That's not easy with the food industry deliberately clouding the waters, as all industries do when threatened. That's okay, we can see through dirty water, if we want to. For this is not a physical question, but one involving human nature, and thus we look into ourselves rather than at the data gathered by interests on either side.
First, I bring up the issue of Stevia. Stevia is likely the only healthy sweetener we know of. The FDA banned Stevia (but is available as a supplement, look in the vitamins or herbs section) in what seems to be a blatantly corrupt move to save the current sweetener industry. Stevia is sweeter than refined sugar (though it doesn't taste the same) and has been available in Japan for over thirty years. In Japan, Stevia is 40% of the sweetener market. Studies on the subject in Japan reveal that Stevia not only lacks the poor health implications caused by refined sugar, but in some cases it even mitigates slightly the effects of diabetes and high blood pressure.
So suppose you go to the local donut shop and get a donut sweetened with Stevia rather than refined sugar. Now imagine that this donut is transfat free and is made with a mixture of veggie oil and flaxseed oil that puts more healthy fats in it. Finally, imagine that it is made at least partially with whole Grains. Now we have a healthy donut that is a worthy breakfast and tastes good. Could it taste better than the current edition? Why not?
Now, if this is possible, why haven't we seen it? The answer is likely the inability of the food industry to see the future. Most of it's plans are based, after all, on the past. Historically, unhealthy food doesn't sell. Why should it? If the point is to get calories, then why should it dedicate any of it's resources to developing and selling low calorie foods? The food industry does certainly recognize a change in the landscape. That's why it keeps coming up with more diet foods, different kinds of diet sodas, lowered sugar cereals and no sugar added iced cream. But really, it is still not sure how to proceed in this new world where people demand healthier products. Change happens slowly in industry, as contracts have to run out and factories have to be renovated, restocked or even closed when change occurs. And a switch from one product to another effects more than one company, not just the one selling the product.
For those that anticipate the future, riches await. But to do so requires imagination, not careful analysis of the past. But the industry resists change, probably out of fear, and the mantra that unhealthy foods sell is regarded as acceptable. Otherwise they wouldn't use it, and that means that too many of us accept it, too. Capitalists say that free enterprise rewards innovation, but only in as far as we accept innovation. The minute anyone offers a healthy donut, consumers flag it as inferior in taste. While it may sell in time, selling it would take a lot of faith. And the ensuing revolution may cause more change than we are ready to handle in our eating habits and our industry.
That said, the fact that we can make a donut that tastes better and is healthy, and we are not doing it, is nothing less than an indictment of capitalism. The fact that no one in the food industry feels any moral obligation to develop and sell such a product, even at a loss, indicates that our society does not reward integrity as much as greed. And it also indicates that they have more respect for a certain dollar than they have for other human beings.
The fact that the food industry spends millions trying to fill our field of vision with unhealthy foods. That they can do this and then absolve themselves of responsibility indicates no moral fiber whatever. The excuse is that the obesity epidemic is not their responsibility, but the responsibility of obese people who choose to put the food in their mouths. But that demonstrates a primitive view of “choice”. The primitive view of choice is that we have one mind and we make a choice with it, either right or wrong. The truth is that our choices depend on a number of factors, including the availability of food. You can change someone's choice by changing the environment. And if they were not aware of this, they would not go to such lengths to fill our eyes with ads for unhealthy foods. For the two years, diet soda has outsold regular soda. But go to the store and tell me that 70% of your choices aren't regular soda. That the food industry is trying to sell us foods that make us fat is not hidden. They are afraid to enter a new market of healthy intentions, and see any intervention or moral judgment as a threat to their industry. What worked before will work again tomorrow, or nothing will. Change only happens too slowly, and it may be years before the industry is willing to sell us healthy foods that taste better than the unhealthy versions that we currently consume.
And the industry's efforts are buttressed by social proof. Fat people are regarded as selfish for trying to upend the ethical misconceptions that the industry leans on, and thin people are only too ready to judge them as lazy people making excuses. Furthermore, many obese people judge themselves the same way, and say nothing. But no one is going to hold the industry responsible but those that it has done wrong.
On a more personal level, the traditions and practices that were born in the age of the calorie continue. We have coffee breaks, not activity breaks. Employers give you smoke breaks, lunch breaks, conversation breaks. But taking an hour to go an work out is often forbidden. When we go out with friends, we go out to eat or to drink, not to run or to play basketball. We favor math and science in our classrooms to produce young biotech majors and engineers, at the cost of the happiness and well-being of the students. You would think that an obesity epidemic would lead to more physical education in our schools, but it's going the other way. We produce corporate assets, not people, and obesity doesn't necessarily keep you from increasing production. Social proof, not the food industry, is the major culprit in the obesity epidemic, though one may be a product of the other. What can be used to reign in this teamwork of destructive profits and thought? Judgment. Angry, bitter, pointed, shameless judgment.
But isn't judgment thus misused in our society? We judge our political opponents, our enemies. We judge our families, and our celebrities. We judge those that judge us, and those that don't conform to our sexual rules. The people that do the real damage often go unpunished, for they understand us better than we understand them. The pounds get packed on.
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