Satireday on Eco-Crap

Make you Fink on Friday

Does this make you think?

Why does America have a greater obesity problem than Europe…

 

Monday Moaning

Remember the ‘horsemeat’ scandal/s?

It appears that that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Food manufacturers have been having a ball by pulling the wool over the unsuspecting eyes of the consumers.

While the following article pertains to the situation in Britain, I have no doubts that it applies to the rest of the world. These bastards are all tarred with the same brush; the figures must be similar, or worse in other countries.

Fake-food scandal revealed as tests show third of products mislabelled

Consumers are being sold drinks with banned flame-retardant additives, pork in beef, and fake cheese, laboratory tests show

Some ham tested contained ‘meat emulsion’ (meat ground with additives so fat can be put through it) or ‘meat slurry’ (removing scraps of meat from bones) What has been known as pink slime – My note. Photo: Alamy

Consumers are being sold food including mozzarella that is less than half real cheese, ham on pizzas that is either poultry or “meat emulsion”, and frozen prawns that are 50% water, according to tests by a public laboratory.

The checks on hundreds of food samples, which were taken in West Yorkshire, revealed that more than a third were not what they claimed to be, or were mislabelled in some way. Their results have been shared with the Guardian.

Testers also discovered beef mince adulterated with pork or poultry, and even a herbal slimming tea that was neither herb nor tea but glucose powder laced with a withdrawn prescription drug for obesity at 13 times the normal dose.

A third of fruit juices sampled were not what they claimed or had labelling errors. Two contained additives that are not permitted in the EU, including brominated vegetable oil, which is designed for use in flame retardants and linked to behavioural problems in rats at high doses.

Experts said they fear the alarming findings from 38% of 900 sample tests by West Yorkshire councils were representative of the picture nationally, with the public at increasing risk as budgets to detect fake or mislabelled foods plummet.

Counterfeit vodka sold by small shops remains a major problem, with several samples not meeting the percentage of alcohol laid down for the spirit. In one case, tests revealed that the “vodka” had been made not from alcohol derived from agricultural produce, as required, but from isopropanol, used in antifreeze and as an industrial solvent.

Samples were collected both as part of general surveillance of all foods and as part of a programme targeted at categories of foodstuffs where cutting corners is considered more likely.

West Yorkshire’s public analyst, Dr Duncan Campbell, said of the findings: “We are routinely finding problems with more than a third of samples, which is disturbing at a time when the budget for food standards inspection and analysis is being cut.”

He said he thought the problems uncovered in his area were representative of the picture in the country as a whole.

The scale of cheating and misrepresentation revealed by the tests was described by Maria Eagle, the shadow environment secretary, as unacceptable. “Consumers deserve to know what they are buying and eating and cracking down on the mislabelling of food must become a greater priority for the government,” she said.

A Defra spokesperson said: “There are already robust procedures in places to identify and prevent food fraud and the FSA has increased funding to support local authorities to carry out this work to £2m.

“We will continue to work closely with the food industry, enforcement agencies and across government to improve intelligence on food fraud and clamp down on deliberate attempts to deceive consumers.”

Testing food is the responsibility of local authorities and their trading standards departments, but as their budgets have been cut many councils have reduced checks or stopped collecting samples altogether.

The number of samples taken to test whether food being sold matched what was claimed fell nationally by nearly 7% between 2012 and 2013, and had fallen by over 18% in the year before that. About 10% of local authorities did no compositional sampling at all last year, according to the consumer watchdog Which?

West Yorkshire is unusual in retaining a leading public laboratory and maintaining its testing regime. Samples are anonymised for testing by public analysts to prevent bias, so we are unable to see who had made or sold individual products. Many of the samples were collected from fast-food restaurants, independent retailers and wholesalers; some were from larger stores and manufacturers.

Substitution of cheaper ingredients for expensive materials was a recurring problem with meat and dairy products – both sectors that have seen steep price rises on commodity markets. While West Yorkshire found no horsemeat in its tests after the scandal had broken, mince and diced meats regularly contained meat of the wrong species.

In some cases, this was likely to be the result of mincing machines in butcher’s shops not being properly cleaned between batches; in others there was clear substitution of cheaper species. Samples of beef contained pork or poultry, or both, and beef was being passed off as more expensive lamb, especially in takeaways, ready meals, and by wholesalers.

Ham, which should be made from the legs of pigs, was regularly made from poultry meat instead: the preservatives and brining process add a pink colour that makes it hard to detect except by laboratory analysis.

Meat emulsion – a mixture in which meat is finely ground along with additives so that fat can be dispersed through it – had also been used in some kinds of ham, as had mechanically separated meat, a slurry produced by removing scraps of meat from bones, which acts as a cheap filler although its use is not permitted in ham.

Levels of salt that breached target limits set by the Food Standards Agency were a recurring problem in sausages and some ethnic restaurant meals. The substitution of cheaper vegetable fat for the dairy fat with which cheese must legally be made was common. Samples of mozzarella turned out in one case to be only 40% dairy fat, and in another only 75%.

Several samples of cheese on pizzas were not in fact cheese as claimed but cheese analogue, made with vegetable oil and additives. It is not illegal to use cheese analogue but it should be properly identified as such.

Read more

Opinion:

More than a third of our food is adulterated crap!

The rampant falsification of foodstuffs is stretches the imagination. I always knew there was some tinkering, but this report lists wholesale fraud.

We are supposed to be protected from this bullshit by government departments in any country and this just points to the fact that we aren’t!

The failings are beyond belief, and the idea that, at least in Britain, that the government is actually cutting back on the funds for our protection is TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE!

This is just another example showing that governments have lost the plot.

Monday Moaning

This is not really a moan, rather than praise for a small South American country who defied one of the fearsome all-powerful corporations.

The ‘moan’ part comes from the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t have the guts to do the same.

Reblogged from NaturalNews

McDonald’s closing all restaurants in Bolivia as nation rejects fast food

Image: NaturalNews,com

McDonald’s happy image and its golden arches aren’t the gateway to bliss in Bolivia. This South American country isn’t falling for the barrage of advertising and fast food cooking methods that so easily engulf countries like the United States. Bolivians simply don’t trust food prepared in such little time. The quick and easy, mass production method of fast food actually turns Bolivians off altogether. Sixty percent of Bolivians are an indigenous population who generally don’t find it worth their health or money to step foot in a McDonald’s. Despite its economically friendly fast food prices, McDonald’s couldn’t coax enough of the indigenous population of Bolivia to eat their BigMacs, McNuggets or McRibs.

One indigenous woman, Esther Choque, waiting for a bus to arrive outside a McDonald’s restaurant, said, “The closest I ever came was one day when a rain shower fell and I climbed the steps to keep dry by the door. Then they came out and shooed me away. They said I was dirtying the place. Why would I care if McDonald’s leaves [Bolivia]?”

Fast food chain remained for a decade, despite losses every year

The eight remaining McDonald’s fast food shops that stuck it out in the Bolivian city’s of La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, had reportedly operated on losses every year for a decade. The McDonald’s franchise had been persistent over that time, flexing its franchise’s deep pockets to continue business in Bolivia.

Any small business operating in the red for that long would have folded and left the area in less than half that time. Even as persistent as McDonald’s was in gaining influence there, it couldn’t continue operating in the red. After 14 years of presence in the country, their extensive network couldn’t hold up the Bolivian chain. Store after store shut down as Bolivia rejected the McDonald’s fast food agenda. Soon enough, they kissed the last McDonald’s goodbye.

Deep cultural rejection

The McDonald’s impact and its departure from Bolivia was so lasting and important, that marketing managers immediately filmed a documentary called, “Why McDonalds’s went broke in Bolivia.”

Featuring, cooks, nutritionist, historians, and educators, this documentary breaks down the disgusting reality of how McDonald’s food is prepared and why Bolivians reject the whole fast food philosophy of eating.

The rejection isn’t necessarily based on the taste or the type of food McDonald’s prepared. The rejection of the fast food system stemmed from Bolivian’s mindset of how meals are to be properly prepared. Bolivians more so respect their bodies, valuing the quality of what goes into their stomach. The time it takes for fast food to be prepared throws up a warning flag in their minds. Where other cultures see no risk, eating McDonald’s every week; Bolivians feel that it just isn’t worth the health risk. Bolivians seek well prepared, local meals, and want to know that their food was prepared the right way.

This self respect helps Bolivians avoid processed “restructured meat technology,” often used by fast food joints like McDonald’s.

The McRib: 70 ingredients all restructured into one

Did you know that the McRib is processed with 70 different ingredients which include azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent often used in producing foamed plastics? McRib’s are basically “restructured meat technology” containing a mixture of tripe, heart, and scalded stomach. Proteins are extracted from this muscle mixture and they bind the pork trimmings together so they can be molded in a factory. The McRib is really just a molded blob of restructured meat, advertised and sold like fresh ribs. There’s nothing real about it, the preparation or the substance. In fact, McRibs really came about because of a chicken shortage. The restructured meat technology approach kept the McRib on the menu, despite the shortage, and the profits continued rolling in.

This is the very disgusting idea that the Bolivians have rejected in their country.

The Bolivian rejection of McDonald’s has set a proper example for the rest of the world to follow.

Thanks to Living Simply Free for the heads up

Make you Fink on Friday

Fat profits: how the food industry cashed in on obesity

Ever since definitions of healthy bodyweight changed in the 1990s, the world has feared an obesity epidemic. But the food giants accused of making us fat are also profiting from the slimming industry

Weight-loss has become a huge global industry

When you walk into a supermarket, what do you see? Walls of highly calorific, intensely processed food, tweaked by chemicals for maximum “mouth feel” and “repeat appeal” (addictiveness). This is what most people in Britain actually eat. Pure science on a plate. The food, in short, that is making the planet fat.

And next to this? Row upon row of low-fat, light, lean, diet, zero, low-carb, low-cal, sugar-free, “healthy” options, marketed to the very people made fat by the previous aisle and now desperate to lose weight. We think of obesity and dieting as polar opposites, but in fact, there is a deep, symbiotic relationship between the two.

In the UK, 60% of us are overweight, yet the “fat” (and I include myself in this category, with a BMI of 27, slap-bang average for the overweight British male) are not lazy and complacent about our condition, but ashamed and desperate to do something about it. Many of those classed as “overweight” are on a near-perpetual diet, and the same even goes for half of the British population, many of whom don’t even need to lose an ounce.

When obesity as a global health issue first came on the radar, the food industry sat up and took notice. But not exactly in the way you might imagine. Some of the world’s food giants opted to do something both extraordinary and stunningly obvious: they decided to make money from obesity, by buying into the diet industry.

Weight Watchers, created by New York housewife Jean Nidetch in the early 1960s, was bought by Heinz in 1978, who in turn sold the company in 1999 to investment firm Artal for $735m. The next in line was Slimfast, a liquid meal replacement invented by chemist and entrepreneur Danny Abraham, which was bought in 2000 by Unilever, which also owns the Ben & Jerry brand and Wall’s sausages. The US diet phenomenon Jenny Craig was bought by Swiss multinational Nestlé, which also sells chocolate and ice-cream. In 2011, Nestlé was listed in Fortune’s Global 500 as the world’s most profitable company.

These multinationals were easing carefully into a multibillion pound weight-loss market encompassing gyms, home fitness, fad diets and crash diets, and the kind of magazines that feature celebs on yo-yo diets or pushing fitness DVDs promising an “all new you” in just three weeks.

You would think there might be a problem here: the food industry has one ostensible objective – and that’s to sell food. But by creating the ultimate oxymoron of diet food – something you eat to lose weight – it squared a seemingly impossible circle. And we bought it. Highly processed diet meals emerged, often with more sugar in them than the originals, but marketed for weight loss, and here is the key get-out clause, “as part of a calorie-controlled diet”. You can even buy a diet Black Forest gateau if want.

We think of obesity and dieting as polar opposites, but there is a deep relationship between the two

We think of obesity and dieting as polar opposities, but there is a deep relationship between the two

So what you see when you walk into a supermarket in 2013 is the entire 360 degrees of obesity in a single glance. The whole panorama of fattening you up and slimming you down, owned by conglomerates which have analysed every angle and money-making opportunity. The very food companies charged with making us fat in the first place are now also making money from the obesity epidemic.

How did this happen? Let me sketch two alternative scenarios. This is the first: in the late 1970s, food companies made tasty new food. People started to get fat. By the 1990s, NHS costs related to obesity were ballooning. Government, health experts and, surprisingly, the food industry were brought in to consult on what was to be done. They agreed that the blame lay with the consumer – fat people needed to go on diets and exercise. The plan didn’t work. In the 21st century, people are getting fatter than ever.

OK, here’s scenario two. Food companies made tasty new food. People started to get fat. By the 1990s, food companies and, more to the point, the pharmaceutical industry, looked at the escalating obesity crisis, and realised there was a huge amount of money to be made.

But, seen purely in terms of profit, the biggest market wasn’t just the clinically obese (those people with a BMI of 30-plus), whose condition creates genuine health concerns, but the billions of ordinary people worldwide who are just a little overweight, and do not consider their weight to be a significant health problem.

That was all about to change. A key turning point was 3 June 1997. On this date the World Health Organisation (WHO) convened an expert consultation in Geneva that formed the basis for a report that defined obesity not merely as a coming social catastrophe, but as an “epidemic”.

The word “epidemic” is crucial when it comes to making money out of obesity, because once it is an epidemic, it is a medical catastrophe. And if it is medical, someone can supply a “cure”.

The author of the report was one of the world’s leading obesity experts, Professor Philip James, who, having started out as a doctor, had been one of the first to spot obesity rising in his patients in the mid-1970s. In 1995 he set up a body called the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), which reported on rising obesity levels across the globe and on health policy proposals for how the problem could be addressed.

It is widely accepted that James put fat on the map, and thus it was appropriate that the IOTF should draft the WHO report of the late 90s that would define global obesity. The report painted an apocalyptic picture of obesity going off the scale across the globe.

The devil was in the detail – and the detail lay in where you drew the line between “normal” and “overweight”. Several colleagues questioned the group’s decision to lower the cut-off point for being “overweight” – from a BMI of 27 to 25. Overnight, millions of people around the globe would shift from the “normal” to the “overweight” category.

Professor Judith Stern, vice president of the American Obesity Association, was critical, and suspicious. “There are certain risks associated with being obese … but in the 25-to-27 area it’s low-risk. When you get over 27 the risk becomes higher. So why would you take a whole category and make this category related to risk when it isn’t?”

Why indeed. Why were millions of people previously considered “normal” now overweight? Why were they being tarred with the same brush of mortality, as James’s critics would argue, as those who are genuinely obese?

Read more

Opinion:

It’s beautiful…

The companies that make you fat, also make a profit from trying to make you slim… but you just keep getting fatter, so BigPharma step in with ‘pills’ and you still keep getting fatter.

The psychology is there for all to see.

Let’s look at pre-1980.

That was before the big companies started making so many prepared foods and recreational snacks.

You ate at home, you ate what your mother cooked, and you didn’t get fat.

Post-1980 mother had to go to work, she didn’t have time to cook, you started eating ‘TV Dinners’ and snacking outside the home, and you got fat.

Do you see the equation here?

It is simple.

Mothers at home, obesity goes, mothers at work, obesity prevails.

But of course that doesn’t work any more. Because the mothers at home have forgotten how to be pre-1980s mothers. Remember when Home Ec (home economics and cooking) used to be a subject at school, mandatory for all girls. What happened to Home Ec? It disappeared!

Who made it go ‘whoosh’?

Ah, this is where the skulduggery comes in. Lobbyists! Lobbyists lobbying for the food companies convinced the education department that Home Ec wasn’t necessary.

Of course it was vital that Home Ec disappeared, so that new mothers didn’t know they were feeding their families on corporate profit-making fat-generating shit!

Bring back 1950s mothers, bring back Home Ec it’s the only solution.

Here’s the crunch!

Everything that corporations try to sell you that is ‘diet’, ‘light’, ‘low cholesterol’, ‘zero calories’ is bullshit! Pure bullshit!

Because the artificial sweeteners they use are worse than the original products. Aspartame, sucralose, HFCS, these products are POISON! And they are in every diet product on the planet. They have adverse effects on every organ in your body, from your brain to your big toe.

But governments will never step in to prevent these products from being used, BECAUSE THE CORPORATIONS WON’T LET THEM!

The governments are a façade, the real owners of the world are corporations, the real owners of you are the corporations. The governments are just the puppets to make you slaves feel good; yes, you are slaves, you have lost control, you are controlled.

Wake up!

 

Smell the coffee!

… and I don’t mean Starbucks!

 

 

 

 

 

Make you Fink on Friday

Fast food and takeaways linked to surge in child asthma and allergies

Teenagers more likely to have severe asthma and eczema if they eat fast food more than three times a week, study shows

Fast food was the only type of food associated with asthma and allergies across all ranges and countries, the study shows. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

A diet of fast food and takeaways may be behind the steady surge in children’s asthma and allergies affecting the UK and other developed countries, according to a study.

An international collaboration of scientists has found that young teenagers in particular are nearly 40% more likely to have severe asthma if they eat burgers and other types of fast food more than three times a week. Children aged six to seven had an increased risk of 27%. Children eating fast food were also more likely to get severe eczema and rhinitis – a condition where the nose blocks or runs and the eyes are itchy and water.

The scientists, from New Zealand, Spain, Australia and Germany as well as Nottingham in the UK, say their study could have “major public health significance owing to the rising consumption of fast foods globally” if the link they have found turns out not to be coincidence but causal.

The good news was that eating fruit appeared to protect young people from asthma and allergies. Eating three or more portions a week reduced the severity of the symptoms by 11% among teenagers and 14% among younger children.

 

Read more

 

Monday Moaning

Six years ago

The Latvian government banned the selling of unhealthy foods and beverages (especially sodas, including Pepsi and Coca Cola) in schools and kindergartens in order to promote healthier snacks for pupils. Anything that is not natural and contains artificial ingredients, food additives, preservatives, flavours, colouring, sweeteners, caffeine and a high salt/food ratio are considered to be an unhealthy food or beverage.

That was in 2006.

.

Today…

Fast-food ban near schools proposed to fight child obesity

THE GOVERNMENT is considering introducing a ban on fast-food outlets near schools, following the publication of a report on obesity in nine-year-olds.

Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said yesterday she was in discussions with the Department of the Environment to see if planning regulations could be introduced to control the proximity of fast-food businesses to schools.

“When you walk out of a school, if the first thing you see is a fast-food shop, clearly that’s not in the child’s best interests.”

Source: IrishTimes Read more

Opinion:

Is the tail not trying to wag the dog here?

Are we not barking up the wrong tree?

To me the answer is logical. Ban the production of problem foods!

…or, the alternative: Tax them beyond the reach of those most affected.

There are many answers to the problems, the prohibition of ingredients known to be prejudicial to health, HFCSs, artificial flavours and colourings for example.

Aspartame this, aspartame that

The main problem cited in the countries like France, Canada and Russia where the bans are in place is obesity; but it goes way beyond just obesity. The problems stem to behavioural patterns, cognitive development, social interactions, bodily growth and functions, neurological disorders and more.

The problem affects our very being; and yet that is not important, as long as the corporations can make a profit, the health and welfare of the people is of no concern.

Since the 1960s we have abdicated our responsibilities as parents. Each generation is abdicating more and more.

An now we get responses like this when kids are asked about junk food restrictions: “I think that’s mean because junk food is pretty good”.

The kids have no idea anymore, less idea than their parents had no idea about. Parental control is gone, the kids have been brainwashed by more and more corporate advertising, so much that they don’t know what the facts are any more than their parents did.

One of two things has to happen; firstly parents have to get their shit together, second, if that doesn’t happen, then the state has to become a nanny.

Saturday Satire

A little video humor today…

Monday Moaning

Brainwashing

Pure and simple brainwashing.

Who paid for these songs to be written?

Where were they played, on TV, dduring children’s programmes?

Now for the lyrics in case you didn’t get them…

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Our kids are being brainwashed into becoming obese little zombies so the corporations can make a profit.