Nutrients vs Food

Meat, aka Matt from Canada, my #1 (and probably only) Canadian reader left me a link to this article on the heels of my rant, Fill 'er up, about our misguided attempt at vitamin consumption.

It was written in early 2007, and I will forewarn you, its long, really long, but set aside some time to sit down and read it. Seriously, its extremely thought provoking and whether or not you believe it or dismiss it, its worth thinking about.

I can't really even begin to summarise the whole article, but I will point out one topic in the article. It wasn't until the late 70's that scientist started to pull apart and put back together our food in attempts to make what we eat healthier. Ironically, it was the late 70's and early 80's that the US obesity epidemic really got started.

So, read on... and if you have any feed back, let me hear it.

Fill 'er up

OK, I wont go into Americas obesity epidemic, I mean, Im only here for about 8 hours and I don’t want to start labeling the blog by Volumes.

But you know our country, and even the world, are in a sad state of affairs when we are depending on soda to get out vitamins. Coke has Coke Plus and Pepsi is coming out with Tava, a one stop shop for a delicious and “healthy” beverage.
Now, soda and soft drinks, in and of themselves, aren’t inherently bad, but if you are consuming so much that you need them to have vitamin additives you might want to think about cutting back. I dunno, maybe have some water or a juice, heck pick up a piece of fruit every now and then. The fact that these companies thought of these kind of products says a lot about were we put the value of actual, real, nutrition, but the fact that consumers are drinking these says even more.

(I dont even see soda on here... man, this thing is out dated)

Just incase you think that’s they only way to be “healthy”, think again. 7-11 and Starbucks wants you to be able to have a choice on they way you consume you daily vitamins. Just like some people like apples and some like bananas, some people like soda and others like coffee. Why should we limit consumption of much needed vitamins to soda when we could put it in our coffee too! In a rush to keep up with our insatiable appetites the research and development team from Starbucks came up with this great idea and this one from 7-11. Its funny though, consumer affairs tells us, apparently, coffee and vitamins don’t really mix. Coffee, and caffeinated drinks in general, limit the absorption of vitamins and minerals. Huh, so, this is really just a big scam which will lead to further obesity, diabetes, liver and kidney problems, no, that can’t be right.

But wait... There's more! All this healthy soda and your still feeling tired? Don’t worry, now you don’t need sleep either! Thanks to the creators of Red Bull and the mass marketing of Monster not to mention the other countless energy drinks, we can cut out sleep all together. Yea!
Now this is getting really good, I can drink my vitamins and drink my energy be completely healthy and live a long full life!

Ok, I will admit, even the healthiest of the morbidly obise need a quick pick me up now and then. I guess an 8oz Redbull would do the trick… or, new and improved 12oz, oh, or the newer 16oz…. oh gezzz, the *new* 24oz?!? Seriously, twenty four, liver punchin, sugar rushing, heart pounding ounces? Well, don’t worry, if you not dead yet, Monster offers the 36oz pop top can. Pop top implying that it is one (1) serving, not able to be saved for later....
(not pictured is the 24oz Red Bull)

What you’re thirsty for regular H20, but your body cant handle anything without high fructose corn syrup and your pallet can't take anything not artificially sweetened, not to mention you don’t want to miss out on your only source of vitamines? Don’t worry, Vitamin Water has made sure we don’t miss a single swig of throat choking vitamin goodness.

Well, You can bet that all this talk about soft drinks has certainly made me thirsty, not to mention exhausted, so im off to the break room, dollar in hand to get a nice cold refreshing beverage... I can only hope they have restocked the Diet Coke Plus, all this typing I'm surely low on B12 and couldn’t go on another second with out some Vitamin C, I mean, it is my only option .... right?