Justace24 - Sure - Down the rabbit hole... can't fit right now... too damn fat. Ba ha ha!

Amyo - Sure, one buck each plus tax - plus a cup of water, no happy meals or fries though unless the meal is fries! When I first saw the price for the salad bar, I was wondering if I was dreaming! My gal friends get the high priced items; Me, I'm very happy with the salad! The last two times, the girls bought for me... double deal. Average price for a good salad bar here is under $5.

Musashi - Right On! Grocery stores CHARGE way to much! I would not recommend eating three times a day at the dollar menu at Mickey's... that's just disgusting! I can understand buying bulk - a single person cooking though is slightly different than for say a family of four... lot of effort for each and every meal and while preparing in advance is helpful, if there are roommates, they steal your stash, tripling the budget! :)

Mushashi - I agree with you in so many ways. And, the farm works 4 me cause I like "organic and natural fed, knowing how my main course is treated and slaughtered today" kind of meat. All my olive oil is organic so it's probably a little higher than most. I have a professional chef in the family here as well and have meals prepared right on the wood stove... Spoiled rotten!

The best nutritional blog I have read: http://www.freetheanimal.com/root/

I buy a pack of chicken breasts just about every weekend and fix them all on Sunday for the week ahead. For one person, that's $10/week for high-quality protein. Supplement w/fruits (I HATE veggies), V-8, Kashi cereal. Pretty cheap, big on nutrition; I do miss my fastfood hamburgers, however :)

The exercise half of the equation is being neglected in this conversation, and it's just as important in preventing disease (not to mention obesity ;). And it's free (unless ya belong to a gym or something).

No, I certainly don't expect to live forever cause of my lifestyle, nor do I want to. But I think my quality of life is far greater (and medical/food bills far lower) because of it.

I used to think like KD and I am a healthy eater who only buys organic. I also used to blame the fat people on their own stupidity and lack of self-discipline, but recently I changed my stance because of what I encountered.

I have a few contractors working on the home right now, and to facilitate a good working relationship, we chit chatted and went on a couple of lunches together. They always hit McD, which I advised against for obvious reasons, I also suggested them cooking themselves. A couple of them told me that they are fully aware of McD risks, and have watched documentaries like Supersize Me (surprise here), but that is the fast food shop that they can AFFORD. Why not cook themselves? First, they are in a very seasonal industry in which either you work around the clock (for certain trades), or you get no work at all. So when they are busy, they have no time to cook, and they need high calorie food to keep going. When there is no job, they can only go with the cheapest food alternative, and McD provides the best "value" for their appetite.

Surprisingly, cooking for yourself costs more, compared to many fast food chains. We went to Carl's Jr the other day, and one of them ordered 2 spicy chicken sandwiches at 99 cents each. How can you get away with a meal with $2 for a guy with very mediocre cooking skill?

So there is no surprise that one's fat cells are heavily correlated with the income. I begin to see their side of the story.

Another observation of these "working class" men is, most of them are divorced, which is very sad.

One of them asked me if it is ok to bring the kid over on Saturday, because he needs to finish his part while Sat is his sacred day of spending time with his kid in the ex-wife's custody. His kid was apparently bright, and very sensitive. He would say something to the dad like "I know you want to buy me big gifts but you don't have money.", or "Why can't you pick me up more?". The kid is also very courteous, perhaps because he is used to hanging out at dad's customers' house while dad has to finish work to put food on the table. These divorced dads all carry a photo of their kids on the cell phone.

Just based on a few data points, it seems to me the divorce rate is also highly correlated with income.

Amyo,
The store I mentioned is in AZ, American Discount Foods. When I'm home in MT it's even cheaper as I trade for most food with the Hutterites. When I'm in Uruguay it's 30 minute to Argentina where my brother and sister have farms.
Pretty much set for food no matter where I go.

Went to WI once for one of the Harley rides and promptly got lost. The only connection to MN is a friend that now and then sends us a bag of their wild rice.


add
most medium to large towns have stores like these, they are just hard to find.
A local TV station sort of ruined the deal by putting it out there as there is more competition for the good stuff
This is what they look like
http://www.azfamily.com/news/3oys/storie....
http://local.yahoo.com/info-20021999-ame....

All of obesity is not about lack of discipline. Some of it is about metabolism, which changes with age and is a greater problem for women than men by a factor of 8 to 1, who are so afflicted. One of the symptoms of hypothyroidism is weight gain. Some other diseases are similar. Diabetes has a metabolic factor as well and they do not handle carbohydrates as well as otherwise healthy people.
Yes, the calories in minus calories expended results in a net change in which excess is stored by the body. However, for those with slow metabolism, regular exercise does not consume the same number of calories as that performed by healthy people. Further, it has been shown that muscle burns more energy than adipose tissue. So, for someone with any metabolic problem or who has excess fat to lead a healthy life, they must either eat considerably fewer calories than their healthy counterparts or exercise considerably more. This requires a dedication and discipline that does not easily fit into the American lifestyle or a busy family's schedule.

It is true that obtaining the variety of fresh food - vegetables and fruit - needed for a nutritionally healthy diet is extremely expensive in a restaurant. It costs more at the grocers to buy for one as well. However, if one carefully freezes leftovers and cooks foods before they spoil, it is manageable. Of course, if the facilities one works at does not provide appropriate storage facilities, spoilage is still a problem. Even the new lunch gear may not be able to preserve food for 6 to 8 hours or more.

I shop at the asian market and get my food at half the cost compared to the american shops. Good quality meat, fish, veggies, fruits, etc... at half the cost since the asians aren't held in a full-nelson stranglehold by employee unions. I see more and more caucasions shopping there. I can prepare a darn healthy, nutritious meal @ $1.75. Those who habitually eat fast food will continue to make cardio-thoracic surgeons wealthy. It's poison.

I think all this nutrition and obesity thing tie in with Elizabeth Warren's observation of the crumbling American middle class. The culprits of this are the two-income lifestyle and high divorce rate.

We used to have a stable family with a stay-home mom who is the chief nutrionist for the family. She is usually good at cooking, and spends time with the kids. Now we must have two incomes to afford a mortgage, and the lower income families are more susceptible to financial stress which most likely leads to a divorce, depriving the men of further financial resources. As a result, divorced men with alimony obligations or single moms who must work to put food on the table can only turn to cheap and abundant highly processed industrial food.

Healthy countries or societies breed healthy citizens, or vice versa. Our society is obviously sick.

Wow Dee, yum, love meals off a wood stove, we only get that when we go up North (funny - most would think there wasn't an "up north" from MN/WI - J/K.... I just recently noticed a sign near hear advertising organic, grass fed local beef, can't wait to check it out! The grass fed beef I've gotten at the local co-op was clearly better than what we're used to.

Mis - thanks for your ideas, I'll be looking locally to see what I can find. :)

Last Chance - I feel so bad now - I thought the homeless person attending was somehow raising trouble, not trying to stay warm... in my imagination she lived in some sort of homeless shelter. I'm sorry. That being said, 30 degrees isn't that bad... it doesn't start to really get cold until you hit zero and then the wind picks up. :)

Riceball, I agree completely. :) However, as KD would say, we have to play the tape we're given, or something like that?? Sorry, not a trader, just interested in the economy. Anyhow, what we've done to conquer the problem of a dual income family is to cook and store/freeze our meals on the weekend. (by we I mean me :), hubby is maintaining the vehicles/septic/well/home etc.) Very traditional in a non-traditional world and it's rarely super-perfect, but we eat a home cooked meal every night and feel good about it's health content.

Bozonian wrote..

And the 1950s stay-home mom was the one feeding the family all sorts of unhealthy crap.

The Gallery of Regrettable Foods: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/

Quote:

And obesity is not just a matter of calories in - calories burned. That's the biggest lie ever. When you are young you can eat like a pig and not gain weight when you are older you cannot. At least I did and I haven't changed my living habits one bit since I was 21. Right there blows that calories in rule all to hell.

Your metabolism slows as you age. The rule still applies. The trick is finding foods that make you feel full and/or which stoke your metabolism.

I don't see any OLD fat people. Young and middle-aged, yes. They don't live to be OLD though. They should be celebrated, if one is concerned about the "healthcare crisis." They die younger, and end up costing less. People that live to be 90, with last 5 years in nursing homes cost a fortune.

Naturally your metabolism slows as you age. But that is no excuse for being fat. Neither are hormones in the average human. More excuses. My wife and I take a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood daily. Rarely do we see other couples walking. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week for 30-40 minutes of aerobic exercise. I could count on one hand the number of people over 45 in the gym. If I didn't exercise I too would be overweight or obese. Face it. Most americans are just plain lazy when it comes to taking care of their bodies. I lived in europe for several years. Biking and walking was a favorite pasttime for the europeans, even for the elderly. And there were far fewer obese people over there. I think making excuses is one of the all-time favorite american pasttimes when it comes to the shapes of their bodies.

My friends mother owned and ran a health and fitness studio from the early 1960's. She was a wonderful chef too (my friend takes after her in that regard).

With that environment available, and which she used, she went obese - and for obvious reasons had to close her health and fitness studio as a result. She was prescribed 'slimming tablets' at the time, and had a jar full of them in the bathroom - 2 a day she was supposed to take, and there were 1,000's in that jar (a big jar). Each tablet contained 1 gramme of pure amphetamine.

They didn't do her any good.

Turned out she had cancer of the glands, and it killed her.

There's a lot of dodgy food out there that we didn't used to eat. It contains all sorts of stuff, and our water too can contain some pretty weird stuff. Soya I have a heck of a lot of doubts about, after another friend ran a Soya establishment making all sorts of Soya products, and eating as much of that as he did, killed him - I haven't touched it since.

There's estrogen and all manner of stuff like hormones finding its way into our food and water, and it has concequences.

I also remember reading a study years ago. Autopsies on young superfit casualties in Vietnam, were showing up furring of the arteries, etc. Well it took a fair number of years to track down what was causing that, and it turned out to be heat treated milk. Apparently the fat globules were made so small with the heat treatment, they passed straight through the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Can't remember where I read it now (some scientific journal or other in the late 70's or early 80's), but I don't think milk treatment has been modified since, other than making skimmed and semi skimmed more available. It's certainly not something that's been publicised widely, for sure.

Stuff we are prescribed can have untold effects as well. Don't antibiotics have some bad side effects of killing off 'friendly' stuff in our bodies as well as the bad? I have had antibiotics in my lifetime, but very rarely, maybe once this last 30 years when I had an eye infection so had eye drops for it.

Brown fat is supposed to be responsible for keeping weight in balance, according to what I read years ago, don't know if that's been made out to be bad for us since though. Apparently if your body has enough brown fat, then no problem, if not enough, you will be overweight.

Also what effect do these Statins have that attack cholesterol? The body has legitimate uses for cholesterol as part of the repair mechanism, and much (most?) of the brain is cholesterol? Yet these things are being prescribed like sweets!

Personally I'm sure we are supposed to put a bit of weight on in middle age, to give us the reserves to fight illnesses in later age (very active farmers round here mostly seem to 'shape up' that way). Something may be 'overboosting' that mechanism or triggering it off early as well?

I do remember something my old biology teacher told me though - "You can't turn fat into fat, all you can turn fat into is energy. To make fat, you need protein input."

For a lot of years, we have been growing cattle etc to have low fat, a lot of beans etc have low fat? We seem to be pushing the stuff that makes fat, rather than the stuff that makes energy?

Oh and the fats/oils we've been supplied with in the food chain, have had a pretty big proportion of 'hydrogenated' oils/fats in them?

Just to add I think we are in danger to a great degree here of blaming the effects rather than the causes. Plus, does ANYBODY really want to see a return to the times of 'the Workhouse'?

I have always been involved in fitness in some form or fashion (power lifting, boxing, wrestling, etc)

It's all about metabolism ...

In my 20's when I had the most muscle mass (power lifting) ... I would literally eat a large pizza before bed (treat) and wake up in the morning 2-3 POUNDS lighter.

If I didn't consume around 4,000 healthy calories a day ... I would lose stength, endurance and weight at the same time. There were times when my body demanded 6,000-7,000 calories daily.

Now ... not so much ... LOL