Eating This Stuff Is Killing Us

Obesity is the second leading contributor to premature death in North America (ref). It's complicit in heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and cancer. Diet plays a huge role in obesity - along with physical activity - so I found a couple of  interesting graphics that describes how things have changed over the decades.

The first is obesity rates themselves - I'm confident that Canada would track the USA almost 1:1...

 Note that the early 1980's the US Federal Government started us all on the low-fat dogma, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prove that a low fat diet is good for our health. Our fat consumption has been decreasing for decades, but our rates of obesity are skyrocketing.Clearly low fat is not good for our health.

So what's happened? Food manufacturers have gone the low fat route by substituting sugars - every kind of sugar (the most infamous being Low Fructose Corn Syrup). And when sugar isn't enough - they process the hell out of it to make it some kind of Frankenfood.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

When I was growing up in the 70's, processed food in the house was rare. The odd bag of potato chips, and maybe a 2l jug of Coke over Christmas.

My how things have changed.

The single biggest component of our diet is now processed foods and sugars.

Want to lose weight and get healthy? Cut out the 22.9%.

"If your grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it".