Apocalypse of the "Happy Meal": The Cathedral of Cholesterol

[marmar]

(Truthout) No one needs to eat livestock to survive. Yet meat is almost universally the focus of the Western diet. When you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks you what you'll have, you respond with the meat or fish entree. You don't say, "the asparagus" or "the rice" or the "mixed veggies." Everything else on the menu is known as a "side dish," or is even regarded as an afterthought. Arby's even advertises "Mega Meat Stacks" and "Meats Upon Meats Upon Meats." And this is pure insanity - on a global scale.

The average American eats between two and five times more protein than they actually need. Basically, we eat animals because we want to, or because we're duped into it by the Big Ag Empire.

In the last 50 years worldwide meat consumption per capita has doubled, primarily because of corporate advertising. Karl's Jr. puts a scantily clad, super model eating a monster hamburger and dripping it all over herself, and subconsciously men think that eating a hamburger will lead to sex with that super model. Women think, just as absurdly, that eating that hamburger will make them look like that super model. McDonald's spends about $1.4 billion a year trying to convince us to worship at their cathedral of cholesterol. The rest of the meat and dairy industries also spend vast sums of money in television and magazine advertising every year to convince Americans that the key to happiness is eating huge amounts of cow meat, cheese, milk, eggs, chicken and other assorted animal products.

.........(snip).........

Virtually all feedlot-raised cattle are administered growth hormones and antibiotics like penicillin and tetracycline. In fact, about 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States go to livestock. The antibiotics are used not only for bacterial protection given the putrid conditions livestock are kept in, but also because they act to fatten them up. That should prompt the question in your mind about what those antibiotics do to you when you eat those same livestock. In fact numerous experiments on humans dating back to the 1950s have shown that humans also gain weight when fed a steady diet of antibiotics.

This has potential implications for the worldwide obesity epidemic, and should provide "food for thought" next time you order a "thick and juicy Karl's Jr." and expect that to be your ticket to becoming a super model. No one seems to have studied whether the residual low doses of antibiotics in livestock meat are enough to make you gain weight, but there is evidence that those doses are sufficient to disrupt the normal composition of your gut bacteria, increasing your susceptibility to infections. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25682-apocalypse-of-the-happy-meal-the-cathedral-of-cholesterol

[newfie11]

1. I've noticed more places are offering meatless meals

Even here in cattle country (western SD).

For years eating out ment a salad or fruit
Plate but some places are changing

There is still a long way to go.

[tridim]

2. The focus of the American diet is CARBS.

Not good when the second sentence is completely wrong, TRUTHout.

[KurtNYC]

7. +1 -- Nat Geo has a good article on this

The top source of calories for many Americans is grain:



http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/

Consumers are sold high margin food products through advertising and placements. Meat is a very low margin food product. McDonald's breaks even on burgers and makes the majority of their profits on soda and fries. That is why they train employees to ask "do you want fries with that?" or "would you like the value meal?" That quarter pound hamburger for $3.25 is just the hook to get you to buy something else that they make money on.

Many of us are malnourished now because finding healthier, nutrient dense foods has become a shell game run by food processors who are financially incentivized to sell us the least nutritious food for the highest amount of dollars.

[MineralMan]

3. This rambling article is sort of a compendium of fact mixed with

non-fact, and missing a lot of relevant information. It is correct that nobody requires meat. However, humans have always eaten meat when it was available. The reason for that is that meat of all kinds is a concentrated source of protein. So, it has been sought after eagerly by humans since we started walking upright.

Meat is not necessary in the human diet, but it is highly desired as part of the human diet. Do today's humans get more protein from meat than they need? Well, they do in societies where it is possible. That's not true everywhere that humans live, though. Here in the United States, meat is plentiful, available, and eaten by most people, to one degree or another. Humans are omnivores. We do best with a mixed diet, one that includes meat. We can do without meat, but we generally do better with it. A meatless diet is more complicated and requires a greater degree of knowledge of nutritional requirements.

Is all meat healthful for us to eat? Not really, today. As the author points out, a lot of the meat we eat contains stuff that is not good for us, but that is true of non-meat foods, as well. Lots of mouths to feed in developed countries has meant that industrial food production has become the norm.

Should we eschew meat? Perhaps, if we can and still maintain our needed protein intake. That's not always simple to do, and in today's urban environment, it can be even more difficult. Fewer and fewer people now actually have the means and knowledge needed to prepare a healthy diet from raw ingredients. We could be teaching that knowledge in our schools, but we do not, and have not for a very long time.

So, people eat meat, because, as it has always been, meat is a compact, concentrated source of protein in our diets. You can get it at the drive-through, quickly and cheaply. And that is, more and more, where we get the food we eat. It's available, all neatly prepared for the ever-present microwave oven, too. And we eat more and more of those prepared foods that don't require any knowledge of food preparation.

Articles like this contain a lot of useful information, but do not include the real reason we eat the way we eat. The people who could make the most use of the information in this article will never see it. The rest of us, who already have the information we need to eat a healthy diet, don't do so, either, for the most part.

There are many reasons we eat as we do, and this article says nothing about that. We eat meat because it is a convenient, ever-present concentrated source of protein in the developed world. We're unlikely to stop doing that simple because there is an article on truthout. Seriously.

[tridim]

4. Rambling and dangerous IMO.

The author is ignorant.

[MineralMan]

6. No, the author is not ignorant.

The author is an advocate of something. Advocates almost always tell only part of the story - the part that makes their point.

That is the case with this article, which should be read as an advocacy article, not news.

[longship]

5. Absolute rubbish. nt

[JNelson6563]

8. I rarely eat meat in recent years.

When I do buy it I get as local/organic/drug-free as possible. It is more expensive but it tastes so much better. It is also much better for you.

Julie