LAJ ARTICLES

Foods that kill. Pretty poisons and their fake cures.

Fake foods are a cliff. People are lemmings.
I was in the subway when I took this photo of a poster. This one picture is worthy of a thousand words… but, I am horribly afflicted by spontaneous bouts of Attention Deficit Disorder, to save myself from any discomfort, I will keep this post brief.
Nutrition and fitness pundits peddle that people should eat breakfast, something I completely disagree with for myself and discourage in others. The sales pitches sends fragile people into supermarkets in a shopping frenzy. From my sample size of one, I believe that the body and mind operate optimally when hungry. Not starving, but hungry enough that are nagged by a pesky mosquito.
You and I likely agree that a coffee and a donut is not a meal. Being reasonably health conscious people we oblige “of course it’s not a meal”. But the poster is not in a place where you and I are, instead it is tactically positioned in a subway train, a solitary commuter experience. The advertiser conditions your mind to free itself of the guilt of a poor choice,  it is ‘ok’. It has that authority. Decisions are not rational, the creator of the poster knows this. They have given ‘permission’ for you to believe that it is a meal.
That is the message in the poster, but there is also a message off the poster.
The food industry is tethered to the health industry. Pharmaceuticals advertise drugs as cures without any disclosure as to how the unfortunate condition came about. Drug commercials treat consumers as the victim. ‘You were randomly assaulted by diabetes.’
You say: “…the consumers of healthy foods tend to be more educated and have higher salaries.”
And I reply:
Does education make people smarter? No. It is my experience that they just have a greater choice of words
Does ‘richer’ mean people make better health choices? No, richer people just pay more
What can be done: Offering high quality, nutritious breakfasts, lunch and dinners in schools can ease many societal problems. Another generational solve is peer-to-peer education, teaching people to go into their communities to teach others.
The end?

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