So grateful for the opportunity today to deliver the Plates & Portions Lunch & Learn presentation to Caron Treatment Centers staff! Here's a snippet:
"I am certainly not here to demonize restaurants and food manufacturers; quite the opposite, in fact, since personally I find the idea demeaning, of turning over responsibility for my body to someone who is rightfully and primary in the business of making money...
Could they make their ingredients and practices a little more transparent? Probably. But that doesn't abdicate OUR responsibility for knowing what it is we are putting into our bodies: what fuels us and ultimately BECOMES us.
However you characterize it, it's undeniable that unquestioned marketing is part of what's going on here.
Did you know that if your body today is called a size 10, in the 1980's it was a 12, in the 1970's it was a 14 and in the 1950's it was a 16/18?
Did you know that despite a recent government initiative to have restaurants post calorie counts, a recent study shows that at least 20% of those counts are an underestimation - with some scientists saying the numbers could be off by as much as half?
Did you know that a local chain posts "no msg" in their "healthy meat" and yet includes it - legally - three times under three different names?
How about that "lowfat" and "non-fat" products are often higher in calories and lower in nutritional value because of the removal of healthy fats and the addition of salt and sugar to compensate for lost flavor?
Come on, we're smart people, right? Does it make sense to eat foods that are so filled with preservatives that they'll last longer than we do, or to drink something that mimics cocaine in its effects on our brains and bodies?
This is not about how you compare to your spouse, your neighbor or your co-worker. Or the model on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This is about you - and ONLY you. And we have GOT to get back to self-awareness, to educating ourselves, to making sound and balanced nutritional choices, and to trusting our "gut", something many of us have silenced, or forgotten..."
"I am certainly not here to demonize restaurants and food manufacturers; quite the opposite, in fact, since personally I find the idea demeaning, of turning over responsibility for my body to someone who is rightfully and primary in the business of making money...
Could they make their ingredients and practices a little more transparent? Probably. But that doesn't abdicate OUR responsibility for knowing what it is we are putting into our bodies: what fuels us and ultimately BECOMES us.
However you characterize it, it's undeniable that unquestioned marketing is part of what's going on here.
Did you know that if your body today is called a size 10, in the 1980's it was a 12, in the 1970's it was a 14 and in the 1950's it was a 16/18?
Did you know that despite a recent government initiative to have restaurants post calorie counts, a recent study shows that at least 20% of those counts are an underestimation - with some scientists saying the numbers could be off by as much as half?
Did you know that a local chain posts "no msg" in their "healthy meat" and yet includes it - legally - three times under three different names?
How about that "lowfat" and "non-fat" products are often higher in calories and lower in nutritional value because of the removal of healthy fats and the addition of salt and sugar to compensate for lost flavor?
Come on, we're smart people, right? Does it make sense to eat foods that are so filled with preservatives that they'll last longer than we do, or to drink something that mimics cocaine in its effects on our brains and bodies?
This is not about how you compare to your spouse, your neighbor or your co-worker. Or the model on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This is about you - and ONLY you. And we have GOT to get back to self-awareness, to educating ourselves, to making sound and balanced nutritional choices, and to trusting our "gut", something many of us have silenced, or forgotten..."