What We Eat

 Goliaths of the world food industry are pleading the defence of the consumer choice.

 Two out of every five adults are overweight, and one in five is obese.

 300,000 of our children are overweight or obese and this figure is increasing by 10,000 per year.  For every person killed on our roads, five people die prematurely due to obesity. The annual cost to the economy is estimated at 4 billion.

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Constant “Creep” In The Nation’s Waistline.

 We consume one million calories per year and hopefully expend it all on living.

 Eat more and exercise less and the system goes out of whack.

 The less exercise we take the more likely we are to binge or comfort eat.

 The heavier we get the less likely we are to take exercise.

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Disturbing Trend

 There are now as many people, overweight in the world as there are underfed and underweight.

 Increase calorie consumption due to increasing prosperity.

 Add to the equation, video games, marketing of fast food and chocolate.

 People risk heart disease, stroke, liver disease, colon cancer, diabetes and osteoarthritis.

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Health Experts Focus On Bad Food

 

As The Culprit.

Our fondness for junk food low in nutrients but high in energy. (Food Safe Authority) This food is clogging up children’s arteries, it is like putting diesel in a petrol engine.

 Pushing up diabetes levels.

 Food industry misleads the public by saying that an item is high in fibre without also saying that it is also high in fat and sugar.

 Industry turns our health advice on its head and has a vested interest in suppressing the harmful effects of some 4/25/2020 of its products.

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Food Industry Is Huge.

 The messages put out by the 17 billion a year food industry go unopposed because the budget for health promotion is so small, but what kind of health system can compete with constant food advertising on prime-time T.V.

 In America the food industry must by law list the amount of trans fats and cholesterol in their products.

 Supermarkets argue that they offer a choice to the consumer, it is up to the consumer to decide. 4/25/2020 James Coughlan 5

Problem

 People look for absolution for their lifestyles rather than changing what they do. They would rather take a product that lowers cholesterol than take exercise.

 The concept of diet is not being understood because of the concept of “probability neglect” used by scientists to explain why people worry about low probability catastrophes.

 We know that a bad diet can kill us, but we believe that it won’t happen tomorrow or it won’t happen to me.

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Mischievous Food Labelling.

  “Irish Smoked Salmon” versus “Smoked Irish Salmon” so which product is made in Ireland.

Irish Chicken Kiev” could be made with chicken from Thailand.

 Eighty per cent fat free – this means that the product contains twenty per cent fat, way above the three per cent “low fat” claim.

 Many nutrition labels list the sodium content rather than telling us how much salt the food contains. Multiply the sodium content by 2.5 to get the salt content.

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Labels

 “Lo Salt” – is this product low in salt or does it contain less salt than the high amounts in the previous version of the product.

 “King-size” or “Duo” Snack bar manufacturers voluntarily offered to get rid of their king-size products in an effort to reduce portion sizes. Many replaced the king size bar with a “duo” product containing two smaller bars in the same size packet.

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Food:what lurks within.

 Salt is added to a product to increase its shelf life, enhance its taste and to make it easier to manufacture.

 Salt is linked to increased blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.

 The Food Safety Authority wants our intake of salt to be reduced from 10 grams per day to four grams per day by the year 2010.

 The problem is that 75% of our salt intake is involuntary and we must have the co-operation of the food industry to do this. The E.U. would interpret any compulsion as a James Coughlan 9

Fat

 Consumption of saturated fat and trans fat raises cholesterol levels that increase the risk of heart disease. Trans fats are man made hydrogenated vegetable oils and are 10 times more dangerous to the heart than saturated fats.

 Unsaturated fats do not raise cholesterol.

 In the U.S. food manufacturers are required by law to state how much trans fat, saturated fat and cholesterol is in the food. No such requirement in Ireland.

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Acrylamides

 This is a chemical created as a by-product of roasting or cooking at high temperatures, for example in the manufacture of crisps or chips and is known to be carcinogenic. Nutritionists believe that these products can be removed from the food.

 In recent years, Ferries have increased the width of their seats.

 Ambulance companies have installed in their vehicles a winch to handle patients weighing up to half a ton.

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A Widening Global Problem.

 Human bodies are designed to convert food into fat and store that fat. (Useful to our ancestors).

 In the 21 st comes.

century fat is stored for a famine that never  In Asia roads once filled with cyclists and pedestrians are now congested with cars heading for new drive through fast food restaurants.

 In South America the amount of processed food has increased by 40% since 1980.

 In America 400,000 lives are lost due to obesity and 100 4/25/2020 James Coughlan billion dollars pumped into the problem each year.

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80% who buy imported food believe it is made here

 77% of Irish people believe that Lyons tea is made in Ireland, it is packaged by unilever a Dutch firm in the U.K.

 71% of Irish consumers believe that H.B. ice cream to be an Irish brand, it too is packed by unilever in the U.K.  80% believe that Siucra is Irish made, it is grown overseas and shipped here by a German firm 4/25/2020.

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If you want to buy Irish

 Buy Barry’s tea instead of Lyons.

 Buy Avonmore soups instead of Cully and Sully ones.

 Buy Batchelors beans instead of Heinz beans.

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