Healthy foods need a Sexy Marketing Campaign

This Pulled Pork

Versus

This Organic Strawberries

I have been pondering the Obesity epidemic and my own weight struggles for some time now and I have come to the conclusion that maybe we need to look at the whole Diet industry as a failure because you basically learn to give up foods you like and restrict calories and intake.   Diet is DIE with a T.  in other words you feel like you are gonna die if you keep on this perpetual felling of deprivation.

Do you ever wonder why all the commercials on tv are for Fast Foods and Junk Foods?  Don't they make you salivate when you see the commercials?  One of the reasons they work is because they look enticing and sexy to you and make you feel like you will feel great when you have them.  It becomes subliminal messaging and you can't get the thought of a triple bypass burger out of your head.   When I watched Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock I was both repulsed at what was being done with the food and at the same time I could almost

taste the Big Mac while watching the film.

What if we just flipped the switch and stopped all marketing of unhealthy foods which are marketed to get you addicted to the food and a lot of the companies that provide a lot of the food that goes into all that junk is also subsidized.    So here's a thought.   What if the Junk ads were taken off the air or aired with the same warnings as cigarette ads or pharmaceutical ads where they list all the side effects and diseases that you may be at risk for.   And what if ORGANIC FARMS were given subsidies and governments were giving money away to market Real Organic Foods.   What if the commercials for Spinach and Broccoli were sexy?   What if you saw a commercial for Organic freshly picked strawberries and they were prepared with fresh Organic Cream.   Would you want to run out and get that?   Why don't we have drive thru's for that?   I'd like to roll into a Fast Food drive through and order a bowl of fresh strawberries to go!   What if French Fries were made with other root vegetables and were baked and served to look like fries.  Would you order a bag of French baked Parsnips?  How about some Roasted Beet salad?  HMMM... with all the crap that is out in the world I wonder why nobody is doing this already?   What if you picked up a bunch of carrot sticks instead of fries with a veggie burger that tasted better than a real hamburger?   I went to New York years ago and a friend ordered a Veggie Burger from an upscale restaurant that we went to.  He said it tasted just like beef.  I didn't believe him so he made me try some and he was totally right.  I was really surprised.   What if we spent more time/money/energy on figuring out how to prepare Real fruits and vegetables so that they still had integrity and maximum taste and nutrition.   Why NOT?  With all the chefs that are being pumped out of cooking schools and all the cooking competition shows on TV right now how come nobody has done this yet?

Fifty years ago people would mostly eat real food prepared in their homes and to to out to a restaurant was usually for a special occasion or if you couldn't cook at home for whatever reason.

I don't see things going back to that in the future with both parents working full time jobs and having so many extra curricular activities to keep up with and Social media and other time wasting things to spend any free time on.

I think the answer is to rethink the whole food system.   Have a drive thru/ pick up healthy food restaurant on every corner that parents could pick up a cooked Organic Chicken,  and a couple of organic side vegetables and salads and even beans or legumes and some fruit desserts.     Not Swiss Chalet which still has high fat, high sodium, low nutrient foods with their dinners.... and what's in that Swiss Chalet sauce anyway?

Give people options to make it easy to do the right thing.   If you love Mac and Cheese and who doesn't?   What if it was made with cauliflower and low fat cheese and the fat content reduced and the sodium content reduced but somehow the flavour was increased using spices and vegetables like celery root or cauliflower.   if it tasted great and you had a choice between that and some greasy, soggy french fries what would you choose?

We need to start a SEXY REAL Food Campaign.    Make people salivate over a plate of brussel sprouts and fiddleheads and see what happens.

If I had a choice between Pulled Pork and a plain iceberg lettuce salad with some tastless tomatoes in it... No contest which one I would choose.    But if the salad had the sweetest organic tomatoes and it had organic chicken slices and a really flavourful salad dressing and lots of tasty nuts or other things in it then maybe I would have a hard time choosing.

Teach people how to crave healthy food.   Teach people how to prepare foods to make them taste better than any junk food you can get.  Make healthy foods as fast, cheap and available as Junk Foods.

Maybe then we will see a change.

What's in your Burger/fries?

Do you love your Happy Meals? Your McD's Burger/Fries? Are you a fast food junkie? Well I admit that when I am lazy or just craving a burger and fries it's really easy for me to walk across the street and grab a burger and fries from your well known fast food chain. I always feel guilty now after having seen Super Size Me and know it's bad for me but sometimes can't resist because it is quick, tasty and relatively cheap. But we all know it's bad for us but this video is shocking at how bad it really is.

Food is meant to decompose as are we. If it doesn't decompose it doesn't leave your body. Think of your body as a garbage bag. If you keep stuffing food and packaging in it and tie it up but keep stuffing it, it will just get bigger and stretch out more but if you poke a hole in the bag it will all come out but think about any liquid in the bag, that will be the first thing to come out of the bag. If your food doesn't decompose it can't liquify which means it's never going to leave your body. When they say "You are what you eat" it really becomes true when you eat a Big Mac because it will be in you forever it seems.

I find it really scary when I think about what I am eating these days because I never really trust any food anymore because the food industry seems to place an importance on profits over health so who knows if your food is GMO'd to death or if it has hormones, preservatives or any other toxic substances added to it.

I recently visited a family that grows all of their food or only buys from local markets and knows the farmers they buy from. They buy only certified organic meats from local vendors. They basically don't have to shop in a typical grocery store anymore. They are lean and fit and energetic and part of the reason's they do it is because of the health of the food that is sold and also the waste of all the packaging.

While they live in a house and the wife only works part time so she puts a lot of effort into cooking and maintaining the garden so this isn't an option for most of us. It's not an option for me since I live by myself and in an apartment so I can't exactly grow an abundance of food on my balcony but I will attempt to grow some herbs and whatever else I can grow on the balcony in the spring.

So what's the answer to this? It keeps coming back to knowing where your food comes from and buying local and if you can buy from people you know so they can be accountable for what they are producing and distributing. You don't know where the food comes from for the fast food outlets or how it was manufactured so you never know what you are really eating.

This stuff is as scary as war. It contributes to the war on obesity that we are battling in the First World.

I suppose the best way to make a change is to learn from this information and make change through consumerism and don't buy products like this but support your local farmer. Either the fast food chains will have to change or they will go out of business. Money talks, and that's the reason they add all the preservatives so they have long shelf lives guaranteeing them no spoilage losses. That's why organic food doesn't last as long. I know I get frustrated when I toss out organic food when it goes bad because I haven't eaten it but I also know that it's a 100% better for me and the environment when I buy it. I just need to buy less and find ways to use it all. It's an adjustment I need to make and one we need to make in the World. I myself know I need to waste less food so that there will be food in the world for everyone for years to come. We shouldn't need things like food banks, we shouldn't need to have so many people on medications because of complications from eating a poor diet. A poor diet.... if you think about it a poor diet is pretty accurate because it's generally the poor who eat a lot of fast foods or convenience foods because they are fast and cheap and they are the ones that need better food the most to sustain themselves. If you look at the poorest people in the western world I bet they are also the fattest. They are not overeating they are just eating things that are killing them. I could go on forever on this subject because there are many layers to the domino affect of the fast food industry.

My suggestion is to watch documentaries like these:

Forks over Knives
Super Size Me
Food Matters
No Impact Man
Food Inc.

Get Smart, Go Local, Think Global.

Change comes in baby steps... start with taking harmful foods out of your regular meals and keep going...you will get to your destination faster than you think.