Comment Re:Ronald McDonald made me do it (Score 1) 429
Yes I am for real. You could have found a citation regarding avian flu in less time then it took you to write a borderline ad hominem rant. I wasn't asking you to prove food addiction as a disease. I was asking for a citation that proved or supported your assertion that fast or snack food companies cynically alter their products to create or encourage a dependency.
Thirty seconds of research turned up a BBC article about a study at Princeton that after feeding rats a very high sugar diet they developed tremors and anxiety after it was removed. The scientist involved commented that he believed a similar reaction might occur with fats, but he hadn't tested it. The article then had comments from several other scientists that pointed out this is a well known phenomena that has nothing to do with addition and everything to do with low blood sugar.
As far as fiddling with flavors and ingredients to get a specific neurochemical reaction all chefs, cooks, and food scientists do that. It's called trying to make food taste good. Food that tastes good does so because it is (or, more often, was in the case of h. sapiens) in the interest of the creature to eat said food because of it's nutritional content. Food scientists and nutritionists are often employed to evoke those same response regardless of the actual content of the food, but that shift of neurochemicals does not make the food addictive. It makes sense that people would derive pleasure from consuming something like a cheese burger due to it's high fat, carbohydrate, and protein content. It appears logical that there is an evolutionary advantage for h. sapiens to like food with lots of energy and proteins in it.
Food addiction is a real disorder, properly referred to as compulsive overeating, which is an emotional disorder, not a physical or psychological dependency.
I admit to never having seen Mr. Spurlock's documentary, but based on his own descriptions, it seems to be more the documentary of a stunt then an experiment. Doubly so considering that a number of people have repeated it under much more realistic and sane conditions and actually lost weight and often lowered their cholesterol. I also found no information regarding adjusting the nature of the processed food to make it 'addictive', to alter neurochemisty, or anything remotely similar.
The two main books I found that are listed as discussing fast food in America are radically different in nature. One appears to be a reasoned, rational piece of journalism (Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation) which is critical of the industry but does not seem to support your assertion. The other is Mr. Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America which has a vested interest in supporting the claims put forward in the author's movie, which also does not, on the surface, seem to support your claim.
It was once street or common knowledge that man could not fly, that the Earth was flat, and that the weird old spinster who lived on the edge of town with a herb garden and a lot of cats was in league with the devil. I personally have heard ludicrous pieces of street knowledge such as that a penny under the tongue will let a drunk person pass a breathalyzer test or that sugar in the gas tank will ruin a car or that scrapple (a type of savory mush) is made of entrails. It is also apparently street knowledge in parts of Africa that AIDS is caused by using condoms and can be cured by raping a virgin. In general, street knowledge is worthless without evidence.
Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You made a mildly extraordinary claim that McDonald's et al deliberately altered their foods chemical composition to nurture a dependency, rather then to make exceptionally cheap food that has been processed to last almost indefinitely with proper storage taste 'good'. You provided no evidence to back these claims up. Rather you attacked me for making a reasonable request for evidence.
Thirty seconds of research turned up a BBC article about a study at Princeton that after feeding rats a very high sugar diet they developed tremors and anxiety after it was removed. The scientist involved commented that he believed a similar reaction might occur with fats, but he hadn't tested it. The article then had comments from several other scientists that pointed out this is a well known phenomena that has nothing to do with addition and everything to do with low blood sugar.
As far as fiddling with flavors and ingredients to get a specific neurochemical reaction all chefs, cooks, and food scientists do that. It's called trying to make food taste good. Food that tastes good does so because it is (or, more often, was in the case of h. sapiens) in the interest of the creature to eat said food because of it's nutritional content. Food scientists and nutritionists are often employed to evoke those same response regardless of the actual content of the food, but that shift of neurochemicals does not make the food addictive. It makes sense that people would derive pleasure from consuming something like a cheese burger due to it's high fat, carbohydrate, and protein content. It appears logical that there is an evolutionary advantage for h. sapiens to like food with lots of energy and proteins in it.
Food addiction is a real disorder, properly referred to as compulsive overeating, which is an emotional disorder, not a physical or psychological dependency.
I admit to never having seen Mr. Spurlock's documentary, but based on his own descriptions, it seems to be more the documentary of a stunt then an experiment. Doubly so considering that a number of people have repeated it under much more realistic and sane conditions and actually lost weight and often lowered their cholesterol. I also found no information regarding adjusting the nature of the processed food to make it 'addictive', to alter neurochemisty, or anything remotely similar.
The two main books I found that are listed as discussing fast food in America are radically different in nature. One appears to be a reasoned, rational piece of journalism (Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation) which is critical of the industry but does not seem to support your assertion. The other is Mr. Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America which has a vested interest in supporting the claims put forward in the author's movie, which also does not, on the surface, seem to support your claim.
It was once street or common knowledge that man could not fly, that the Earth was flat, and that the weird old spinster who lived on the edge of town with a herb garden and a lot of cats was in league with the devil. I personally have heard ludicrous pieces of street knowledge such as that a penny under the tongue will let a drunk person pass a breathalyzer test or that sugar in the gas tank will ruin a car or that scrapple (a type of savory mush) is made of entrails. It is also apparently street knowledge in parts of Africa that AIDS is caused by using condoms and can be cured by raping a virgin. In general, street knowledge is worthless without evidence.
Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You made a mildly extraordinary claim that McDonald's et al deliberately altered their foods chemical composition to nurture a dependency, rather then to make exceptionally cheap food that has been processed to last almost indefinitely with proper storage taste 'good'. You provided no evidence to back these claims up. Rather you attacked me for making a reasonable request for evidence.
