Obesity/Health/Food econ

[p2thej]

As some may know, "Obamacare" mandates up-front display of calorie content information on restaurant menus and vending machine items. My first encounter with such a menu was a few weeks ago, but I have since experienced several others. My opinion is that such reporting is great. My honest-but-rough estimate is that reporting reduced my caloric

Comments

[mcfnord]

interesting, thanks for posting!

[papertowlbtrfly]

Oh dear, you've only seen the tip of the iceberg :(



In some countries in Europe, GMO foods must be labeled as such. We don't have this in North America as our legislation is heavily influenced by capitalist interests. Root tyranny comes from companies, not governments. I lurk here because I'm trying to understand economics as it's the driving force behind opposition to electronic freedoms, privacy, free software, and other 'hippy' causes I believe in. No, I do not believe capitalism is inherently evil, more a system that can be manipulated positively or negatively. I still have much to learn. I am assuming that you have a great advantage as you are not only pursuing a more pure interest in economics, but are also aware of the world outside of that system. There is a food freedom movement and, like most altruistic causes, there are very few activists that understand economic motivations/manipulations.
This may be your calling.

P.S. You need not buy a gmo shopping guide, you can get one for free here

[ragnarok20]

"Root tyranny comes from companies, not governments."

That's true, but it happens from companies engaging in rent-seeking practices and gaining market privilege through government coercion.

[goumindong]

I am not sure what the econ topic is in this case; you might have to be a bit more specific to get a recommendation.

With regards to what calories mean well.

1. Calorie is a unit of energy. Any calorie is the same as any other calorie in terms of that unit of energy.

2. The problem is that not all calories are handled the same way by our bodies.

A good primer on this is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Its kinda technical, but should explain why you should really attempt to stay away from sugar, alcohol, and significant amounts of refined grains. Note that doing so is very difficult.

Addendum

[goumindong]

I should add that there are other ways to regulate sugar calorie intake so that it is not detrimental, it is just much harder than staying away from sugar.

You see, another thing that you can do is to not over consume sugar at any one time. Your body will not have much problem with sugars if you consistently use them and don't have to store them.

I.E. if you're a typical adult sedentary male you might need 1800 calories a day of energy. If you're up for 16 hours a day you can get that energy 56 calories at a time every half hour(roughly)

That is less than a "fun size" snickers bar in terms of calorie intake, which makes doing such small metered intake very difficult.

So basically the best way to eat is to have small amounts of sugar when you're tired(and ideally it should be fruit, since fruit has fiber which helps meter the sugar intake) and then get meals of veggies and meat.

[ragnarok20]

Try reading, "Everything I Want to do is Illegal," by Joel Salatin. While he is no economist, he is a small farmer and owner of Polyface Farms.