I've been watching BBC2's The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched Part 1 of The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 last week. I must say it's a refreshing change to have some evidence-supported information about important causes of the dramatic rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and obesity-related ill-health instead of the usual incorrect propaganda.

In Part 1 it was explained how sugar is a major contributor to obesity and how since the second world war the USA's food industry has been ladling sugar, sugar and more sugar, into its processed junk food products, be they sweet or savoury. And another even more-dangerously obesogenic sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is also added to their food junk and their ghastly soft drinks. This corn product use is massively profitable for America's corn farmers and massively damaging to the health and weight of American citizens. - Especially when it is coupled with the ill-conceived (blame Ancel Keys) misinformation that low-fat food is a good way to lose weight (it isn't and it doesn't work) and that low fat intake is good for our health (it isn't).

So those of us who were paying attention learned that although America purports to be a democracy and proclaims, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," these days it's more like, "Government of the people, by the farm industry's political stooges, for the farm industry's profits, and to Hell with the well-being of the 'American people'".

On Thursday night I watched Part 2, in which it was explained that not content with changing America's food to obesogenic mass-manufactured highly-addictive crap, Big Business perverted civilised eating to a fast feeding process, with fast food outlets serving food fast to customers, who ate it fast (it didn't take too much chewing), sloshing it down with over-sweetened soft drinks, having queued for 'counter-service', so much speedier than table service. And furthermore, they increased portion sizes to ludicrous levels. - I found the gargantuan size of the drinks especially horrifying! 

Well America's citizens are now mostly pretty huge - well huge, certainly, but not so pretty... And they are so big that they almost look like another species. - And what does the food industry suggest as a remedy for this gross obesity problem caused in large part by the food industry itself? - Well, blame it on the victims of course! Like rapists used to do. - The victims need to eat less fat and take more exercise! (NOT)

But it is not lack of exercise that causes obesity, so taking more exercise does not and will not reduce obesity. Obesity causes inactivity, not the other way round, as I explain in my Mensa article. And as Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. explained in Thursday's programme. 

Professor Wilkin led a pioneering study into childhood weight gain and found that children do not gain weight because of inactivity and do not lose weight by taking exercise. The study had been commissioned by the government of the time, but the findings were unwelcome, so they were buried and funding stopped, and successive governments, few among them scientists, chose to heed the falsehoods of the food industry, i.e. cut down on fat, especially saturated fat, and take more exercise! - Oh dear! - Do you think it's too much like America's plight? - Government of the people, by Big Business interests, for the profits of the Food Industry and its mates? - What do you reckon? - We've got the Dept of Health being advised about how to tackle obesity by the food and drinks businesses who promote obesity. - Looks like we're gonna be getting more and more obese with all this crap food and crap advice, doesn't it?

And when are they going to get on to SALT? and anti-depressants? and other prescription drugs that cause weight gain?

The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food

The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food include lowering high blood pressure, lowering your risk of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, most cancers and dementia. It helps with asthma and other breathing problems, inadequate sleep, tiredness, depression, chronic pain, osteoporosis, varicose veins, arthritis, red face, failing memory, inability to concentrate - and so many more! - And that's apart from the benefit I usually write about, namely losing excess weight.

The thing is, pretty well every overweight or obese person loses weight very quickly when they seriously cut down on salt and salty food, and I did believe that it was every one of them. - But last night I heard from a guy in America who was very grateful to me for the advice on my website and blogs and has cut down on salt as a result of taking that advice. - I can't properly remember how long since he started avoiding salt, but I think it's something like a couple of weeks. He says he feels much more mentally alert and is feeling soooooo much better - just like I say will happen - but he hasn't lost any weight yet. So it seems that it's not correct that all overweight people lose weight rapidly, though I assure you that of the people who contact me about cutting down on salt, most of them are eager to tell me straight away that they are losing weight so easily and so fast, as well as all the other benefits, and the compliments they are receiving because they are looking so much better and their work performance has improved so much. Anyway, maybe with some people they get the other benefits first, and the weight loss takes more time.

If you are feeling better because of cutting down on salt but you are not yet losing weight, maybe you have a problem with sugar and other carbs. Not living in America I've not encountered the phenomenon of most food there containing not just salt, but loads of HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and other alien pretend-food, manufactured in laboratories and factories, loads of genetically modified crops/products, loads of hormone-contaminated and pesticide-contaminated frankenfood. Maybe all that 'food' that is so unsuitable for our species that lived for about 2.4 million years on plain, natural animal meat and its fat, plus some plants, and water (not coke! - and not diet coke!) does even more harm to Americans' body chemistry than the UK processed food does to us in the UK. Watch The Bitter Truth when you have 90 minutes to spare. And of course, Americans take even more pharmaceutical drugs than people in the UK, and these drugs do very, very great harm to your body's chemistry and physiology. See Amitriptyline and other drugs. See Prescribed Steroids, HRT and other drugs.

So as well as avoiding added salt/sodium, try low carb, high fat to help you with losing excess weight. - But make sure the fats you eat are good fats - fat from the meat of pastured animals, not from animals that have been fed on grain and hormones and pesticides and anti-biotics. Make sure the butter you eat is made from the milk of pastured cows. Don't ever eat margarine, or low-fat perversions of food. Don't eat oils like corn-oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, 'vegetable oil', etc. You want food that is as natural and unprocessed as possible: so cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil is good. - And don't diet or eat 'diet-foods' or 'slimming foods'. Just eat good, natural, nutritious food. - You will feel sooo much better!

High-Fructose Corn Syrup: personally I avoid it.

I try to avoid all those iffy chemicals found lurking in nutrition labels. A chemical that does not occur in food naturally and has been 'invented'/developed in the laboratory is not something I am inclined to want to ingest. HFCS comes high in that category. Here's the latest study that suggests that HFCS isn't good for health: cnn report on corn syrup.

And here's a YouTube lecture about the harm that High-Fructose Corn Syrup does to the body: The Bitter Truth. You'll need to settle down to watch for well over an hour, but it's entertainingly delivered and very interesting, and if it persuades you to avoid HFCS then it will be time well spent.

Ten Tips to Lose Excess Weight

1. Give up dieting! - You KNOW it doesn't work.
2. Cut down on salt and salty food.
3. Cook from fresh instead of eating ready meals, takeaways or processed food.
4. Eat more fruit and (unsalted) vegetables.
5. Eat real food instead of low-calorie or low-fat alternatives or diet junk.
6. Try making your own bread, using less salt or no salt.
7. Cut down on alcohol.
8. Avoid dodgy additives and ingredients like High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
9. Avoid MonoSodium Glutamate (MSG).
10. Add flavour with lemon juice, herbs and ginger, instead of salt.

Have you ever looked at the ingredients list of drinks like Capri Sun?

High Fructose Corn Syrup is one of the ingredients. - It looks distinctly iffy to me...)o:

See http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

You can also lower your risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...