Warping Perceptions for Fiscal Gain

  or,

How not to be Used

 

I have a hobby horse or two, as most have, so I'm going to let you come for a ride on this one for a while, just so you can see the view from the saddle.

"Today's Diet", or "The Modern Diet" leap out of the pages of women's magazines while I'm waiting in various waiting rooms - Doctor, clients', dentist, etc., -  and it's a load of crock that needs to be dispelled. Magazines are always on the look-out to maximise on the advertising dollar, as subscriptions are not the income source that pays the bills any more, and if something can be converted into a fashion, great! Fashion enables the advertising dollar. This does not preclude diet.

Conspiracy theory? 

Stay with me!


Whole industries have been manufactured.
Life-style can shoulder some of the blame, but far from all of it. Do you think that the massive vitamin industry, one of the biggest and most lucrative on the planet, could exist if we just had the time, knowledge and inclination to eat properly?
It wouldn't gain a toe-hold.
So what does determine diet requirement?
Environment is the answer here.


The clowns all trumpet the requirement for a "Low Fat Diet".
What a load of rubbish!
Fats are in the top five food groups necessary for life.
If you don't have fats in your diet, you die.
It's that simple.
Let's explore how fat requirement in the diet is dictated by environment.


All the "Modern Diet" faddists proclaim that only a little extra virgin olive oil should moisten the pan if you fry food. Yes, oils, even "extra virgin" ones, belong to the 'Fats' food group. Anything more, apparently, will kill you with a massive stroke, catching you unawares for maximum shock potential, in the middle of the night.


Unfortunately, they work out all their "Modern Dietary Requirements" within their own comfortable, life-style environment. Fats are needed in the diet, predominantly for two separate reasons: to maintain metabolic requirement and as a store against energy requirement. Metabolic requirement encompasses such things as keeping you warm in adverse climatic conditions. This is not a primary requirement (Note: primary - it still applies) in the environment where the fashionistas work out their dietary requirement format, i.e., with a sedentary worker in an air-conditioned environment, in a tropical setting.


Anybody know what a snow-maker is?
A snow-maker is somebody who works in the snowfields.
He lays out pipes in the middle of the night, on all the ski-runs when there hasn't been any snowfall to keep the skiing tourists happy, but when the temperatures would be still cold enough to form snow if it did happen to fall.
These pipes spray a fine film of water droplets high into the air which, in temperatures below freezing, fall back to the ground as snow. Just to keep the smiles on the faces of the tourists. He basically works at 2.30 in the morning, at 20C below freezing, in the middle of a blizzard. If you feed this bloke with "just the merest spray of extra virgin olive oil" on the pan and a light salad, you could kill him. A much higher fat percentage in the diet is required here and, being a physical worker, a higher percentage of protein for muscle repair and the vitamin and mineral content delivered in such a way so as to not drain the body temperature factor. The environment is already doing its best in that regard. You don't need to help!


Here we have two different examples of diet requirement set at opposite levels of the environmental spectrum to illustrate the point.


So why does there exist a high proportion of over-weight people in affluent societies?
A number of reasons:

• A minor factor, but still a factor, is the fact that originally we were hunter-gatherers and it was sometimes a long time between meals, so, as part of survival instinct, we gorged ourselves when we were able. When you look at indigenous societies you will still see this in effect.
• Depression is also a factor, as we tend to employ food, and especially high sugar content foods, as an affection replacement when we are depressed. Again, in western societies, there is a great degree of depersonalisation existent. We are herd animals and when we feel excluded or abused, we look around for means of consolation and compensation. There is considerable debate on this point, at present, but again, it's rubbish. This is why "comfort food" is called "comfort food".
• Lifestyle. We eat, but do not adequately exercise. A healthy degree of exercise cannot be divorced from diet. They are interdependent factors and one without the other is a fragmented marriage. Along with this, you would be amazed how a little bit of exercise will bring about relief in a (mildly) depressed situation. We are not talking about severe cases of clinical depression here. Why not start off with a cheap push-bike and a small backpack for those short trips that a car simply isn't necessary for?

Just a few points to arm you against the fashion police. 
I could expand on fashion and state that fashion is no more than a uniform to facilitate acceptance from a peer group, but we needn't go into that here.

1. Eat right, according to your environmental conditions.
2. Exercise to a reasonable degree, according to requirement.
3. Be happy.

Not rocket science, is it? 

Quality Assurance in Food Production: 

Context

 

At one time, and still in some locations, food production was limited to the household  or hamlet level. Risk was minimal. Food produced in the household garden would be subjected to a quick wash, go through basic preparation and the cooking process would be enough to eradicate any potential.

 

  But, now things are a little different. In order to 'build trade' and fulfill the potential, the politicos set forth for us, of being 'the Food Bowl of the World' during the 50s and 60s, anything resembling a tree was cut down in order to maximise this. Every farmer had at least a pilot's licence, if he didn't have a plane to match it, and we created a market environment in which everything became available.

 

  The lifestyle changed dramatically. The aspect of colour and texture in food was a frontier that exploded. Not quite overnight, but close to it, with the aid of some notable, predominantly European chefs, Australia's palate demand changed from English Pub Food being the norm at a night out at the local pub, to the very best the entire world had to offer at the local restaurant.

 

  There were hiccups along the way. There was a brief flirtation with Nouveau Cuisine. The artistic format satisfied egotistical requirement if it did nothing to dampen the appetite, but after a while, the rapidly growing 'eating out' crowd of Australia got sick of the con of a medium rare Himalayan snow pea in the centre of a vast expanse of white plate, with just a piquancy of capsicum marmalata on the side to provide colour and contrast. Being essentially a nation of workers at that time, they started looking round for the honesty in their food to match their appetites.

 

  Emboldened by success experienced in food forays away from the previously shallow norm, Australia looked within and discovered the richness inherent in the people that had come over as part of the Italian, Chinese and Vietnamese communities. Here was food where poor quality ingredients couldn't hide behind rich, cream and wine-based sauces. The sauces were made up, predominantly, of the juices of the ingredients themselves. Suddenly the country discovered a healthier, lighter food style, geared for the Australian climate. These cuisines melded into a food style that has kept evolving with a new kind of chef, that is continuously on the search for something new and conducts a never-ending stream of experiments that any industrial chemistry laboratory would be proud of. A permanent escape from the English stodge that suited the English climate, but did nothing for those in the sub-tropical/tropical Australian climate except put them into a glutted torpor, like pythons after the still traditional English, Christmas dinner.

 

  Then the fast-food concept hit. The consumer market concept had hit with a vengeance and the American dream became the Australian one. Convenience food was quick and easy for the two-wage family and suddenly, restaurants conditioned to a lucrative six day/week trade found they were battling to have two good nights. The lady of the house found it far easier, after picking up the kids from school, to give the man of the house a call and get him to pick up the pizzas/Kentucky-fried on the way home from work. Everybody started eating in front of the T.V.

 

  All of this radical change revolutionised the supply chain.Bulk processing grew in proportion to market demand. In order to supply a market demanding out-of-season supplies, ingredients were shipped in from other locations and everything associated with them shipped with them. If one crop or herd source was infected, that infection was introduced into the central repository that was centralised production.What was once a negligible risk, suddenly assumed a potential that had no precedent in the Australian food production context and fields that had a recognised, if somewhat distant, association in the environment such as Quality Control, suddenly leapt to the fore, were found wanting and Quality Assurance was reborn as Australian.

 

  The vernacular of the new clique erupted. HACCP, SQF, amongst others and where the export market went to balance the import trade, such mysterious terms as BRC were heard. Training was implemented in order to understand this new language and the procedures they alluded to. An entirely new industry adjunct was created.

 

  A support network has sprung up. Where you have such mechanisms as Standard Operational Procedures, policies that must be defined and put in palce, records that must be kept in order to demonstrate the legal aspect of Due Diligence, technical writers, trainers and assessors and instructional designers, not to mention information designers, are all required. All these, beyond the base level Q.A staff, microbial testers and their facilities, to assume a stance - and the associated overhead - within the new age of food processing.

 

Are we better off?

Probably not.

 

  Preservatives are another field that has jumped ahead in order to facilitate the 'Fresh-To-Market' trade. There seems to be another field that has emerged in association with all of this with an increase in allergy incidence and type. And, as always within the context of the crowd, the unethical tends to abound.

 

  In hindsight, how many would prefer a return to a simpler life?