Just wanted to set down some thoughts that are getting me fired up.  I have followed a blog of a lady that started Weight Watchers in January 2008.  She posted her weight and started at 323 (three hundred twenty three) lbs.  She has a 10-year-old son, boy/girl twins that are 5 now and a baby boy that is 2 now.   Her goal was to lose 100 pounds, and she got down about 80+ pounds before she started rebounding.  Her weight is now up about 20 pounds from her lowest.  Of course this is sad, and from reading her blog you see she is a very typical SAHM that loves her family and is really putting out effort and struggling to lose this weight and would love to be free of it.  Well, she has several other blogs so I was checking them out today and she has a blog dedicated to WIC recipes and information.  She has received WIC for herself and all of her children and is currently getting it for only her baby, I think.  What has me dumbfounded is how in the world are the poor in our country able to reach 323 lbs and be considered eligible for nutritional supplementation?  I know this probably sounds like I'm beating up the lady, and I am not.  I am disgusted with the food system in America that has made a total mockery of nutrition and wellness.  How does this happen?  I saw a news program one time that was talking about how the poor are getting more and more obese and they made the point that if you lived in the projects and had $5 to spend at McDonald's, would you buy 5 double cheeseburgers or 1 salad?  (I know the poor ought to be growing their own garden, blah blah blah).  But really, if you were a mom with a few little kids and wanted to splurge and take your kids out, what choice would you make?   

 

We recently watched a documentary called "The Future of Food" and were astounded at what is happening in our food supply on the seed level.  It was mostly about genetically engineered seeds that can be patented.  If these patented seeds are found on a neighboring farmer's land (discovered through crop growth) the corporation that patented that seed can sue the farmer for copyright infringement!  Do you know how seeds move?  The wind, animals, falling off trucks, etc. And Joe Farmer is responsible for this?  The other thing that was insane is that these patented seeds have a "suicide" quality about them that causes them to produce impotent seeds in the crop they produce.  In other words, farmers cannot depend on collecting seeds from their harvest for replanting because those seeds won't produce new crop.  But have no fear, the corporation stands in the ready to sell more seeds to Joe Farmer year after year.  The other thing that is insane, and largely responsible for the above family's scenario in my opinion, is that farmers typically lose $1 per acre on corn production.  So you think there would be a shortage of corn farmers, right?  Nope because the US government subsidizes the production of corn and makes it a profitable crop.  So we have an abundance of corn to stuff into ALL kinds of processed foods and produce High Fructose Corn Syrup that is prevalent in most processed foods.  From an article on the subject, "Almost all nutritionists finger high fructose corn syrup consumption as a major culprit in the nation's obesity crisis. The inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation's obesity rate started its unprecedented climb."

 

So our tax dollars are subsidizing the garbage that makes us obese, and by some strange twist of logic our poor are capable of reaching 300+ pounds.  I've loved to read about nutrition since my first year of college when I took a course in it for an elective.  And I've known about corn subsidies and processed foods and the damage that is caused the separation of people from their food sources, but this woman's sad story has just made it very real to me today.  The entire system is terribly flawed.  Another sad thing is that our children can be obese, and still malnourished from a lack of vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates and lean protein.  Obese, yet starving on a cellular level.  Isn't that wild?  A lot to think about.