Junk Food Ban/Regulation

[Michael-5]

dsgrue3 said:

Michael-5 said:

Diet soda still has a lot of salt, and aspartame, a known carcinogen.

YEs everything in Moderation is okay, even arsenic. You won't die if you have a little, but why have it at all? Wouldn't you rather have pop without salt if you had the option?

HFCS is actually really bad for the body because the body doesn't recognize it as a sugar. It's the leading cause of type 2 diabetes because companies put tons of the stuff in pop and candy, and since our body doesn't recognize it as a sugar, our body's will still ask for more sugar (we need some sugar for energy).

I'm not saying ban products, it's peoples choices on what they consume, but control what's in it. The government already controls television by not allowing porn play on public tv channels in the daytime, and Adult rated shows being forced to play late night. That's a good thing, it makes TV better for the most of us.

Let's confine this discussion to salt, since redulating salt doesn't affect food prices. Regulating salt in our food will not increase or decrease the price of food, salt is added to make you thirsty and buy a pop, or a drink. So why have not regulate it? This follows the same logic as banning lead in out fuel, not only is lead bad for the environment, but exposure to youth does cause irregular brain formation. Or this follows the same logic that commercials cannot be more then 1/3rd the total air time of the show (we limit commercials, why not limit salt?).

Check your source...it references data from 2000, 2006/7...I think 2010/2012 is a bit more relevant.

Anyway, I know diet soda isn't the best. I need the caffeine and I can't stand coffee. I only consume it during meals, so my body isn't fooled by the sucralose or lack of calories.

I never said ingesting chemicals in moderation isn't bad. I said food - arsenic isn't food. 

Salt is actually a point I agree with. I try to avoid frozen meals for this point precisely. But your body needs salt, just as it needs fat and sugars. Balance is key and no doubt about it - it's very difficult to balance an intake of sodium when it's in everything. I wouldn't be opposed to some form of salt cap, but I think it'd be exceedingly difficult to impose with such a wide variety of foods. 

Yes that's true, but accuracy is important. From the few statistics course I've taken I know that the World Factbook is accurate, just a tad outdated. Either way, we have similar numbers.

LOL about arsenic. Actually Arsenic is found in Apple Seeds in small doses, and people do eat those (but you shouldn't).

Your body needs salt, but very very little. The Nutrition stickers on the back of Canadian food products is 2,000mg (miligrams!, or 2 grams a day), and this is based on a 500g daily diet (about 2,000 calories). Most things exceed this, a slice of pizza is about 0.6-1 gram of salt, so 2 slices of pizza make up your daily recommended salt intake. A 6 inch subway sandwich ranges from 1.2-2.5g of salt, and that's suppose to be healthy. Pop only has 65mg (about 3%) per can, but it's a complete unnesessary additive, pop in Europe has no salt and taste much much better.

Regulating salt in the USA would not increase the price of food, and realistically increase average life expectancy by a couple years. It might be difficult to impose, but it would be the most beneficial health regulator in the USA, and Canada.

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Plus the big problem with salt is you need Potasium to balance it out. Your body regulates salt in the body by something called the K/NA pump (sodium/potassium pump). If you have too much salt in your diet, your body tells you to drink (makes you thirsty) to pee out the salt. Because of this, high salt diets are one of the major causes of haeart attack/strokes (your blood vessels need to expand to handle the higher volume of diluted blood, and when you'r older your arteries are more rigid, preventing expansion leading to a heart attack/stroke).

Anyway, I went on, but basically very few people eat too little salt in their diet, most people eat too much, especially in comparision to potassium (this is why it;s good to eat banana's and drink orange juice).

Sorry, I'm a bit of a health nut.

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P.S. If you need caffience in your diet, switch to black/green tea. It only has 1/3rd the caffiene of coffee/pop, but It's so much better for you then pop. I mean the average non diet pop has 9 spoons of sugar, and diet pops have aspartame, which is worse. Plus Green teas have other herbs which help with weight loss. One of my friends went from 240-160/170lb on a green tea diet (only drank green tea, but ate the same food as before). Now he's a huge womanizer