We. Are. Fucked.

Yup, that's right. We as a society are nutritionally fucked. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It becomes more and more and more apparent to me every day. People are clueless. Utterly clueless. And it's being completely taken advantage of.

Let's look at TV to start with. We have lovely commercials such as those put out by the Corn Refiner's Association telling us that HFCS is fine and nothing to worry about. After that, General Mills tried to convince us with a big white check that cinnamon toast crunch and froot loops were healthy choices, with tons of whole grains and fiber and the ability to increase concentration and help your heart. And my new FAVORITE commericals by far, are the Nutella commericals, like this one I regularly see on TV praising the health benefits of the hazelnut spread and this one I've only had the joy of youtubing:



Oh and you can't forget... hagen daaz's newest ice cream invention that only have 5 ingredients!!! Since when did 3/5 of your ingredients being crap become something to brag about? Oh wait, it's pure, natural crap. That's right.


And finally, I can't stop without a wonderful recount of my favorite bastardization of nutrition of all time... David Zinczenko, Editor in Chief of Men's Health Magazine and author of "Eat This, Not That!", and in particular, his season 7 appearence on the Biggest Loser. During this particular challenge, the teams had to identify which meal option was HEALTHIER. Not least fat. Not least calories. Not most balanced. Not most nurtritaional. They were specifically told (and this was repeated) to chooise the healthier option. One round was A) Grilled chicken burrito with the works (like, ohhhhh, a dollop of guacamole), I believe prepared with brown rice too, or B) 18 lite beers. The correction option was A, but they were told that if it was 17 BEERS, that would have been the healthier option. Excuse me?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? Are you really telling me that a lovely burrito with some healthy fats, decent carbs and lean protein that would keep me satisfied for hours and has some excellent nurtrients is worse than drinking 17 beers? I think it took a week to pick my jaw up off the ground. Fucking Zinczenko. And people really honest to god trust him and think his POS books are a good source of information. Ugh.

So does it really surprise me that people are clueless? It shouldn't but the stuff that comes out of people's mouths... Recently, I had two amazing overhears from my cube. The first was from a friend of mine, a relatively informed one (compared to the rest of the population) who is actually trying to loose weight. I guess he had recently visited the golden arches and was looking up some calorie counts, when he exclaimed in shock about the ~1000 calorie count of a large shake and how he could not believe that. WTF did you expect????? You're basically having 4 or 5 bowls of extra processed, extra sugary ice cream mixed with lord knows what kind of syrupy flavoring. How is that a surprise? Since when does LARGE MILK SHAKE from McDONALD's not imply caloriefest 2009? Not nearly as bad, and maybe a bit more understandable, was the shock of finding out a Starbucks scone was about 500calories. It's not breakfast; it's a freaking pastry!!! Just because it's not creamy doesn't mean it isn't filled with loads of sugar and butter. But they again were horrified at the calorie count. Really people.... really?



Does it surprise me that the same friends talk about "taking protein" as a supplement? You don't say you're taking chicken. A macro is not a supplement buddy. A whole nother tangent I could go off on....

But back to the point. We're fucked. If this is what somewhat intelligent, informed people who are actually trying to change their bodies think, what does the average Joe think and how the heck are we supposed to begin tackling this issue?

I know I can laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, but truly, it's quite terrifying.