SubscribePotato Chip Diet
22 yr old Gina Gough ate up to 15 bags of crisps (potato chips) per day. What did this lead to? 1.5 inch gall stones that nearly killed her.
Her appetite for the snacks developed after she was made redundant in 2000, and began spending her days in front of the television. "I'd start off with a packet of crisps for breakfast, and then I'd have a second packet. I wasn't tempted by any other food. I was depressed after losing my job, but I felt good after eating a packet of crisps," she said.
Apparently Miss Gough is calling on food makers to put warning labels on their products. This is unnecessary and simply a reaction. The issue here is that most nutrition education seems to come from TV advertising - and most children are incapable of determining exactly what is "healthy" food.
It seems that Miss Gough was suffering from an addiction. Eating 15 oranges all day would probably have just as severe health impact - but there must be something extra-special about that combination of fat and salt.
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Difficult to imagine a pure orange diet being quite so easy to achieve though. Where I live, the energy in one bag of crisps is about 1/8th of what I need per day, 1/7th if I'm sedentary, and 50gs in weight. My whole diet would be, 8 bags, or 400gs in total, incredibly easy to fit into a stomach, and very easy to overeat, considering the fat content. By contrast, one orange is about 1/32nd of my daily energy needs, and weighs 160gs. It's some what more difficult to go through 32 oranges in a day, taking over 5kgs into the stomach, even if a lot of that is water. It's even more difficult to overeat.
I'm not sure how judge similar 'health impacts'. I would personally take a condition requiring major surgery to be the most severe form of health impact, and most fruit and veg, even eaten in the extreme, don't have the qualities, such as a high cholesterol component, to cause conditions requiring this, not that it is impossible. The most likely problems are severe nutrient difficiencies, which when intercepted at the time of visible symptoms, can in most cases be addressed without hospitalisation.
I realise that everything is a poison past a certain dosage, and that it is impossible simply to classify foods as 'good' and 'bad'. But it is for this reason that I don't think it's unreasonable for Miss Gough, or anyone for that matter, to call for warnings to be printed on the sides of foods that are by their key qualities inherently easier to 'overdose' on, and by their composition, more dangerous to our bodies when overdosed on.
ReplyComparing with oranges was a silly comparison - I admit. Certainly there would be consequences of the high acid intake (such as stomach ulcers, mouth ulcers). Anyway - I think your perceptions are correct - there are many processed foods that are very easy to overeat. This is one of the major issues with fast food - the combination of caloric density and nutritional poverty.
ReplyUh, you both are missing the point. Anybody who eats that much of anything on a daily basis is an idiot.
Do you honestly think a warning label would've changed anything? "WARNING: EATING THIS 8 TIMES A DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE CAN BE DANGEROUS". Those cigarette warnings do a lot too.
It is the inability for people to take responsibility for their actions that is the problem.
Thank you for the math though, Claire.
ReplyI get together with my friend every week and we eat chips while we play games on the computer, I noticed I eat way more chips when we have purchased the dip to go with the chips, as if it's a struggle to use up the dip.
ReplyI don't think it's people being irresponsible. I am a very healthy 24 yr old. I run about five miles three times per week and I also lift weights and I am in an amazing shape. However sometimes I do find myself eating way more chips then I should. I think when you become compulsive with any food, it has to do more with your mental state, not with the food. Maybe you are going through a depression or through something difficult. People are not idiots, people are victims of an extremely capitalistic society which is full of stress, everyday chaos and unhealthy lifestyles of workaholics obsessed with making money. Television doesn't help either. I think people need to stop watching lives being lived for them and actually go out there and live them themselves! There's nothing wrong with eating chips everynow and then or oranges. If it gives you pleasure DO IT! It's making it a habit when it becomes a problem. And we usually make bad habits when we are trying to escape a difficult situation. Sometimes we have to learn to detach ourselves from the flow and the culture and just live our own ways. For example I always quit jobs that demand me to stay overtime... my sleep, health and well being are priorities in my life. Because without health I can't function 100% and I can't give my best to the world. I think more people should do that and find better jobs where we can dedicate more time to our health... We just need to change our strict, status obsessed culture... We don't need labels telling us eating certain foods can kill us. No one obeys anything. Get over that...
ReplyGREAT POST IVAN I THINK YOU ARE THE ONLY SENSIBLE ONE HERE.
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