An American Junk-Food Tax?

Xochitl; CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; A Martinez, Alex Cohen, Take Two (SCPR.org), Nat'l Burger Day, Vow To Revive Navajo Junk-Food Tax (AP/NPR, April 22, 2014)

This mouth-watering burger is a delicious, cruelty-free vegan melt with baked fries (Vegan)

 

Don't tell anyone these are "good" as in healthy.

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona - Facing a high prevalence of diabetes, many American Indian tribes are returning to their roots with community and home gardens, cooking classes that incorporate traditional foods, and running programs to encourage healthy eating lifestyles [returning back to the Earth].

 

The latest effort on the Navajo Nation, the country's largest "reservation" [modern internment camp], is to use the tax system to spur people to ditch junk food.

 

Manzanita/Sobochesh (eattheweeds.com)

A proposed 2 percent sales tax on chips, cookies, and sodas failed Tuesday in a Tribal Council vote.

 

But the measure still has widespread support, and advocates plan to revive it, with the hope of making the tribe one of the first governments to enact a junk-food tax.

 

Elected officials across the U.S. have taken aim at sugary drinks with proposed bans, size limits, tax hikes, and warning labels, though their efforts have not gained widespread traction. In Mexico, lawmakers approved a junk food tax and a tax on soft drinks last year as part of that government's campaign to fight obesity.

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Navajo President Ben Shelly earlier this year vetoed measures to establish a junk-food tax and eliminate the tax on fresh fruit and vegetables. At Tuesday's meeting, tribal lawmakers overturned the veto on the tax cut, but a vote to secure the junk-food tax fell short. Lawmakers voted 13-7 in favor of it, but the tax needed 16 votes to pass. More

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One Burger King Triple Whopper has 49 grams of dead animal protein, which is the maximum recommended daily total for a 130-pound adult (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

  

Big Macs are made of cancer-causing flesh.

Middle-aged people with diets high in animal flesh protein -- such as meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and cheese -- face a dramatically increased risk of dying from cancer compared with those who eat low animal protein diets, according to a University of Southern California study published today in the journal Cell Metabolism.

If only cows lived on a compassionate planet

The study found 50 to 65-year-olds who consumed a "high-protein" diet -- meaning they got 20 percent or more of their calories from animal sources of protein -- were four times more likely to die from cancer, compared with those who consumed less than 10 percent of their daily calories in animal protein.

• AUDIO: LISTEN NOW (download)

Lines at Vegan Pizza Contest, Animal Advocacy Museum, Throop UU, summer 2013 (WQ)

  

Vegan pizza rules (WQ)

A press release accompanying the study called that "a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking." The risk of early death from all causes soared by 74 percent among the high-protein consumers, researchers found.
 
But the picture changes for those over 65. For them, it appears that a moderate-to-high protein diet [not necessarily from animal sources] actually reduces cancer and overall mortality and is helpful in preventing age-dependent weight loss and malnourishment.
 
Researchers focused their study on a national cross-section of 6,381 people 50 and older who were tracked for nearly 20 years.
 
They also found that among all the age groups studied, a diet high in animal protein increases insulin production and the risk of dying from diabetes-related causes.
 

The higher risk of cancer and overall death among the middle-aged and the increase in diabetes deaths were "either abolished or attenuated if the proteins were plant derived," the study said.
 

Go veg for bliss (WQ/Larson)

Various health agencies recommend that daily intake of animal protein should be about 0.8 grams per kilogram. So a 130-pound adult should eat [no more than] between 45 and 50 grams of animal protein per day. A 160-pound adult should eat between 60 and 65 grams per day.
 
How much protein is that? It sounds like a lot. Here is some help in calculating:

• 1 oz. of cheddar cheese: 7 grams
• 1 egg: 6 grams
• 1 skinless, boneless chicken breast: 31 grams
• 1 Burger King® Whopper: 22 grams
• 1 Burger King® Triple Whopper: 49 grams

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Big Fat Crisis: Why are we getting so fat?

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Go on. I'm listening.

Deborah Cohen wrote a book -- A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It. Our obesity can be treated as an economic matter, explains Professor Richard D. Wolff, if we are to overcome it.

• LISTEN: PLAY NOW (Prof. Wolff, UMass, Amherst, MP3)

A Big Fat Crisis

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The commercial says I'm lovin it

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Around one in two hardware stores sells food. They mostly offer candy bars and other treacherous snacks near the checkout line. Thanks to an aggressive food industry, we cannot go anywhere without the temptation to make bad dietary decisions.

Besides keeping us alive, food is a nexus of many deep concerns -- philosophical, spiritual, political, sensual. We have strong feelings... More

 

Rich get thinner, POOR get fatter

Melissa Healey (latimes.com, Jan. 13, 2014); PNAS (nasonline.org)

Ma, tell the other kids not to stare at my boobies!

As in so many matters of health, obesity more seriously affects [poor] adolescents in families with lower incomes and educational attainment and, researchers say, the trend is getting worse. 

From many corners of the United States -- Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Mississippi -- recent years have brought [a little good] news about the rise in obesity among American children: 

 

Several years into a campaign to get kids to eat better and exercise more, child obesity rates have appeared to stabilize and might be poised for a reversal.

 

But a study published Monday (1/13/14) in the journal PNAS [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America] suggests that among adolescents, the hopeful signs are LIMITED to those from better-educated, more affluent families.

Among teens from poorer, less well-educated families, obesity has continued to rise. Nationally, rates of obesity among adolescents 12 to 19 did not rise between 2003-2004 and 2009-2010. But during that period, obesity rates among adolescents whose parents have no more than a high-school education rose from about 20% to 25%.

We're rich and thin.

At the same time, the teenage children of parents with a four-year college degree or more saw their obesity rates decline from 14% to about 7%.

 

"The overall trend in youth obesity rates masks a significant and growing class gap between youth from upper and lower socioeconomic status backgrounds," the authors of the latest research wrote. More

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