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The main reason poor people are fat in Western societies is they eat too much. Brilliant deduction! But one of the main reasons they eat too much is they're hungry. I must be butter because I'm on a roll! But the main reason they're hungry is that they are malnourished. The food poor people choose is
very high in carbs and very low in protein, fat(often enough) and fiber. It happens these things are what makes you feel like you've eaten. It would be nice to get them to eat veggies too, but one problem at a time. Preaching at people to eat properly clearly isn't working. Here is something that will help. This tasteless food bar would be given out free to the poor. It would contain bulk fat, protein, and fiber. One bar would contain one meal's worth. (not a meal's worth of calories, just those three things) Otherwise it would be designed to be cheap to manufacture. To avoid abuse it's important that it taste neither unpleasant nor in any way delicious. The idea is that a person would simply add one food bar to each meal and thereby be likely to eat fewer calories. Bonus: reduced cardiovascular disease. Bonus: better health in general. Bonus: more focus on the important aspects of nutrition without making people feel bad. Edit: //why then is the proposed bar "tasteless" and "not in any way delicious//
In no way do I think the poor shouldn't be fed proper food. But since that's not happening we can at least let be less malnourished. Make these food bars delicious and you'll defeat the purpose: they're not designed to be a food substitute. Make them delicious and you'll have people malnourished and fat because they're eating too much fiber, fat, and protein.Whole food bars are a different substance for a different purpose. I reiterate: //The idea is that a person would simply add one food bar to each meal and thereby be likely to eat fewer calories//
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Of course the very poor and people who don't care would make the bulk of their diet these food bars, but that's not going to be any less healthy than what they're already eating. |
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Affordable healthy food is plentiful. People just need to have cooking and nutrition included as a vital component in their early age education process. Combine that with a sugar tax so that drinks like coca cola no longer contain up to 20 spoonfulls of sugar and you’re part way there. America is the second richest country in the world but has the fattest population. The UK isn’t far behind them. Wealth distribution is another major factor but if you want to change what people do, the best way is to change how they think about what they do. Having said all that, I approve of the radical thinking behind the idea + |
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Coming soon to a theatre near you--'Glyphosate in America', the movie that explains the obesity epidemic! |
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The average diet of poor folks (most of the US and 2/3 of Canada) includes lots of carbs, primarily grains, and protein from 'carbs' such as beans and lentils. Pulses, grains and most vegetables are sprayed with glyphosate an average of 6 times during their lifecycle. |
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Glyphosate is a crop spray that acts as a pesticide/ soil conditioner during growth, and as a desiccant at harvest. As you can imagine, eating a toxic pesticide-desiccant on nearly everything consumed is probably doing things like making the body retain water and fat to buffer the toxins. This in turn puts extra stress on all the other organs and systems. |
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If made with glyphosate-free protein and fiber, this bar could be used as a healing food. |
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Calorie for calorie carbs cost way, way less than vegetables. I see it a lot, that it costs less or the same to eat healthy food, and I honestly can't figure out whether I'm living in an alternate reality and communicating over the internet via some kind of interuniverse portal. Where I live I can buy enough rice (or bread, or pasta, or corn, or potatoes) to keep the hunger away for x monetary units, and enough meat and vegetables to serve the same propose costs at least 3x, but generally 5x. This is for the least expensive available meat and vegetables, mind you. Think "chicken and off brand canned vegetables", not "steak and fresh vegetables"
I could switch to just beans and rice for a cost of 1.3x but then I would get appetite fatigue and starve. Bottom dollar for reasonably complete nutrition aside from fiber is protein powder, rice, and vitamin/mineral pills for 1.5x
I think people who say it costs less to eat healthy have never really had to decide between food and some other necessity. |
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The nearest relatively low-cost grocery store is very convenient to get to for me. But I'm not talking about my own problems. I'm disputing the idea that in general for the poor it doesn't cost way less to eat carbs. |
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I've found that eating healthy is more expensive. Carbs are cheap and, let's face it, practical. The agricultural revolution built civilization, you couldn't have cities if everybody was a hunter gatherer. Agriculture, primarily growing grains, but including raising farm animals, was what allowed some portion of a civilization do to stuff other than hunt for food all day. Some could make pots to hold the grain, some could tally the number of pots and use the first writing on those pots to say whose grain it was. Some could transport that grain, some could specialize in making bread from it. Eventually this revolution allowed people to be so specialized that a few actually got the job of walking on the moon. Wouldn't have happened if we were still hunter gatherers. But that doesn't mean we should get away from what we evolved to eat. |
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So a carb rich diet is better than starving, but we still didn't evolve to eat grain, (especially when infused with sugar to make it addicting to increase sales) we evolved to eat what hunter gatherers eat, meat and the occasional fruit and even less occasional vegetable. |
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Like I've always said, if you want to figure out what to feed a dolphin, ask what they evolved to eat. High fructose corn syrup infused, super vitamin enriched, crunchy dolphin snack treats or fish? |
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Same with us. Eat what we evolved to eat, and if an industry that grows a certain product makes a "food pyramid" telling you to eat 8 to 11 servings of their product every day, well, don't. |
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// Along with eggs, cheese, nuts, and lots and lots of fruit and veggies. //
Then clearly you're not among the poor I'm aiming to help with this proposal. |
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There was a food called "Plumpy Nut" created for distribution in malnourished areas. (not a "baked", I don't do that) Might make some kind of a variation of that. |
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// I don't know if giving out bland, tasteless food bars - no matter how nutritious - will shift anyone's behavior//
The idea isn't to make them start eating vegetables and beans, or start cooking. The idea is to make them feel less hungry so they eat less of the junk they do eat. |
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Again, it's not to stop them from buying all the Doritos they're going to buy. It's to give them a way to eat fewer, not because they don't like Doritos, but because they're not hungry. They can have their food bar and their Doritos too. The idea is not to change habits, not at first. It's to modify the hunger cues that give them bad habits. It's free and it doesn't taste bad so why not have a food bar with those Doritos? |
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I do it when I'm stressed. :-( It's not entirely unwise from an evolutionary standpoint. If you're worried about that tiger lurking about it's a good idea to have an easy source of blood sugar already in your belly/bloodstream. Hell even if your source of stress is your boss -- if you're a cavemen -- it might be a good idea in case you need to to fight. That's the problem with modern society: not enough bloodshed. |
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//It's people, isn't it?// |
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//add one food bar to each meal// |
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So what you're proposing is a fat-protein-fibre equivalent of a vitamin supplement. |
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It's supposed to trigger the bodies own mechanisms to induce a feeling of fullness so people will eat a little less .. but isn't this idea already fully baked by the diet industry in the content of brands of bulking agents and other supplements far too numerous to list? .. I feel sure it must be .. which then only leaves you with "make it cheap for the poor" which is more of a WIBNI than an idea and must have been said before. |
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//it's not to stop them from buying all the Doritos .. It's to give them a way to eat fewer// |
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So you think anyone will buy Doritos they're not going to eat? ;p .. in this instance eating fewer and buying fewer are the same thing and can be used interchangeably in place of each other. |
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//I personally know some people who will reach for the bag of Doritos even when they're full// |
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Everyone does, and everyone does it, it's the difference between appetite and hunger. |
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//It's people, isn't it?// |
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A bun for the soilent green reference if I could ;) it is a soilent green reference, isn't it? |
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The reasons for people to eat an unhealthy diet are complex. |
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If you're working 3 very low-paid jobs to try and make ends meet, chances are you don't have time to shop and cook between shifts. You end up grabbing the cheapest ready-made fast food you can afford from wherever is open. |
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If you are constantly stressed by your straightened financial situation, you may comfort-eat cheap sweet things that remind you of happier days. |
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If you can only barely afford enough food, you aren't going to risk making something new that your kids might dislike or refuse to eat, or that might go wrong and be ruined. |
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If you are forever having to move from one rented room to another you may not own enough equipment to prep food with. You might only have access to a kettle and a microwave in a bedsit. So it's cup ramen for dinner again. |
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One thing that is *guaranteed* not to help AT ALL however, is to shame people for their situation by giving them deliberately unpalatable cheap food "for the fat poors" whilst sneering at them. |
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[-] and I would give multiple bones were I able to do so. |
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The bone is fair enough, but on my honor there is no hint of sneer on my face or heart. |
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So why then is the proposed bar "tasteless" and "not in any way delicious"? |
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//One thing that is *guaranteed* not to help AT ALL however, is to shame people for their situation by giving them deliberately unpalatable cheap food "for the fat poors" whilst sneering at them.//
--prufrax |
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//The bone is fair enough, but on my honor there is no hint of sneer on my face or heart.//
--<Voice> |
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I certainly read it as a compassionate attempt, but to be fair to prufrax - the title does strongly suggest otherwise. Even though I don't think that's how it was intended. |
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So there are already several 'complete foods' on the market, such as Huel (a powder you make up into a slurry), and MealSquares (a sort of square cakey looking slab). I believe they're designed to be mildly pleasant to eat, filling, but not delicious.
They're not cheap, but I think that's because they're selling to the geek market, as a way to avoid worrying about what to eat. A much larger demand would presumably bring the cost down. |
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The consensus seems to be that these work quite well for managing weight, so I find the concept proposed plausible - it would just be a case of political will and technical optimisation. |
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If I were proposing food for the poor I would propose a global food card program as exists for only some in the US. It would provide compensation to vendors for 5x monetary units worth of food for each and every living human. |
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//Are you handing out "real" food or just MREs//
I'm handing out money, and I'm handing it only to food vendors.
//What sustains this global production and redistribution of food?//
Capitalism
//What does it do to market prices?//
Additional demand raises prices, necessitating a higher payout until the system reaches an equilibrium. Land, farm labor, fertilizer, and the like all cost more relative to other goods somewhat reducing the global standard of living, and this is in addition to the cost of the program. |
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A new tax on whatever can be taxed. Did you think I would say "rainbows and unicorns"? |
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Yeah, I get that's where you're coming from but the thing is, you're wrong. The rich can easily afford to feed the poor. |
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I would prefer to discuss only this proposal for now. UBI and general income distribution are a different topic. Also I didn't specify the ultra rich, although they should certainly pay the majority of this. |
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//I didn't specify the ultra rich, although they should certainly pay the majority of this// |
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They're a soft target and the target of choice when talking about this sort of thing but there simply aren't enough of them to "pay the majority of this" (where "this" is the current idea to solve world hunger poverty or what-have-you), or the ones there are aren't ultra rich enough, either or, take your pick there ;) .. the honest truth is the "majority" of the finance for any project like this will have to come from what a great many would consider the "middle classes". |
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Which I'd argue is fair enough.. |
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There's a large chunk of them vastly overpaid for work of very little real or intrinsic value after all. |
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Particularly in the media and associated industries.. |
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Often enough seemingly just to preach at & tell people what they're doing wrong & why they're poor.. |
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Taxing those a bit more (read "a lot") should probably be considered a service to humanity.. |
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Might help shut them up ;) |
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sounds glib but...
Tax the wealthy, you want to be wealthy?, fine, wealthy is costly.
Reintroduce the Gold standard.
Require banks to hold in reserve gold for every dollar in circulation like they used to.
No citizenship, no property ownership. |
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Dude, all countries sold off their gold just before world banks granted themselves power to hold only 10% of what's lent out leading to our current inflationary crisis. |
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There's no gold left to back this Ponzi scheme. |
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...or do you think the next round of fake viral fire drills will fix things? |
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//I don't think you can focus on "only this proposal." If you intend it to be global in scope it impacts every sector of the economy.//
Sure I can. The global economic impact is significant, but you're claiming the whole system would come falling down. That not being the case it's not necessary to discuss global- economy- devastating- possibilities. I'm proposing something that can be done and you're saying "It can't be done because if we did ALL THIS OTHER MARGINALLY RELATED STUFF it would wreck all the everything" |
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// there simply aren't enough of them to "pay the majority of this" (where "this" is the current idea to solve world hunger poverty)//
I don't think you understand how rich the ultra-rich are. The Rothchild family alone has about ten trillion dollars. Yes, trillion. |
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How come the commies aren't going after them? |
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Curious, have the Rothchilds ever bankrolled communist revolutions? I know they were among the biggest funders of WWI, the "War To End All Wars" (tm) copyright, all rights reserved) I'm not saying they have, but that's a lot of corrupt old money to be off limits to the commie revolutionaries. |
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Oh, the meal bars. I thought you were asking about the global food program I suggested in the comments. Yes the food bar thing is a different beast entirely. I was only suggesting food bars for the Western world, where poor people are fat. Although that is becoming the case almost everywhere, isn't it?
I'll probably address your comment later but for now I'll say these aren't meals but individual food bars containing only 1/3 of a day's fat, fiber, and protein per bar. Three bars should fit in the size of a largish granola bar, and they don't need napkins, tableware, spices, or anything like that. Wax paper should suffice for packaging. The food bar proposal is not the "feed the world" program some of you thought is was when you skimmed it. |
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//How come the commies aren't going after them?//
As far as I know they never kept much money under communist control. |
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I need to know more about these guys. Trillions of dollars sounds very weird considering I have no idea what they've added to society. |
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Who knows? Maybe they're the greatest creators of everything that's wonderful in the world. (except for that little WWI glitch) I sure hope so for that kind of payoff. |
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It's not evil to be rich, but being evil sure helps to get you rich. "in a pinch principles can be turned in for cold, hard cash". |
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Kind of my assumption as well. Funding WWI would have made Satan blush. (not that you'd be able to tell) |
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Okay, banking, buying up businesses and inbreeding. |
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I'm curious why the safety valve that keeps other families from running the planet didn't work with these guys. I'm talking about the rags to riches to rags again in 3 generations. Hard times create strong men, (The first rich Rothchild grew up in the ghetto) strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. |
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Guess these guys really follow the rule book on not marrying outside the family, not blowing the family fortune and growing the family business. |
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Seems odd there isn't a few Hunter Bidens in the bloodlines but guess they've figured something out. Although I guess Hunter Biden is amazingly good at making money. Statement retracted. |
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I'll say this about banking, it is slavery, you buy people's lives and their labor goes to you, the lender. Thing is, capital can also be used for the benefit of the people using it. |
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Credit is like drugs. It can be useful, it can be destructive, but you should try to stay away from credit and drugs if possible. |
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The only safety valve is children of wealthy people not being appreciative and willing to work hard to maintain the fortune. So maybe Good old Nate Rothschild had the foresight to pick external parties to help manage the family fortune, the connections and intelligence to pick the right ones, and the good fortune to not be betrayed. |
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Are there lessons us working folk can apply to our families? Besides the inbreeding thing. Don't wanna get that disgusting Hapsburg lip thing going. |
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And I think that particular bloodline turned to shit if I remember correctly. |
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How long do kings maintain bloodlines? There was Henry the 8th and someone the 13th so there is precedent for the wealthy and powerful to maintain their family's wealth. And staying out of the spotlight and away from publicity, palaces, and peasants with pikes has to help. |
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The Rothchilds do seem to have done a pretty good job of keeping out of the spotlight. Might be a main survival strategy. |
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Comparing to, for instance, the British royals, I can't read the news without seeing some article about them. I won't insult them because a lot of Brits like them, and people who insult other country's entire populations are assholes, but they sure seem to do the opposite. Don't know how much of that's by their design. |
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Cheers , congratulations, awards, and requests of no encore ever |
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