It’s the battle of good versus evil and I am afraid, evil wins every time.
We have now reached a stage in the history of humanity where one would have to say we are at our most unhealthy. Levels of obesity are up by alarming numbers and before I go into my usual passionate rant, let me give you a couple of statistics to set this up.
Did you know that worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980? FACT. Absolutely f***ing shocking right. Let me hit you with another one, DID YOU KNOW THAT 41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2014? When I initially read those statistics I couldn’t believe my eyes, but the more I think about it the more it absolutely made sense and my assessment of the situation overall is what I will sharing with you in this article.
(before moving on, if anyone read up till now and said, why the hell is he using statistics from 2014? I’ll tell you why, cause its all i found on bloody short notice, I am not a researcher so kiss my extremely large yet somewhat buff backside and stop being pedantic, you get the point)
So the big question that I have been thinking about quite a lot in recent times was how the hell did we get here? What transitions have taken place over the years to get us to this point in our culinary evolution? The answer to this question of course can be subjective, but the more I have thought about it the more I keep coming to the same conclusion, “its all about the money”. Quite simply it is much more economically viable to eat unhealthy foods. In modern times when the world of expenditure has lost the f***ing plot, and all society wants to do is financially rape itself it has become very difficult for an average family of four persons to be able to afford what experts refer to as a well balanced diet. What does this modern day well balanced diet consist of? Predominantly more protein and veg, less carb and grain based products. We’ve read all the articles on the subject of dieting so I am not going to bore you with the details.
In recent times we as a family have made a concerted effort to change our eating habits to a more protein and vegetable based diet. It consists predominantly of chicken, fish and occasionally some red meat. Vegetables and fruit are also staples in our household. I am really happy that we have chosen to take this step and we are all feeling the benefits of a healthy lifestyle but the simple fact of the matter is its a substantially large financial investment. Now, on planet Oz, where a mild dose of obsessive compulsive personality order reigns freely, we must keep a rather accurate track of expenditures, and in the case of food investment it makes for some compelling reading. Here is the final conclusion. On average since we started this new food regime we spend €350 more per month at the supermarket. Now I am not trying to sound like a massive tight arse here but in my situation and where I come from that is a lot of god damn money.
Sure, nobody has forced us to make this choice, we did it out of own sense of self improvement. As parents my wife and I made a decision to try and educate our children early on regarding the value of good healthy eating in the hope that they will be able to subconsciously make good food choices and avoid potential health problems later on in life. We feel it’s important. Now the big question that really has me wound up tighter than a nuns holiest of holy’s recently, is how is it with all that we know today about the the detrimental effect of unhealthy eating, that there aren’t more incentives for people to choose healthy eating? I’ll bloody tell you why, because those billion dollar big wigs who have their greedy fat f***king fingers in all levels of government and decision making would rather we all die a miserable sloth like premature death than have it affect their profit margin. They would rather have a world full of unhealthy, immobile obese children, probably destined to keel over and expire before they even reach their golden years rather than have their profits reduced by 5%. I mean FFS, what is the difference between making four billion in profit and 3 billion in profit? Some of you might say, “well its a cool billion” but in the grand scale of things when you get to that level of profits it doesn’t mean a damn thing. It just means some corporate asshole will get more money in his bank account that he will likely never touch. Disgraceful.
Governments the world over should hang their heads in shame for allowing corporate influence and power and greed to stem the flow of progress towards a healthy eating lifestyle. Why don’t they stop wasting billions on trying to get themselves reelected and instead sit down with producers of the good quality food stuffs and find a solution that will evoke world change? Here is another perhaps slightly optimistic idea, how about they stop spending TRILLIONS on defense contracting whose sole purpose is the hope of being ready for a war which may either never come or which will be forcefully started purely out of the necessity to clear stockpiles of weapons that have been building up, so they can then spend another TRILLION on more weapons in future. How difficult could it really be for governments to sit down with, for example, fish and meat suppliers, farmers and large manufacturers of quality food stuffs and manage to find a solution that can ultimately lower the prices of food products within these food groups by maybe 25% which is what I would imagine is what is required to actually make a difference on a global scale?
Look, let me not rant on about this too much more because my internal fire burns deep and long on the subject. Just believe me when I tell you there are hundreds more examples of current disturbing and deteriorating health statistics. At the same time there is clear evidence, on several fronts, of governmental financial mismanagement and corporate preference and if you are someone who is unaware of this you have either been living with your head firmly planted up your own backside or live in an eternal state of ignorant political fandom, either way you’re not helping.
Finally, as always, I write this piece not only because I enjoy the form of expression and use the technique as a vehicle for self ventilation, but in the hope that I may change at least one persons life. In the main, I am hoping that others will understand the importance of educating our future generations to grab control of the situation and perhaps eventually activate some sort of culinary evolution over time by way of a change of thinking and habits. At the same time should by the way of some divine miracle someone of political importance read this piece and say to themselves “that fat son of a bitch makes a pretty good point” and in turn discovers his or her own personal mission for a revolutionary change, well that quite simply is the stuff of my wet dreams.
The end.
