11th August 2005, 5:14 PM
It's the universe's for functioning in such a manner as to allow that to occur!
Yes, McDonald's food isn't the most healthy in the world, but that's not by too huge a margin. The reality is the food we cram down our gullets today is some of the healthiest stuff we've ever had in the history of humanity. Processing is a PART of making things healthier.
That said, McDonald's isn't a prime example of that, but it is certainly healthier than what we may have eaten back in 2000 BCE.
That doesn't make it tasty though...
And that doesn't mean that the more we eat, the healthier we get. A lot of people go on insane diets with the idea that if eating low fat food makes you healthier, eating a LOT of low fat food must be even better! Nope, the thing about eating low fat food is that you are eating it INSTEAD of high fat food, and if you eat a whole lot because it's better for you in your current state, well you just managed to get your fat intake back up. CONSERVATION OF MATTER/ENERGY PEOPLE!
Part of it is that people need to be taught some basic science, and more than that, a basic skeptical attitude.
I remember Supersize Me. The man did something insane just to prove a point, except for two problems. First of all, the logic wasn't solid enough to form evidence. Second of all, and this is something a lot of people don't realize, science isn't about "proof". Science can't offer that. Math and logic offer proofs. Science offers observations and explanations that accuratly explain and predict said observations. Evidence is merely that which corroborates said explanations using observations, but ALL explanations are subject to revision if later evidence comes up. So, there are no absolute proven facts in science, just the most plausible explanations given current observations.
That said, one scene in particular really annoyed me in that thing. Namely, when he showed that McDonald's fries don't decay for very long periods of time. He was very misleading. All that experiment showed was that the fries don't decay after long periods of time. However, he decided to use the unscientific term of "natural" (which is a spiritual thing more than anything, a very arbitrary term that a scientist has no real business using) in a deceptive way. He was all "doesn't that frighten you? Look how the natural process of breaking down happens in all this but the natural process doesn't happen here? I'm not a doctor, but that says something there...". He managed to not tell a blatant lie, but deceptive and misleading statements aren't really any better. He is banking on the fact that the people may not be equipped with the right mental tools to figure out the problems in what he's saying. Not that they are stupid mind you, it's just that a lot of people aren't taught basic logic in schools.
What are the problems? Well, why should that frighten me? Is the lack of the ability to break down via decay (which occurs because bacteria and other things are eating up the various food items he was using, not because the materials themselves are molecularly unstable) something that should incidate that it is unhealthy? There is no evidence to support that. I would submit evidence to the contrary! Water and salt do not decay over that same period of time. Indeed, lots of food is packaged in such a way, or has been injected with nontoxic preservatives in such a way, as to prevent them from breaking down for a long period of time. This may be the case with these fries. There is no reason to assume the fries are unhealthy simply because they take a long time to break down. Indeed, all that says is they remain viable as food for longer periods of time. They won't taste any good at all after waiting that long (well McD's fries aren't too good to start with), but you may be able to eat them after that period of time without worrying about getting ill.
That experiment yielded some interesting data, but he was not equipped to interpret it correctly. At least he admits that much, though if he knows that he should have just kept his mouth shut.
In the end, I do not recommend a McDonald's diet of food, but if you do eat it, you can sustain yourself on it if you use restraint and you will live a much healthier life than anyone did a few thousand years ago.
Yes, McDonald's food isn't the most healthy in the world, but that's not by too huge a margin. The reality is the food we cram down our gullets today is some of the healthiest stuff we've ever had in the history of humanity. Processing is a PART of making things healthier.
That said, McDonald's isn't a prime example of that, but it is certainly healthier than what we may have eaten back in 2000 BCE.
That doesn't make it tasty though...
And that doesn't mean that the more we eat, the healthier we get. A lot of people go on insane diets with the idea that if eating low fat food makes you healthier, eating a LOT of low fat food must be even better! Nope, the thing about eating low fat food is that you are eating it INSTEAD of high fat food, and if you eat a whole lot because it's better for you in your current state, well you just managed to get your fat intake back up. CONSERVATION OF MATTER/ENERGY PEOPLE!
Part of it is that people need to be taught some basic science, and more than that, a basic skeptical attitude.
I remember Supersize Me. The man did something insane just to prove a point, except for two problems. First of all, the logic wasn't solid enough to form evidence. Second of all, and this is something a lot of people don't realize, science isn't about "proof". Science can't offer that. Math and logic offer proofs. Science offers observations and explanations that accuratly explain and predict said observations. Evidence is merely that which corroborates said explanations using observations, but ALL explanations are subject to revision if later evidence comes up. So, there are no absolute proven facts in science, just the most plausible explanations given current observations.
That said, one scene in particular really annoyed me in that thing. Namely, when he showed that McDonald's fries don't decay for very long periods of time. He was very misleading. All that experiment showed was that the fries don't decay after long periods of time. However, he decided to use the unscientific term of "natural" (which is a spiritual thing more than anything, a very arbitrary term that a scientist has no real business using) in a deceptive way. He was all "doesn't that frighten you? Look how the natural process of breaking down happens in all this but the natural process doesn't happen here? I'm not a doctor, but that says something there...". He managed to not tell a blatant lie, but deceptive and misleading statements aren't really any better. He is banking on the fact that the people may not be equipped with the right mental tools to figure out the problems in what he's saying. Not that they are stupid mind you, it's just that a lot of people aren't taught basic logic in schools.
What are the problems? Well, why should that frighten me? Is the lack of the ability to break down via decay (which occurs because bacteria and other things are eating up the various food items he was using, not because the materials themselves are molecularly unstable) something that should incidate that it is unhealthy? There is no evidence to support that. I would submit evidence to the contrary! Water and salt do not decay over that same period of time. Indeed, lots of food is packaged in such a way, or has been injected with nontoxic preservatives in such a way, as to prevent them from breaking down for a long period of time. This may be the case with these fries. There is no reason to assume the fries are unhealthy simply because they take a long time to break down. Indeed, all that says is they remain viable as food for longer periods of time. They won't taste any good at all after waiting that long (well McD's fries aren't too good to start with), but you may be able to eat them after that period of time without worrying about getting ill.
That experiment yielded some interesting data, but he was not equipped to interpret it correctly. At least he admits that much, though if he knows that he should have just kept his mouth shut.
In the end, I do not recommend a McDonald's diet of food, but if you do eat it, you can sustain yourself on it if you use restraint and you will live a much healthier life than anyone did a few thousand years ago.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)