Everyone knows the joke about the person who does not want to be “bothered” with the facts. A January 20, 2014 Time magazine article is startling in its honesty that people aren’t interested in facts but fads….This from a magazine I would say is a major player in ginning up fads, but perhaps I err. I don’t think so. Notice how their title “Hunger Games: Cheerios has ditched GMO’s. Does it Matter?” uses one fad “Hunger Games” to dis another.
The article notes that 70 to 80 percent of the food consumed in the U.S. contains Genetically Modified Organisms. Then it shows how this has to be based more on fad than fact. “[F]or all the angst over GMO’s, studies overwhelming show that there have been no observed negative health effects from eating food with GMO ingredients and that GMO crops are easier on the environment than conventional ones” (15). Note how a newer fad can trump an older one.
The most helpful part of the article was the sidebar entitled “A Brief History of ‘Healthy’ Food Fads.” Every person under the age of 40 should know these things. Here’s their list:
NO FAT
EARLY 1990s: the push to remove fat from foods still left a lot of calories and unhealthy additives like artificial sweeteners.
NO CARBS
EARLY 2000s: The suddenly popular Atkins diet said fat was fine, but carbs were the devil. Bread sails plummeted [and the disgusting beer Michelob Ultra was born].
NO TRANS FATS
MID-2000S: Trans fats are worse than saturated fats – but just because a bag of potato chips is trans fat-free doesn’t make it healthy.
NO GLUTEN
PRESENT: Nearly a third of Americans want to cut down on gluten, a drive that fueled a $4.2 billion market though just 1 in 133 people has celiac disease (Ibid.).
If memory served or time, I would tell you how oat bran, coffee, saccharine, eggs, and more were all faddish to consume or not to consume. Most everything that is the faddish thing to avoid rebounds back except that is for alcohol and tobacco for everyone below the upper middle class. We must be protected from these irredeemable substances by taxes upon taxes.
What’s it all about? I can’t remember who said that when we discarded the concept of true and false, all we were left with were conspiracy theories. When people disregard true religion, i.e. God worshipped in Spirit and in Truth, they are left with healthy food fads that purport to make this life better, longer. Don’t bother them with the facts that what they’re involved in is something faddish because you’re messing with their religion.
