Danskcolin: Tuesday November 26th 2024 "Have YOU wasted any time today? Or money? Or anything else haha!"

Dear Friend, have YOU wasted any money recently? Or maybe you've wasted a bit of time today? Am I right, or am I right (!).

Time, money, you name it....and we waste it, don't we, we poor humans! And sometimes we even squander it, which is WORSE!!!! Like local woman Kayla Eggleshaw from the lovely village of North Piddle, right here in West Worcestershire, whose face was plastered all over p.94 of our local Onion News this morning, to put it mildly!!!!

And if you don't live in West Worcestershire, don't worry, because I think you'll find the story somewhere in your "fix" of national news, maybe even your international "mix", if my "spies", for once are feeding me with the facts, that is (!). Look at these juicy tabloid front pages from around Europe: and multiply it by a factor of however many countries there are - they're almost "legion" if you count it up (!).

some of the truly international headlines that local North Piddle

resident Kayla Eggleshaw is making around Europe this morning

Well, as my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I feast our eyes on this story this afternoon, we think what a wasted day we're having, here in our new-build home in Malvern, Worcestershire. Not doing any of the things we like, all "business" - mostly preparations for our eventual move to Liphook, Hampshire: making our house look vaguely "decluttered" so that Richard, our estate agent can take his misleading photos for marketing our house; and sorting out other related "bumph". What madness !!!!

our house inside and out, looking unnaturally "decluttered"

for once, all done so that Richard our Estate Agent can take a bunch of

deceptive pictures of the house, for marketing purposes in print and on the web

We don't even get into bed for nap-time until 3:30 pm today, so we've got to "rush it" when we need it the most, which is craziness personified !!!!

Nevertheless we're looking forward to seeing Richard's photos when he's got them ready for us to approve. We let him wander round the house, so he can move things around or hide things that are particularly unpleasant, while Lois and I hide ourselves away. It's a specially automated AI-style camera - he sets it up and it works away on its own, taking deceptively wide-angle shots, and other special effects.

It'll be interesting to see which of our beloved ornaments or "accessories" he sees in our living-room or bedroom that he decides are too unpleasant to have on view, for example.

I wonder....!!!!

a typical estate-agent's automated AI camera

used for taking deceptive house photos for marketing purposes

Richard particularly asks Lois and me not to be visible in the windows when he's taking the photos from outside. Many a house-sale has been lost, he says, by photos showing the owners laughing or making obscene gestures etc. What a crazy world we live in !!!!

21:00 Both Lois and I are on a sort-of diet at the moment, even though we're not really overweight - just for health purposes, just trying to cut down some of the rubbish that tends to get inside us. Lois is making a special effort to cut out unnecessarily added sugar, salt, fat etc - all that malarkey. I, on the other hand, have a tendency to "factor in" rather too many so-called "cheat days".

flashback to November 21st and the Bluebell Inn, Malvern's oldest

(16th century) pub: Lois is being sensible, but I'm having

yet another of my "cheat days" - what madness !!!

But be that as it may, we've both been looking forward all day to seeing the latest "bombshell viewing" from health expert Van Tulleken, to put it mildly,

It all started in the mid-1970's, Van Tulleken says, which was when obesity levels among all age-groups started to creep up. The food industry was putting a lot of research into making food "irresistible" using guinea-pig testers and scans of their brainwaves to identify maximum "pleasure points". Softer food, so no hard chewing, with the result that we don't get that "feeling full" feeling too quickly. And developing the optimal look, feel, smell etc that will get us hooked: and even targeting optimal sounds, like the sound of the click and the rip when you open a can of Coca Cola, for example - so-called "sonic branding".

obesity data showing steady increases in obesity levels

for all age-groups starting in the mid-1970's

"Snackification" with so-called "healthy snacks" meaning we eat more, more often, and not just at meal times. Also use of cheaper ingredients, which also boosts profits. Seemingly healthy by being fruity, for example, like Sunny Delight - apparently fruity but not containing any actual fruit. Real fruit is expensive as an ingredient because it's got to be picked and transported. Then, there's use of unnecessary, unhealthy and addictive additives to lengthen shelf-time.

And who knew that the added ingredients of a diet Coke, or similar, containing artificial sweeteners, have been selected specially to make you expect something sweet to follow, and may stimulate you to eat something fattening next. What madness!!!

This lab in the US was doing investigations on behalf of Pepsi, but when some of their results began to come out, Pepsi quickly dropped them, which was a pity!

"Ultra-processed food" is the category that became the label - and the only answer seems to be to make as much of our food as possible in the home from just the basic natural ingredients. And it makes Lois wonder - should she be e.g. making her own yoghurt again, as she used to in the old days?

I wonder !!!!

Meanwhile the food industry is fighting against "unfavourable" studies of unhealthy food, by developing its own parallel "studies" by friendly "academics" that they fund, studies that seem to show that scare stories of the health risks posed by ultra-processed food are "exaggerated" or "overblown". Many of the food industry's tactics are aping the tactics used in previous decades by the tobacco industry.

French food engineer Melissa Malon has done a study of the phenomenon:

And tonight presenter Van Tulleken summarises Melissa Malon's findings.

Van Tulleken reveals that he himself has been targeted by the food industry, with one big American company offering him £20,000 to fly to the US and attend a 2 hour meeting on the issue. Luckily he got his lawyer to scrutinise the contract before he signed up to it.

And like smoking, or other drugs, says Van Tulleken, love of ultra-processed food has all the characteristics of a full-blown addiction, a habit that most people find it really hard to "kick".

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

There are reasons for optimism, however, according to Van Tulleken. After all, eventually the tobacco industry was humbled successfully, so it should be possible with ultra-processed foods too, if governments can resist the wiles and lures of the lobbyists. Latin America is showing the way, he says, by introducing the scarier warning labels on ultra-processed products and taxing them more, in order to funnel extra government money into the expenses of healthcare.

And it's all thanks to reformers like this one, a Colombian senator who is also a doctor.