A Second Opinion, From Dr. Jon
Note from skippy: Longtime readers may remember when I had everybody click on a link to the best burger joint in the world so that me and my wife could eat there for free. Well the owner of that place has a message that he would like to get out, and so I have offered to put it up here.
I’ve NEVER liked radicals. Conservative radicals… Liberal radicals… Black radicals… White radicals… Feminist radicals… Chauvinist radicals… what ever type of radical they are… I just flatly DON’T like them!
Do you know why? Because if they spent 1/10th of the time that they do protesting silly causes, on improving their job skills, the world would be a much better place to live in
. Give me shoemakers who strive to create better shoes… Dentists who strive to take better care of teeth… Policemen who strive to keep neighborhoods safer… Strippers who strive to give better lap dances…
In short give me quality, give me excellence, not pathetic activism. I know what you’re thinking…
“This article is rife with hypocrisy Dr Jon! You’re a Burger Surgeon. Shut up, get back to the grill, and make me a better Bypass Burger!”
… but there comes a moment in life when every surgeon must set down his spatula and take a stand for the greater good. So yes I, Doctor Jon, have now officially joined the lowly ranks of activism…
DIET COKE?
NOT NO, BUT HELL NO!
Looking for new ways to steel from the American public, the Senate Finance Committee, under the guise of “health reforms” wants to, attach a federal excise tax to full sugar soda pop, yes SODA POP! Not on diet sodas with cancer causing artificial sweeteners, but the good old fashioned all American cane sugar drink that our moms would reward us with when we were good kids.
Sodas stick out like a sore thumb as a cause of obesity,” says Harvard’s Walter Willett, “Soda plays a unique role in weight gain“.
Well gosh “Walter” are you trying to say that drinking too much soda will make you fat? Really? Wow, that’s some pretty amazing research! Did they teach you that at Harvard??
“Soda’s are mostly empty calories that don’t provide any nutrients to the diet“, says Barry Popkin, nutrition professor at UNC. Well wrong “Marry Poppins” soda does provide the most important nutrient of all… HAPPINESS! Hey and while you’re at it, I’d like a side order of FREEDOM, damn it!
Academic types all scream that obesity is a problem which should be dealt with by the government. They seem to forget that increasing taxes on alcohol have not significantly affected abusive consumers. All the abusive consumers will do is shift to something cheaper but continue to drink abusively. So really all you are doing is punishing moderate consumers, who gain health benefits from their moderate consumption.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Yale University’s Kelly Brownell promoted the soda tax stating that such a tax could raise “billions of dollars of revenue“. Well ‘Kelly’ you may have a girl’s name but at least your honest about what the true intention is here… money! Or more specifically… you, the American soda drinker’s money!
No matter how much scientific evidence these “experts” can drudge up which “proves” that soda consumption increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, they are still missing the real point:
Sodas don’t make people fat.
People make people fat!
Of course one could scream this till they’re blue in the face, but don’t plan getting through to academic types. They’re comparable to the jerks at the American Medical Association who refuse to recognize my achievements in the area of human happiness. The “experts” will always conjure up studies that show Americans are consuming way more calories from soda than they were 25 years ago, and that 70% of Americans are now overweight or obese! Well we’ve all heard that our heavy brethren carry a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.. and many other health problems. In fact, we’ve heard it so damn many times that we’re frankly sick and tired of all the negativity.
Well if you want a real study, I personally treat tens of thousands of obese patients each month and I can conclusively say that soda pop is not the villain in America’s battle of the bulge! My medical practice is based upon simple thinking: “a calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie!”
The key ratio to consider:
Units of Happiness / Calories Consumed.
Of course the control freaks in Washington DC don’t really care if you’re happy or not. In fact they don’t even care if taxing soda makes even the slightest dent in the obesity statistics either. They just want a new method by which to appear noble while taxing the shit out of you
The “experts” are trying to demonize the soda companies by pointing out that the American soda consumption has doubled in the last 40 years. All that means to me is that soda companies are doing a better job at manufacturing and marketing their products. Holding a gun to the consumer’s head will not be effective in making them switch. In fact the only effective method is for juice, water, dairy, and other types of beverage companies to get off of their lazy buts and whip the soda companies in the fair game known as capitalism.
The Historical Cycle:
STEP 1: Tax something
STEP 2: Outlaw something
STEP 3: Black Market is created
STEP 4: Associated criminality runs ramped.
STEP 5: Repeal the prohibition.
STEP 6: Wait 50 years until the next looting government repeats the cycle.
Rather then understanding the core tenant of how the real world works, government agencies are bent on corrupting the free market competition for the consumer’s food dollar through unfair and prejudicial taxation practices. The food Nazis want to destroy the ‘affordability’ of what they do not want others to have. The USDA has stated that, “junk food products simply may overwhelm a person’s judgment and, for that reason Junk food has to get more expensive“.
The bottom line is that ALL taxes hurt ALL people not just poor families struggling through the recession. But let’s imagine for a moment that there was some type of ‘wonder tax’ which could actually benefit both our nations physical and economic health. If that really were the case, should we institute such a tax? (for clarity please refer to the title above)
Never, EVER, be so naive as to think that the government will stop at just taxing your soda pop. Localities like Nassau County on Long Island are already trying to enact a tax on fast-food restaurants. Now of course this will ultimately be based on which restaurants that meet their definition of fast-food. Or better put, the highest bribing special interest groups definition of “fast food”
One of the great interrogative exchanges in American history occurred between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who was incarcerated for refusing to pay taxes which supported America’s war effort against Mexico. Emerson was outraged over Thoreau’s refusal to post the bail necessary to get himself paroled from jail.
“What are you doing in there Henry!?”
With one simple response Thoreau put everything into prospective:
“Ralph, what are you doing out there!?”
We must fight against this government’s continuing encroachment into our freedoms. The most effective time to do so is now, before they can pass this tax into law. I urge you all to join in the official HAG letter writing campaign and tell your elected representatives. If we procrastinate, and the scoundrels are allowed to sneak this one through, then we must all take our turns behind bars as proud and civilly disobedient citizens. Otherwise we are nothing more than the spineless subjects of government which grows ever more totalitarian by the day.
Dr. Jon is a renowned humanitarian, entrepreneur, and pretend doctor. When he’s not saving America from a runaway legislature he runs the famous Heart Attack Grill, in Chandler AZ.
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August 4th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Soda in the US no longer uses cane sugar, outside of certain limited runs. This is because corn growers, beet growers, and Hawaiian sugarcane growers have supported tariffs that have raised the US domestic price of sugar to four times the global price. So soda manufacturers use corn syrup, which is mainly fructose.
Your body cannot process fructose the way it can process glucose. This is because while they are identical chemically, structurally they are not, and in biochemistry, structure is important. It must use the liver to process fructose, and only a limited amount can be processed this way. After that, straight to fat.
This is one of the primary reasons that switching to diet soda, or even cane sugar soda if you can find it, leads to weight loss.
Hence this entire argument was rendered moot from the first paragraph about it. This isn’t the same soda.
The taxation on it is intended to reduce use. Yeah, people pay more or use less. That’s the idea behind it. It’s the same reason there are taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. Revenue is part of it, but it also cuts on consumption. Given that consumption of said goods causes health care issues that the government ends up paying for, or otherwise negatively impacts the bottom line for all citizens, the tax is imposed to reduce usage and thus cost, and also to directly fund measures that repair damage caused by the offending item.
The government could do something that would dramatically improve everyone’s lives, with the exception of a tiny minority who reaps windfall profits at the remainders expense, but no one seems to be advocating that, especially not these pseudo-libertarians. That’s right, end the tariffs. High-fructose corn syrup instantly loses its appeal. Every product with sugar in sees reduced cost. Soda, even with the way we consume it now, becomes much less of a health concern given that it’s glucose going in rather than fructose.
The opposition to this excise tax is, simply put, misguided. Well, unless you own a restaurant that sells a glass of soda for a buck fifty when it costs them less than two cents and would see a drop in sales of that highly, highly, highly lucrative item.
To paraphrase Adam Smith: never trust a businessman when he speaks on legislation. He’s after your wallet.
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Anon reply on August 5th, 2009 4:05 am:
To counterpoint Adam Smith:
Never trust a politician when he speaks on taxes, he’s after your wallet too
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StoneWolf reply on August 5th, 2009 4:57 am:
Not bad, but there is an alternative solution set. See, since people seem to favor an increase in socialism in this country, it makes sense to tax the shit out of stuff that incurse a cost on the population to offset that cost.
However, the alternate idea is this. If you don’t want to pay an assload of taxes for every damn thing, de-socialize the country. That would remove the cost to society, remove the rational for increasing taxes, and increase personal liberty.
If somebody truly wants to eat themselves to death, I have absolutly no problem with that. However, I would rather shoot them myself than have them force the cost of their choice on me.
As to lobbyists, they can all go fuck themselves. I used to think they were great, standing up for the little guy and all that. Then I learned more about politics and got involved in local government and realized, nine for ten, lobbyists are mewling pups out for their own cause and don’t give a shit about anybody else. About the only lobby cause I can support is greater personal freedoms. But if you want to restrict something from somebody else because it offends your delicate sensiblities, go drown yourself.
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SFC TC reply on August 5th, 2009 5:39 am:
Wow, the stupid is almost overpowering. Okay, maybe that is a little unfair, how about the misinformation is almost overpowering.
Stop reading the crap web sites and bs headlines. Don’t just buy the bull look into it.
For the uninitiated High fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, is a term used to describe corn syrup which has higher level of fructose than regular corn syrup. The fructose in HFCS is the exact same fructose than is in your apples, grapes, cane sugar, honey, agave nectar etc. In fact, if you were to make sugar from apples in the same way you make sugar from sugar cane you would have a product that was about 70% fructose.
HFCS used in soda is about 55% fructose and 45% glucose. You do know % of cane sugar is between 42-47% fructose right, since cane juice is mostly sucrose as soon as it hits the stomach it splits into one molecule of glucose and one of fructose? How about the fact that honey sugars are about 50% fructose. Agave Nectar is even higher in fructose than high fructose corn syrup (up to 90%). So give up on making HFCS the demon here when it comes to fructose. The problem is the overall intake of sugar.
Where did you get this idea that fructose goes straight to fat? Fructose MUST be processed by the liver before it can be stored as fat. Glucose on the other hand is the sugar that enters the bloodstream and is able to be used by cells immediately or turned into fat without further processing. You can even absorb it through the gums and other soft parts of the mouth rather than having to eat & digest it. So you got the mechanism mixed up, no big deal.
You were probably thinking about the study that demonstrated when sufficient amounts of fructose were taken in the liver changes how it processes sugar and further fats increasing the amount it stores as fat. Of course in order for that to have an overall effect the person has to take in more calories than they use. You can’t get or stay fat if your consistently burning more calories than your digesting, even if 100% of your calories are from fructose.
Or maybe you were thinking of the link between fructose and triglycerides or the link with carbonyls? Yep, fructose can be bad for you, by the way table sugar (sucrose) is 50% fructose. Then again there was the study showing animals gaining weight who were living on pure fructose compared to pure glucose and were taking in about 2-6 times the normal amounts needed.
But fructose doesn’t make a person fat, too much food, sugar, and/or empty calories that are not worked off makes a person fat.
Lastly, just so SPC Hyle doesn’t come back with something about the other forms of HFCS they are HFCS-42 (42% fructose, less than the % found i table sugar) and HFCS-90 (90% fructose). HFCS 42 is used for baked goods (mmmm pie). HFCS 90 & crystalline fructose (99.5% fructose), you can think of it as fructose made to look like table sugar. These last two are almost NEVER used in producing food, rather they are used to make HFCS 55 and 42.
Now, on a positive note, I agree with you on the tariffs because I just think they are bad law. It makes goods more expensive in order to protect a very small group of the electorate rather than allowing market forces to determine goods and prices.
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SPC Hyle reply on August 5th, 2009 6:04 am:
Hey, thanks for correcting me on this. Biology is not my area of study. I do appreciate this. This’ll learn me to quote podcasts without double checking on a nice, unbiased, reputable source like Wikipedia :P.
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SFC TC reply on August 5th, 2009 8:23 am:
If you are sincere in this post, no problem and I apologize for being, well let’s say extremely sarcastic.
If however you’re just returning the favor of sarcasm and attempting to say I used some biased opinions from Wikipedia continue reading.
I wouldn’t know about Wikipedia as a source for any of the information. I use proquest since I can limit the results to peer reviewed research. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the information is also on Wikipedia.
For elucidation a few quotes from such journals:
“However, when HFCS is compared with sucrose, the more commonly consumed sweetener, such differences are not apparent, and appetite and energy intake do not differ in the short-term. Longer-term studies on connections between HFCS, potential mechanisms, and body weight have not been conducted.”
High-fructose corn syrup, energy intake, and appetite regulation
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
“…examples of pure fructose causing metabolic upset at high concentrations abound, especially when fed as the sole carbohydrate source, there is no evidence that the common fructose-glucose sweeteners do the same”
Straight talk about high-fructose corn syrup: what it is and what it ain’t
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
“Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a fructose-free control or 60% fructose diet for 6 mo and then tested for leptin resistance.” (by the way weight gain was not found until the sugar rats were then switched to a high fat diet)
Fructose-induced leptin resistance exacerbates weight gain in response to subsequent high-fat feeding
American Journal of Physiology
“Although some public health researchers and administrators hypothesize that these 2 trends (HFCS consumption and Obesity) are directly related, current research published in the scientific literature does not support a cause-effect relationship between HFCS consumption and overweight/obesity rates”
Highs and Lows of High Fructose Corn Syrup: A Report From the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy and Its Ceres Workshop
Nutrition Today
In layman’s terms: There is no basis to claim fructose causes obesity. There is no proof it acts any differently than sucrose, the sugar found in cane sugar in the short term. No long term studies have been made yet. But yeah, if you a fed a rat 60% pure sugar diet, you get one f’d up rat.
This means that, speaking logicallay, those who say how bad fructose is, compared to other sugars, are the equivalent of the Christian saying their god is real, even though they have no proof.
Whereas those who say that increased sugar intake overall is bad have lots of support in the literature.
SPC Hyle reply on August 5th, 2009 10:33 am:
Nope, no sarcasm. I was making a joke about my laziness is all.
SFC TC reply on August 5th, 2009 11:23 am:
Ahh okay, disregard my snottiness then :-)
Its that who overwhelming force mentality. If they throw a stick, respond with tacticle nuclear weapons :-)
captcha:
styling O-O
August 5th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Since this man runs a greasy spoon, that makes him a lobbyist for his own special-interest too, doesn’t it? (And thus is demonstrated the need for lobbyists to gather facts and advocate for an issue for which otherwise, people like us probably wouldn’t get a full understanding of their side of the issue. We just need symmetric lobbyists so the issue gets properly explored.)
While I am certainly sympathetic to this fellow’s position, consider this hypothetical: What if a restaurant made a burger so good that it overwhelmed customers’ rational ability to assess whether they should eat it? I think intervention by some party (government?) would be necessary to save people. This is what the anti-junk food people are saying, that people don’t have a choice, and need help. (However I disagree with their assessment of the problem, and taxes as a solution for it.)
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StoneWolf reply on August 5th, 2009 8:45 am:
To continue the what if, how would one make such a buger? Lace it with heroin? And who decides what is “rational ability”? I think it is perfecty rational to eat meat and I’ve met people just as conviced that it is perfectly rational to never eat meat. Who is right?
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SFC TC reply on August 5th, 2009 9:01 am:
Well they have done reasearch that shows when men are exposed to a particular scent they lose the ability to distinguish between various levels of attractiveness in women.
This particular scent comes from, shall we say, a somewhat hard to obtain biologically produced lubricating fluid. Scary thing is it works even when men are exposed to it in concentrations below the threshold for conscinece awareness.
It puts beer goggles to shame.
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StoneWolf reply on August 5th, 2009 9:40 am:
Really? Facinating. Where did you get the data on this, I’m all curious now.
Okay, so lets say the burger is laced with this compound. Men go whakey for it. If the Burger Joint is fair, by my measure, it will be known this chemical is in it, along with all the other ingrediants. Suppose they are unfair and do not list ingrediants. Boycotting could be an option if the problem is noticed. Still, I would advocate the only action needed by a government is to coerce honesty from the Burger Joint, ie listing ingediants under threat of forced shutdown. After that it is up to the individual if they still wish to eat there. How say you?
SFC TC reply on August 5th, 2009 11:31 am:
They had a show on Discovery about it. The science of sex appeal. Even though it was on TV it really is legit research though.
The particular chemical is known as a copulant (nice name huh).
Well, if a burger joint came up with a hypothetical compound that literally removed rational thought from the equation I would hope the place would not even continue to use such a compound once its effects were known. Otherwise I hope the community itself would demand they be shut down. Maybe even by burning the place down, with the completely amoral owner still inside.
I’m kind of a big believer in freedom and not really happy with those who would knowingly seek to abuse others freedom and by extension free will.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:49 am
As much as I like the idea of cane sugar sodas, I find them way too sweet for me.
As for soda making you fat–well, anything’s going to make you fat if you don’t exercise. Shit, you could nothing but Snickers bars and not gain weight if you work out. You’d end up malnourished in the long run, of course, but you could do it.
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Sicarius reply on August 6th, 2009 12:04 pm:
“you could nothing but Snickers bars”
I accidentally the Snickers bar D:
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Minty reply on August 6th, 2009 12:07 pm:
Argh! My brain hasn’t been working too well lately.
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Sicarius reply on August 6th, 2009 12:13 pm:
Don’t worry. I’ve just been waiting to use an ‘I accidentally’ on someone.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I’m telling you America, come back to the Commonwealth. ;)
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StoneWolf reply on August 7th, 2009 12:13 pm:
*Gasp* And give up my boom stick!
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August 5th, 2009 at 10:32 am
The real reason, at least for me, why people get fat is simply this, we are in a weak economy right now, and the healthier something is, the more expensive it happens to be. To quote Jim Gaffigan, “you can have this salad for ten bucks, or these eight hamburgers for a nickle. Sorry salad.” And, to increase the strangeness of it all, soda is cheaper to buy in large amounts than small amounts. It costs about $1.25 for a normal bottle of Coke, the 2-liter version costs only 60 cents more. Now, compare this all to a quart of orange juice, which is usually somewhere between 2-4 dollars. Unhealthy=Economical, and healthy=uneconomical. Make the healthy stuff cheaper, and then people will probably start losing weight, don’t make the unhealthy stuff more expensive, that just makes us all poor again.
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kat reply on August 5th, 2009 12:35 pm:
I have a solution, buy a couple pots and some dirt and grow some veggies yourself. it really doesn’t take that much space. When I had an apartment I had tomatoes and bell peppers on my porch. If you have a yard get up off your ass and invest a little time and effort into vegetable garden. Most basic garden veggies are not that labour intensive, and taste WAY better than anything you’ll buy at the supermarket.
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Billy reply on August 5th, 2009 12:38 pm:
Despite the fact that I have a lot of relatives that are farmers, I can’t grow crap, I even managed to kill a cactus. A veggie garden would probably end up turning into some kind of rot.
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StoneWolf reply on August 7th, 2009 12:15 pm:
Mmm, home grown green beans! My family has had a veggie garden since before I was born, and it really does taste better than storebought!
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Sequoia reply on August 6th, 2009 1:32 pm:
The real reason, at least for me, why people get fat is simply this, people are lazy, don’t do $h!+ and eat everything in front of them all while whining that the government should wipe their own asses for them.
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August 5th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
And on the diet colas give you cancer:
http://www.cracked.com/article_17578_5-things-they-say-give-you-cancer-why-theyre-wrong.html
I know I trust cracked more than this guy and wikipedia. I mean, would cracked.com ever lie to you?
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Minty reply on August 5th, 2009 10:06 pm:
Ah, cracked.com. Love that site, and loved that article in particular.
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September 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 am
Um…America? Hey. Have you guys ever gotten over the Cold War? Like, enough to find out what socialism actually is, as opposed to using it as a hysterical bludgeon? Seriously. Health care does not equal communism. And enforcing social values even a little bit (see: the entire judical system) makes you a society, not socialist.
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