Dont get suckered in by SCams

[pirana 0]

Quote

Quote

Remember the old Geritol commercial; with the microscopic image of blood cells before and after Geritol. If your blood cells looked like the before picture, you would most definitely already be dead.

No, don't remember it. How old is it? Do you (or anyone) have a link to still images or video?

It sounds like a great illustration w/r/t appropriating science, imo.

/Marg

Good question. I'll have to remember to try you tube it when I get home.

I have found that site to be quite the treasure trove. I was explaining to the kids that every generation has it's version of pretty much everything they are familiar with. They challenged me with Tele Tubbies.

So I You Tubed the Banana Splits for them and gave them my best City Slickers version of "Come on, push me."

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

Quote

Quote

If a person eats any kind of decent diet at all, the pills are a total waste.

What most Americans eat is a long, long way from any kind of decent diet. Even celebrities mock green vegetables, and Americans laugh with them. The SAD (Standard American Diet) is so far beyond decent, that pills and drugs are about the only thing keeping many of them alive.

Wrong. Do some research, google some journal articles. Even though our diet may seem atrocious, even junk food is not all that bad. The worst part is that there is so much salt, sugar, and grease - not that it is totally lacking in vitamins and minerals. Not as good as fresh, but far from completely empty.

In order to need the BS places like GNC peddle you would have to be subsisting on cardboard and gravel, or maybe White Castles and Bud.

Put it this way, if GNC, and Watkins and all the places and people like them went away overnight - there would be no increase in rickets, berri-berri, scurvy etc. Modern diet, even our real shitty modern diet, gives us what we need.

Only exceptions are people with certain diseases and shit.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[riddler 0]

Quote

Wrong. Do some research, google some journal articles. Even though our diet may seem atrocious, even junk food is not all that bad. The worst part is that there is so much salt, sugar, and grease - not that it is totally lacking in vitamins and minerals. Not as good as fresh, but far from completely empty.

I actually do a fair amount of research on this, as diet is important to me. But OK, I'll Google now and see what you're talking about.

1. Here is a good article - One third of the average American diet is junk food, and we get 7% of our caloric intake just from soda. But hey, if you don't think junk food is all that bad for you, then this shouldn't bother you. I'm sure the owner's of McDonalds will agree whole-heartedly with your rigorous scientific analysis.

2. Dr. Sears seems to think the American diet is the major factor in both cancer and heart disease.

3. Lots of good information on this page, like the fact that our daily intake of calories has increased by 304 calories from just 25 years ago, enough to add over 30 pounds of fat every year to each American.

4. Harvard University is with me, too. "The American diet has gone astray, lured by fat-free grains, breads, and cereals that have led not to a leaner promised land but to a quagmire of flabby bodies and rising risk of diabetes, experts at the Harvard School of Public Health said Sept. 9."

And these were just on the first page of Google. Search "American Diet", 37 million results, most of them look pretty unsatisfactory.

What about vitamins? Well,

Here's what experts in nutritional health take.

Here's some advice on which vitamins to take, depending on your lifestyle. If you are a smoker, older female, if you don't eat veggies every day, etc.

Personally, I take no daily vitamins or supplements. But I don't smoke, drink alcohol or coffee, I go to the gym 3-4 times a week (unless I'm sick), and I do NOT eat the Standard American Diet (SAD). I'm not in great shape, but I maintain my health, and I think I do better than most Americans.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

and I do NOT eat the Standard American Diet (SAD).

So is SAD actually defined?

[jakee 1,257]

Quote

More bacon bread please.

I will totally make some bread with bacon (real English type bacon, not whatever the hell it is North America calls bacon). baked into it. That could be awesome

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[wmw999 2,129]

Wikipedia's definition
Dr. Sears

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[pirana 0]

I checked a couple of those links. They seem to support my contention that the typical American diet is not very healthy, but not because it is lacking vitamins. It is because it is loaded with salt, sugar, and grease.

As much as I do not consider CNN a good source of information on this topic, even the few statements there summarizing studies did not say taking vitamins was necessary. The closest the article came was 4 doctors giving anecdotal opinions on what they personally do. Hardly scientific at all.

The stuff about junky food is all too true, but relatively meaningless in a discussion of whether or not vitamins and suplements are necessary. The companies that peddle them count on people not being able to make that distinction, instead relying on emotional appeals based on our horrible eating habits, etc, etc.

For example, 1/3rd of the average person's diet is junk food. Great headline, but irrelevant. I'll bet if you ate 3 meals a day at McD's (oh the horror); an Egg McMuffin with sausage, hash browns and OJ for breakfast; a 1/4 pounder, fries, a shake and apple pie for lunch; and a big mac, one of their salad thingies in a cup, fries, and a fruit parfait for dinner and dessert; you'd be right up there close to or past the daily requirements for most stuff.

Now I really am not a fun of McD's (understatement of the year), but facts are facts. To say their food is horrid and gives healthy people the shits and defies the very definition of good nutrition is all good and well; but to use that as a reason to take more vitamins is just plain irrelevant.

It's 2 different things. All the vitamins in the world will not help you if you eat shit like that full time.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[BIGUN 1,062]

Quote

How old is it?

It's older than their parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RBaaNsi7zI&feature=related

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

More bacon bread please.

I will totally make some bread with bacon (real English type bacon, not whatever the hell it is North America calls bacon). baked into it. That could be awesome

American bacon (not Canadian) kicks ass, esp the leaner center cut style. My one experience with your type (English hotel in Thailand) - nasty shit.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Wikipedia's definition
Dr. Sears

Wendy W.

So the question is, do people really eat that way?

Being in SF, I may be out of touch with the 'red' states, or even anyone living just 100 miles inland. Around here, there are at least as many sushi bars as fast food joints, and more mexican ones. For more formal restauants, it's actually a challenge to find 'American' cuisine.

[georgerussia 0]

Quote

As opposed to the typical Eastern European fare,

They're actually doing much better. A lot of people are too poor to eat anything but vegetables and a little meat/fish. And no soft drinks (which is a HUGE source of carbs) because they're too expensive for regular consumption.

The main problem in U.S. seems to be more like about "how much you eat", not "what you eat". A lot of people would actually lose weight by eating one Big Mac a day if that's all they eat this day.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[jakee 1,257]

Quote

American bacon (not Canadian) kicks ass, esp the leaner center cut style.

Whether it's nice or not is irrelevant, but whatever it is, it's not bacon.

Quote

My one experience with your type (English hotel in Thailand) - nasty shit.

Probably not the best place to find it

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

American bacon (not Canadian) kicks ass, esp the leaner center cut style.

Whether it's nice or not is irrelevant, but whatever it is, it's not bacon.

If it comes from the ass of a pig....

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

1950s and 60s apparently... Some of these are hilariously bad.

Thanks for passing those along. As you noted, more sociological/cultural implications than truly bad science.

Still would like to see those revitalizing red blood cells.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[pirana 0]

Found the geritol commercial on You Tube. It looks like the one someone else described earlier in the thread, the totally bushed housewife that becomes the Stepford wife after Geritol. From 1967 I think the site said.

Couldn't find the before and after red blood cells. I think that one was a bit older.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[champu 1]

I would love to see the before and after blood too. There's a fantastic bit of doublespeak in the one though...

Quote

"The great majority of tired people don't feel that way because of iron poor blood and Geritol won't help them. But it is a medical fact that many of the millions of people who have iron poor blood are tired and NEED Geritol."

It reminds me of all the prescription drug commercials these days that list the drug's broad/generic indications (e.g. lack of energy, joint pain/stiffness, etc.) and then include the phrase, "TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR and see if DRUG X IS RIGHT FOR YOU!"

The concept of prescription drug commercials is one of those areas of free speech / free trade that I kinda grumble at and then eventually admit that, "yeah... we probably shouldn't ban it..."