The Meatrix

[Golgot]

This i just had to share ;) Enjoy...

http://www.themeatrix.com/

[Django]

:laugh: Hilarious...and insightful...

[sunfrog]

I say eat it. Just cook it good and spray it with vinegar before cooking.

[jrs]

I saw that before...pretty funny. :p

[Golgot]

I say eat it. Just cook it good and spray it with vinegar before cooking.

Sunfrog, one of these days i'm gonna have to spank you :p

Yes, cooking your burger well will deal with most ecoli problems. But will it stop the build up of dangerous antibiotic immunities in bacteria etc, stop ill-thought out waste disposal/pollution, return animals to some form of environment where they can self-medicate, stop agribusiness "externalising" most of the risks onto the farmers while they keep the lions share of the profit, or remove any of the growth-hormones that the EU and others consider dangerous? Ah, i guess the vinegar does that :p

Still, i believe an average of 61 deaths and 73,000 cases of food-poisoning are caused by ecoli every year in the US. Better get on your foghorn you merry little mischief maker. People aren't getting the message :rolleyes:

[Django]

That pig doing the matrix moves cracks me up! :laugh:

[jamesglewisf]

IMO, most of our health problems, if they are really any worse than 100 years ago, come from sitting on our butts all day writing rants about stuff we've read on the Internet. Get out, feel the sun on your back, and get some exercise.

[Golgot]

IMO, most of our health problems, if they are really any worse than 100 years ago, come from sitting on our butts all day writing rants about stuff we've read on the Internet. Get out, feel the sun on your back, and get some exercise.

Actually, i've just been doing some extensive research into related stuff for an article (scientific papers/New Scientist etc), and altho you're right that exercise is very important, there are some disturbing trends in modern food which mean even exercise might not be enough to redress the balance if your diet is bad.

The main problems are fat content, sugar addition, and large-doses-of-energy-in-one-go (to get scientific ;)). The high levels of these first two things combine to make the third (for the most part), and our bodies just aren't designed for it.

Sugar releases natural opioids into the brain which lead to addiction-style behaviour in rats, including withdrawal comparable to heroin-withdrawal etc.

Eating high-fat food (like burgers etc), disturbs the bodies' ability to judge the state of its fat preserves (eating a few high-fat meals in a short time is enough to kick-start this process. If you continue, and put on too much weight, the body eventually decides that your new state is the correct one, and any attempt to cut down/eat lower-energy-food is interpreted as starvation etc.)

So you see, exercise is vital. But not eating that **** is even more so. But now, try finding food which HASN'T had sugar added to it. Go on.
Try.

(I shall now go for a run around the room ;))

---

EDIT: Oh, and on the health thing - it's very hard to judge certain things, but on obesity you can be sure things are worse. According to New Scientist: "More than 60 per cent of American adults and 13 per cent of children and adolescents are classified as overweight or obese. The adult figure has doubled since 1980; for children and adolescents it has trebled ". Things are following the same path in Britain and we're soon expecting to see a drop in life-expectancy in younger generations etc.

And again, as quickly as we deal with some old problems we're creating new ones. Cancer rates are not on the rise just because of increased-reporting and life-expectancy. There are carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals everywhere (and it's interesting to note that they are more prevalent in the "industrialised" world, as are these problems it seems). In the food, in cleaning products. And there are other health issues like allergies/asthma etc which are all on the rise.

The point is - as complex as all these issues are, where we can see we are causing problems we should address them. However, the profit-principle most companies are run by sees more profit in letting it happen and dodging the blame for as long as possible.

[sunfrog]

Sugar releases natural opioids into the brain which lead to addiction-style behaviour in rats, including withdrawal comparable to heroin-withdrawal etc.
This is the perfect way to get kids to eat their veggies!
any attempt to cut down/eat lower-energy-food is interpreted as starvation etc.)
This is good for the economy since it keeps the burger places in business and Americans working!
But now, try finding food which HASN'T had sugar added to it. Go on. Try.
I submit to you the Sugar Cube which has gotten smaller since first invented. It has LESS sugar than it used to.
Things are following the same path in Britain and we're soon expecting to see a drop in life-expectancy in younger generations etc.
Oh ho! That's where you're wrong. Life expectancy in the U.S. has been increasing! The fatter we get the more advances in technology we make. Good ol' technology, our savior!
There are carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals everywhere
So why shouldn't there be carcinogenic and mutagenic fruit and vegetables? Booo! America is the land of equality! Give plants a chance! Give plants a chance! Give plants a chance!

[Golgot]

Right, that does it.

*SPANK*

Tho to address the serious side of a good point (shockingly, amongst the saracasm ;)) - the only place you'll find sweetened fruit or veg to my knowledge is in tins, or possibly frozen packets, both of which are generally lower in nutrients etc than the fresh variety. Adding vits etc doesn't always help - especially if they just add vit c as a sales tool as so often happens, coz it converts to oxalic acid, which is dangerous in high quantities (a possible problem with the proliferation of vitamin-c addition). Incidently there is a sweeter GM tomato being developed, but a better way to make fruit and veg sweeter is to use less pesticides/herbicides on them (i.e. organic) and let their natural sugars etc shine through.

[sunfrog]

Yes but who cares since they start to lose vitamins as soon as they're cut from the vine. The most nutricious part of the orange goes in the trash and everything else is peeled. Add cooking on a low heat for a long time and there's not much nutrition anyway. Also, salad is almost worthless and it's make of plants. I say eat away and let your colon sort it out. :D

[Golgot]

Erm, yeesssss, on the first part....but a whole load more is removed by the freezing process and more importantly by the blanching process which is used mainly to preserve "flavour" (the very thing which is often artificially added and entices you to prefer "processed" varieties).

One of the valid arguments against "centralised" agri-business farming is that it beats small localised business out of competition - despite them often providing a higher quality product and theoretically being able to provide fresher produce even in city environments [altho there have been studies that suggest local pollution near and in cities is a large obstacle]. If we protected a small-holding principle (the EU's only valid argument for farm protectionism incidently) we could still achieve this. As it is small-holding collectives are one of the best ways of getting cheap organic food in London (for example)

And sunfrog you pillock, there's a whole bunch of "nutrition" etc in fruit and veg that you won't find anywhere else. (as for the orange peel being nutritious, i've never heard of that - tho it's often died orange to appear ripe anyway :p)

I'd say your just letting your colon do your thinking for you :rolleyes: ;)

[nebbit]

This i just had to share ;) Enjoy...

http://www.themeatrix.com/

So glad that I am a vego, I know they are attacking them also but at least I don't have to worry about the Meatrix :yup: