By the time you read this, you may already be in a “food coma” from your thanksgiving dinner. Just a little something to think about.
First: Freud’s construct: The Id, Ego, and Super ego. In short, the Id is all your base desires to be gluttonous, screw everything that moves etc. The Super Ego is your conscience, which protects you with guilt and shame so you (supposedly) don’t destroy your health or rape people. The Ego is the referee that decides what you actually do.
Id: The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human’s basic, instinctual drives. The id contains the libido, which is the primary source of instinctual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality. The id acts according to the “pleasure principle”, seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure (diet and exercise) aroused by increases in instinctual tension.
Ego: The ego acts according to the reality principle; i.e. it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bring grief.
Super Ego: The super-ego aims for perfection. It comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual’s ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called “conscience”) that criticizes and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. “The Super-ego can be thought of as a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt.”
Clearly, as far as obesity is concerned, the Super Ego has been removed. This was done (in a large part) by baby boomers who were uncomfortable with guilt and shame, and wiped out these concepts with regard to many behaviors, including consumption of food. As a result, they guiltlessly became the most obese generation in the history of mankind, and removed any and all shame associated with obesity. As a result of this, and many other factors (as discussed below), obesity iS exploding, even threatening our national security. With regard to obesity, the ID has clearly taken over.
The American Diet: Self-Destruction Never Tasted So Good
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog
I know it may appear unduly harsh to discuss America’s self-destructive dietary “monster Id” right before the Thanksgiving day feasting, but when is it more appropriate?
There are a great many disconnects between reality and what Americans believe out of convenience (“no snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche”) or propaganda, but perhaps none is more visible than the disconnect between what we’re collectively doing to our health with the food we consume.
The Chinese have an apt saying” “Disease comes through the mouth,” meaning disease comes from what we eat.
There are several parts to the food-illness disconnect. One is that poor diet is an “individual” issue. Wrong; it will bring down the entire American Empire: Can Chronic Ill-Health Bring Down Great Nations? Yes It Can, Yes It Will.
86% of Workers Are Obese or Have Other Health Issues. Just 1 in 7 U.S. workers is of normal weight without a chronic health problem.
The cost of treating heart disease and stroke in the United States is expected to triple in the next 20 years, to $818 billion, a new report says.
Here’s a chart which depicts how U.S. healthcare costs are rising geometrically, far outstripping our economic competitors:
The nation cannot afford the present sickcare costs of 20% of GDP; how can it afford tripling what is spent on sickcare? Simple answer: it cannot.
The obesity epidemic can be viewed visually via this slideshow map of the U.S.:
Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Obesity Trends 1985-2007:
Clearly, obesity has exploded into a pandemic in just a single generation.
Interestingly, all the usual explanations–the rise of fast foods, women joining the workforce and thus the decline of the home-cooked meal and the decline of physical labor jobs–fail to explain the dramatic increase for the reason that all these conditions were already present in 1985.
Women had already joined the workforce en masse, fast-food outlets were already on every corner and jobs requiring hard physical labor had already dwindled to a small percentage of our post-industrial, service-dominated economy.
So what is different between 1985 and the present? At least one factor is the increased consumption of sugary beverages: soda, specialty coffees, iced teas, and “juices,” both the fake variety (colored sugar water with 10% actual fruit juice) and 100% juice.
This is another part of the disconnect: it is no accident that consumption of fast food, sugar-water beverages, snacks, chips and convenience packaged foods has exploded: all these “foods” have been carefully engineered to “taste good” by triggering our naturally selected desire for what is rare in Nature: salt, sugar and fat.
The problem is not limited to America. Wherever the American diet goes, diabesity follows: The Sick Man of Asia: China’s Health Crisis (Foreign Affairs, by Yanzhong Huang)
The essay traces out the devolution of China’s once-universal if basic healthcare system for all into a U.S.-type system of full coverage for Elites and a more brutal one for everyone else: if you don’t have the cash to pay for care, you die.
China has the largest population of diabetics and pre-diabetics in the world. China’s diabetes rate has skyrocketed to 11% of the adult population, slightly higher than that of the U.S., while its rates of other non-communicable “lifestyle” diseases such as heart disease have also soared to U.S. levels.
China Diabetes Triples (via Joel M.) “Beijing doctor Li Guangwei sees China’s struggle with 90 million diabetes sufferers daily.”
The problem is global, as the American diet of fast-food, sodas, salty-fatty-sugary snacks and prepared “convenience food” spreads throughout the world:
AWD says:
1. food coma
The feeling of listlessness, bordering on sleep, that one feels after eating a large meal, often caused by a rush of blood to the stomach and intestines during food digestion.
“Man, we ate the whole Pupu platter and now I’m slipping into a food coma.”
2. food coma
A state in which a person is generally lethargic, lazy, and very full from eating a large meal. A large meal shall be defined as a meal containing high amounts of carbohydrates.
After eating such a meal, a person usually cannot eat anymore because they are too tired to carry on.
A common cause of such weariness can be directly related to eating turkey at Thanksgiving. Turkey contains Tryptophan, a sleep inducing chemical.
Another cause of food coma comes from drinking too much wine with a big meal.
The real cause of Food Coma comes from eating too much carbs that will eventually break down in the stomach, causing an inordinate amt. of blood to rush to the system.
To releive the effects of food coma, one can unbutton their pants so their stomach can expand beyond normal perameters.
Also, it is advised that a person take a short nap, followed by a large dessert.
“Gee adam, i’m really tired. I think the tryptophan in that turkey is putting me to sleep.”
3. food coma
When all your blood goes to your abdomen for a food digestion party, it deprives your brain of oxygen, causing a comatose state known as food coma.
May cause you to take a fat nap. (just ask SSS).
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21st November 2012 at 7:22 pm
todd says:
Anyone think it is ironic the the state with the lowest BMI is the state with a lot of pot smokers.
Couldn’t find a current education system thread but I thought I would toss this out there for a read. I have a difference of opinion with the authors point of view – I think, not sure he is slamming the idea of private lessons and instructors or being sarcastic -, but his use of adjectives was very entertaining.
“In the 100 years since we really got serious about education as a universally good idea, we’ve managed to take the 15 years of children’s lives that should be the most carefree, inquisitive, and memorable and fill them with a motley collection of stress and a neurotic fear of failure. Education is a dress-up box of good intentions, swivel-eyed utopianism, cruel competition, guilt, snobbery, wish fulfillment, special pleading, government intervention, bureaucracy, and social engineering. And no one is smart enough now to understand how we can stop it. Parents have no rational defense against the byzantine demands of the education-industrial complex. But this multi-national business says that they’re acting in the children’s best interests. And we can only react emotionally to the next Big Idea or the Cure or the Shortcut to Happiness.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2012/12/aa-gill-schools-ruining-our-kids
Anyone have current teenagers or kids in school? Has anyone read some of the textbooks?
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21st November 2012 at 8:13 pm
Kill Bill says:
Sheeaht. You should be a billionaire by now ‘Doc’
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21st November 2012 at 8:38 pm
sangell says:
Come on, contrary to myth, modern Thanksgiving is a one of the least pleasurable meals on the menu. It is said Einstein came upon the Theory of Relativity when he noticed how slowly time passed when forced to dine with his relatives. Feigning to enjoy some hideous pile of jellied cranberries and a lump of sweet potato while a freakish steroid laden bird’s carcass sits conspicuously upon a platter between you and a hideous in law is hardly ‘dining’ pleasure.
The human mind forces food down in such a setting, it longs for a steakhouse with full bar. A dessert made from anything but a vile gourd. A place where it can be free of the constraints of obligation and sentimentality.
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21st November 2012 at 8:57 pm
sensetti says:
To all TBP’S
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21st November 2012 at 11:39 pm
Reverse Engineer says:
Thanksgiving Memories now UP on the Diner Blog!
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org/blog/2012/11/22/thanksgiving-memories/
RE
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21st November 2012 at 5:17 am
ecliptix543 says:
Bad day there, sangell?
My ritual for nearly two decades has been to spend Thanksgiving evening at a random interstate exit Waffle House, order a cheese omelet with hash browns and raisin toast, go through a pot of coffee (at least), and observe the destitute and assorted trailer park vagrants. After about two hours of listening to and watching what transpires, ANYBODY would feel thankful about their life.
Case in point – I guess it was about fourteen or fifteen years ago at one of the four WH’s in my former hometown of Murfreesboro, TN, when one of the waitresses actually told me that working graveyards at Waffle House was the pinnacle of her career. Of course, she didn’t use the word ‘pinnacle’ since it has too many syllables and is difficult with only three teeth, but she got the point across. I had been nearly suicidally depressed during that point in life – until Random Snaggletooth’s confession. By the time I got back to my shithole apartment, my depression was miraculously cured!
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21st November 2012 at 6:17 am
Reverse Engineer says:
“Case in point – I guess it was about fourteen or fifteen years ago at one of the four WH’s in my former hometown of Murfreesboro, TN, when one of the waitresses actually told me that working graveyards at Waffle House was the pinnacle of her career. Of course, she didn’t use the word ‘pinnacle’ since it has too many syllables and is difficult with only three teeth, but she got the point across. I had been nearly suicidally depressed during that point in life – until Random Snaggletooth’s confession. By the time I got back to my shithole apartment, my depression was miraculously cured!”-Eclipitx
There but for Fortune go you and I Ecliptix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh3fV-2rnA4
RE
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21st November 2012 at 6:28 am
Novista says:
What’s really funny is the Thanksgiving MYTH, perhaps the first in the New World.
And Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be the national bird. Oh the humanity! Oh well, whatever cranks your engine, enjoy.
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21st November 2012 at 7:39 am
JIMSKI says:
In the true spirit of thanksgiving our family is going to drive out to Indian Hill, break down a mcmansion door, and tell everyone we live there now get out or we will kill you.
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21st November 2012 at 9:10 am
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Just so you know, and apropos of the current fracas in the ME, the Thanksgiving turkey named “Peace” that Obama pardoned last year had to be euthanized this week.
No details were available from the spokesperson at the 500 acre farm where the pardoned turkeys go to roam and live out their natural lives without fear of roasting pans and giblet gravy, but it should be noted that a turkey dinner served by people in traditional dress can be had for $17.50.
In other news, apparently in Massachusetts, there are gangs of wild turkeys attacking joggers and children awaiting their school buses. Some of these turkeys have even attacked local homes. The solution is to shoo the birds away with tennis rackets, sticks and golf clubs, reminiscent of the Brits in “Sean and the Dead” fending off zombies with cricket bats and lacrosse nets-with about as much effectiveness. Can you say “Buckmaster 870 29 ga shotgun”?
Tomorrow we will be treated to the spectacle of millions of Amerikan Sheeple stampeding to the stores for their Black Friday discounts on cheapass crap made in China that will fall apart just in time for another display of mindless consumerism. Sorta like the life cycle of the Thanksgiving turkeys…
Say, you don’t think Amerikans are being bred to be like Thanksgiving day turkeys do you? We are getting fatter, stupider, more complacent, more dependent on our Masters to see to our every want and need, denied the freedom to roam without controls and checkpoints, fed crappy food and then millions are killed off in wars every 30-40 years or so. The American Turkey was a smart, fierce and independent bird, much admired by Ben Franklin who thought its traits qualified it to be the National Bird. Now look at it – and us.
Surely not.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving TBPers.
Thanks God at least we are not turkeys. Or are we?
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21st November 2012 at 10:32 am
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Oops. Meant 20 ga shotgun. Time to go shoot mine.
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21st November 2012 at 10:35 am
AWD says:
ecliptix543
Great idea. Nothing hits the spot like a greasy WH omlete in the company of people with 3 teeth in their mouth.
HZK
Obama pardons a turkey, but lets diplomats get murdered. Prog on!
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21st November 2012 at 11:24 am
GoAheadEnvyMe says:
you and your fat ass. yea i called ya fat. look at me. i look so good naked i get ogled by my underwear. fatties to the left of me, lardasses to the right, here i am just trying to squeeze through…
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21st November 2012 at 5:49 pm
ecliptix543 says:
AWD – The greasy omelets aren’t that bad if it’s only once a year, plus I count on the battery acid nature of the coffee to disassemble most of the complex triglycerides and saturated fats, turning them into blast furnace farts that hit about six hours later. As long as I’m not still in the car or in an elevator with people I’ll have to see again later, fuck it.
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21st November 2012 at 8:00 pm
online marketing says:
I will be pretty sure We have look at this same kind of declaration elsewhere, it ought to be gaining interest with the world.
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21st November 2012 at 2:00 am