Quote:
Originally Posted by Zei
If everyone lost five pounds it would save millions in health costs? NOT.
|
Certainly not a message that an anorexic needs to hear, that's for sure.
But really - 5 lbs? And what if that's not enough to improve EVERYONE's health enough to save that 100 million. That's what they project the savings would be
over 5 years.
So let's do the math...
That means they expect to save 20 million/year, which still sounds somewhat impressive.
But hold on - England has a population of around 53.5 million people.
So a savings of 20 million divided by the population of 53.5 million amounts to an annual savings for the NHS of... TA-DA! approximately
37 pence per person, per year.
Well! I must say, I'm certainly impressed with how much that 5 lb weight loss will save in each person's health care costs, as long as EVERYONE loses 5 lbs.
Sarcasm aside...
I genuinely hope that they heed Dr Maholtra's common sense recommendations.
The food industry guy - I sympathize with him. He's right that the food production industry has been expected (and applauded) for continuing to put themselves in harm's way to keep the nation fed during the pandemic. He's also right that BOGO deals work best with items that have a long shelf life, and if you switch BOGO deals to perishable foods, are you really going to be able to eat all that before it goes bad? I understand him doing whatever he can to defend the processed food industry too - he's trying to preserve the livelihoods of a tremendous number of employees in that industry.
The time has come for a huge change in the processed food industry though, mostly starting with asking the question - what can they produce that still has a reasonably long shelf life, uses an absolute minimum number of ingredients (preferably 5 or less). He's understandably confused about what else they can do, because the recommendations in the article focused on cutting back on fats and calories (and oh yes, sugar and salt), mentioning the fact that those recommendations would inherently exclude olive oil and bacon.
I suspect that if he works with Dr Maholtra (and others who truly understand nutritional and metabolic issues), together they could come up with quite a few foods that would have a relatively long shelf life, some that are even shelf stable, which would be much better for the national waistline and health, and could greatly improve national health, while revolutionizing the processed food industry.
Somewhere along the line though, they need to get the national recommendations straightened out, stop demonizing fats (especially saturated animal fats and cholesterol) and salt, and put the blame where it really belongs - excess starches and sugars.