Snack Aisles
By Dean L. Jones
Have you noticed how grocery markets are increasing their number of snack aisles? Stores make it their business to have a sweet aisle, sugary soda aisle, and even sometimes several saltiness aisles for ultra processed potato and corn packaged items.
Ultra-processed foods include, but are not limited to, breakfast cereals, pizza, soda, chips, packaged baked goods, microwaveable frozen meals, instant soups, sauces, and much more salty/sweet/savory snacks. The gush of offering and selling tasty quick items is hurting Americans’ health, particularly the easy to fleece young folks who just do not know better.
The marketing blitz of products carried by stores make for the typical scene like the one I saw today with young girls urging their mother to buy the processed sugary boxed cereals. The mother easily gave in and placed into their shopping cart ten (10) non-nutrient 99¢ cereal boxes for her three young daughters. Same day and store, another typical scene occurred at the checkout line where four (4) young boys, without parental supervision, spent eleven dollars on candies and chips, all of which was gathered from adjoining snack aisles.
None of these purchases in the least are considered earth shattering because nationally 90% of the money Americans spend on foodstuff goes to buy processed items. This is a sad commentary on our American society where automobile gas station ‘Food Marts’ carry 50% of what the average American routinely eats every day.
Researchers report that less than 1% of the daily calories of Americans come from vegetables. This bad-mannered food consumption is happening in the midst of knowledge shared everywhere on the health dangers that drive disease from eating too much added sugar and saturated fat. This is not to mention how health specialists give data on by decreasing sugar consumption a person can lose weight, prevent insulin resistance and other chronic diseases.
Globally, more than $1 trillion each year is spent on treating sugar and junk food-related diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, to heart disease and cancer. Annually, obesity is responsible for an estimated 500,000 cancer cases worldwide.
In 2012, pre-diabetes and diabetes affected 1 in 4 Americans. In the same way, something rarely talked about is how half of all adults living in California are Pre-Diabetic or Diabetic. So California is not unusual from the country, however, in California blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans are nearly twice as likely to have diabetes as whites.
The disease called ‘Diabetes’ has become so common that many Americans speak about it as though a cure is near and there is no need to dramatically change their poor daily eating habits. Well, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke, blindness, kidney disease, nervous system disease, amputations, dental disease, pregnancy complications, and cancer can all be linked to poor dietary practices. So, spend little time in the snack aisles, and if you find yourself in these aisles shop SugarAlert!
Since 2007, Dean steadfastly shares his understanding on the dangers of eating processed sugar.
