It's pretty incredible that so much effort was even necessary. The solution was there at the start - put a chunk of iron in the pot - but despite the known and obvious health benefits and miniscule amount of effort, the population simply rejected it.
"Obvious" to you, not "obvious" to them. Plus what do they "know?" That some random person from affair has turned up and told them to start eating metal? You can try to explain the benefits but without the core underpinnings that we take for granted you will have to alter the explanation to their understanding.
Which might be do-able if they're open to learning and you've contrived an explanation they can wrap their head around. However a lot of particularly older people aren't that open to learning and aren't that easily trusting of foreigners.
It is very easy to sit in our ivory tower and pretend like we, in the west, are above it but the recent measles outbreak at Disneyland would beg to differ...
That's not very empathetic. If you were brought up with no formal education, little access to information outside of your sphere, and you knew most people that lived around you on a first name basis, you too would be as distrusting of strangers.
For all you know they could be trying to poison you to steal your land. To you their stuff might be worthless (a point you made abundantly clear) but to them that stuff is their entire livelihood and everything they have worked for. Something they might wish to pass down to their kids.
Your entire little rant there just comes across arrogant and judgemental.
Fact is, xenophobia is a problem of ignorance and ignorance is far more acceptable among people who have not had the opportunity to learn better than it is among people who have. You appear to have a surprisingly simplistic attitude to life - do you also judge an illiterate toddler the same way you would an illiterate college student?
I've spent a great deal of effort trying to convince people around me to do things that are clearly healthy in the short and long-term… Eat vegetables, drink enough water, avoid artificial colors, preservatives and sweeteners, exercise proper precautions in workshops. It's futile.
I agree it's frustrating that people won't simply believe facts about how to fix their health problems when presented to them, and then are happy to embrace superstitious symbols instead of logic. But I'm not surprised, considering how many people I know who complain about the common symptoms of dehydration daily but refuse to believe that what they need to do is just drink some water... But are happy to take an Excederin with Coca Cola to mask their dehydration headache.
I understand that they are a signal that what you are about to consume has been processed, and is likely unhealthy on balance; do you see an inherent problem with these ingredients?
That one isn't the greatest example of what I was trying to say. While I avoid additives I don't really often suggest to other people that they do.
My perspective is that additives are nutritionally neutral at best, and many may be mildly harmful. So, given the choice I don't consume them. If I'm shopping I would prefer something like butter vs Blue Bonnet margarine. I don't feel convinced of the safety of chemicals like Yellow #5, and if I need for my food to be fluorescent yellow for some reason, would prefer turmeric. I consider whole foods to be better tested over time for human health than a semi-synthetic concoction.
As you say, generally the presence of synthetic colors and presevatives tells me the manufacturer has the wrong priorities (cost and surface presentation vs flavor, freshness or nutrition).
An example of food I shun is the typical grocery store tortilla. Most are loaded with presevatives so they can last on the shelves for months, which gives them a bitter taste. When I compare one of those brands, with 10-15 ingredients, most of which aren't technically food, to what I'd call normal tortilla with 4 ingredients, all of which are something someone would have in their own kitchen, and it's clear the simple tortilla wins in every way but shelf life. Since I consume my tortillas within a couple of days and am willing to keep them in the refrigerator, presevatives enhancing shelf life benefits the manufacturer and distributors, but fails to benefit me in terms of flavor and possible negative nutritional effects.
I don't know about the colors and preservatives, but there were some very surprising results recently indicating that zero-calorie sweeteners were just as bad for your weight as sugar.
> I've spent a great deal of effort trying to convince people around me to do things that are clearly healthy in the short and long-term… Eat vegetables, drink enough water, avoid artificial colors, preservatives and sweeteners, exercise proper precautions in workshops. It's futile.
Given this is all crap lucky you haven't convinced many people. This is really really bad advice at most points, nothing advice with the rest.
Even eat vegetables is meaningless. Chips are vegetables and so are potatoes which I also don't think are very healthy.
Even eat vegetables is meaningless. Chips are vegetables and so are potatoes which I also don't think are very healthy.
Potatoes would fall under the starch food group, rather than vegetables. Vegetables, in the food pyramid/food group sense, are fairly well defined based on nutritional value.
Drinking game water... Generally preferable to dehydration.
Eating vegetables, well, some are nutritionally useless and can all be prepared in unhealthy ways. However, generally eating a varied diet wih fiber and fresh vegetables is healthy for people and hats my suggestion.
Artificial colors, preservatives etc... There's no good reason to eat these ingredients and many of them ate questioned for health effects.
Exercise proper precautions on workshops means actually wear eye protection, hearing protection, and follow fire codes in a trade I am involved in.
All seem like good ideas to me, and as noted, your attitude is about what I have come to expect - pointless rejection of obviously wise courses of action.
> Artificial colors, preservatives etc... There's no good reason to eat these ingredients and many of them ate questioned for health effects.
This sort of ignorant attitude is why we have a obesity epidemic.
What do people use instead of harmless 'Artificial' colors, preservatives and sweetners because of 'superstition', they add sugar and fat. Because it's a real world, with real people not theoretical.
Even drinking water is a dangerous topic, people start to believe coke is better than nothing. Dehydration is not a scary thing, like being hungry it's normal and ok as long as it doesn't go on to long.
There's no 'superstition' about artificial colors - many are implicated in health effects and banned in countries that take that more seriously than profits.
Adequate substitutes for colors include carrots, beets, and turmeric, which don't involve fat or sugar. I don't even believe fat and sugar are harmful... They're food.
The way to avoid presevatives is to eat food that's actually fresh. This isn't difficult to do.
Coke is certainly not better than nothing - that's the sort of thing I recommend water instead of. And, the topic is chronic dehydration that leads people to complain to me of headaches, muscle aches, etc and then, as noted, be frustrated when they refuse to drink somethin hydrating. Not sure why you think dehydration is not a problem.
"Artificial colors, preservatives etc... There's no good reason to eat these ingredients"
Sure there is. Artificial colors make food more attractive, which is an important part of the esthetic experience of eating. Don't believe me? Try blending all your meals up into a gray goo and see what that does for your eating enjoyment. Nutritionally it would be the same, but esthetically you'd be eating something that looked like vomit.
Preservatives keep it from going bad, which is a major health issue in most of the world. The "no preservatives" lifestyle is a luxury that is, in general, only available to those with high-tech western lifestyles. Other than very locally and very recently, people have been eating food with loaded with preservatives (including, most prominently, salt, but also sugar, nitrates, nitrites, lactic acid, benzoates, smoke...) for a long, long time.
The alternative to artificial colors is not very good... It's either using natural colorants such as carrots, beets or turmeric, or cooking food that doesn't require coloration to appear appetizing. Typically only very low quality food devoid of nutritional value resorts to artificial coloring.
Manufacturers can choose less harmful presevatives such as vitamin E vs bha/bht, but choose not to for their own economic reasons.
I'm able to avoid presevatives because I cook a lot of good myself, from scratch. This involves cooking vs say, watching tv and is actually cheaper than processed or fast foods. Cooking rice and beans from scratch is not first world privelege - eating synthetic compounded beans from Taco Bell is, actually.
Bulk rice and beans are cheaper than prepared foods, even at Whole Foods. If you're worried about scurvy, buy a lime for 30 cents.
I don't think the food scarcity in Guatemala is relevant. Kale and carrots and dairy products can be obtained for pennies a day, and meat is subsidized and readily available in raw form.
If you want to see the other side of that, which is abundance of low quality, toxic food, check out the various odd Heath problems that are on the rise in the US such as childhood obesity, diabetes, unexplained hyperactivity and so on.
"It's pretty incredible that so much effort was even necessary. The solution was there at the start - wash your hands before treating patients" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)
Educated men can ignore evidence. These women likely hadn't seen real evidence, and might not even know about the periodic system. It doesn't take much intelligence to detect things that kill fast, but detecting things that kill you slowly is hard.
Also, the health benefits probably weren't obvious to these women; they just heard strangers claim there were health benefits.
I think that's harsh. Education is expensive, necessary and completely inaccessible to those people.
We say "the fish has iron in it, you need iron" because we have a basic level of education. They say "the fish is lucky, I'll put that in the pot if the community says to" because community and tradition are good proxies for safety if you do not have that education.
Also, if we miss a pay check or a grocery store trip, we're fine. If they zig when they should zag it can mean death or deprivation. We should not lightly mock choices made when the stakes are so high and the known and understood information so low.
I don't have the answer here but I know that "well, Darwin will get them" isn't it.
