Did the Chicken of Tomorrow Cause the Obesity of Today?

Great Debates
1

Those who watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 will recognize the Chicken of Tomorrow reference. What I’m referring to in the Agricultural Revolution in general, and if it helped to cause our obesity problems, or perhaps more accurately, give an unrealistic idea of who is “overweight” by historical standards.

In all the anti-obesity tirades, I never seem to hear about the role that modern foods play in causing our weights to explode. I remember when I was growing up in grade school, being subjected to many scientific advancement films such as “Chicken of Tomorrow”. In it, the narrator can’t help crowing (sorry) about how chickens are being bred to be much larger than the Chicken of Yesterday. This was looked upon as a good thing.

It’s the same with other foods. Did you know that if you look over recipes from olden times, you’ll often run across instructions like “separate 12 eggs”. That’s because eggs are so much larger than they used to be. Nowadays to make said recipe, you would separate three eggs.

Take corn. Corn today is bred to have much more sugar than it had say fifty years ago. Even in Native American tribes that still use corn as their basic diet staple, diabetes is becoming epidemic where diabetes was unknown among previous generations. How much of our own diabetes problems are linked not only to high fructose corn syrup, (which is in nearly everything it seems) but corn oil and various derivitives?

Sure, sure, portion control. But with every mouthful enriched and packed with vitamins! and minerals! and god knows what else, who’s to know what the correct portions are?

Food today is not only more plentiful, but packed with more nutrition, nutrition that our bodies hate to see go to waste. So it goes to waist. And there are no starving time winters to work it off. And that skinless chicken breast still takes up the whole plate.

2

I hear people talking about how hormone fed food leads to obesity all the time.

3

The real problem is that we’re not all dirt poor. If we were, we’d find that it wouldn’t be as hard to avoid eating a full plate of chicken. And you might be able to find starving time winters now and then.

Okay, that was only half-serious. But seriously, you are complaining about a problem of plenty, and pining for the days when circumstances forced people not to overindulge. It’s a little hard for me to take that sort of argument seriously, since it’s not like anything is actually stopping people from eating less. Yes, it requires discipline and self control. Yes, I personally find that difficult. But it’s hardly the food’s fault.

4

We also, up until very recently, worked harder than we do now: we chopped firewood, we pushed the lawnmower, we had backyard gardens to weed and to attend, we had neighborhood fields for baseball, we met at bowling alleys for league night, we had neighborhoods with sidewalks.

Now, we sit in cars and commute. All things being equal, less activity means more fat for the same calories.

5

You guys are making my exact point.

I believe that because of our “improved” diet, we are naturally bigger than our outdated ideas of what is a “healthy” weight. Definitely, we need discipline in our diets and need to exercise to replace the physical labor we have lost. Perhaps our increased size is all part of our evolution, and we need to quit beating ourselves up if we can’t reach some “ideal” weight.

A steak the size of the palm of my hand does not satisfy. Perhaps science can work on that!

6

I don’t think anyone doubts that improvements in our food production and distribution are one of (if not the) leading cause for increased obesity.

Being obese isn’t thought to be unhealthy due to some set of traditional beliefs or societal morals. It’s thought to be unhealthy because empirical medical evidence shows it’s associated with a host of physical diseases (diabetes, heart disease, etc). So long as being obese makes it more likely that you’ll drop dead due to a heart attack, I doubt it will become “outdated” to think of it as unhealthy.

7

If nobody doubts that food improvement is a leading cause of obesity, I certainly never hear it being discussed.

Why does no one, for example, suggest growing corn bred to have less sugar for example. I’ve never even heard of that being mentioned.

8

I am not making the point that being fat is somehow now a good thing just because it’s easy to do.

And it’s not evolution to get fat and unhealthy because we’re eating in excess of our dietary needs. Evolution would be if we as a population began to favor a biology that could consume the larger quantity of food without becoming unhealthily fat. If that were happening, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Cut it into smaller peices, eat them slower, chew each one longer, and converse with others during the meal to fill the time between bites. Suddenly, it becomes statisfying!

9

Really? Looking at my Mrs Beeton’s (1906 edition), the recipes seem pretty normal, though I’ve not perused it closely. Have you factored in the larger families of those days?

10

I didn’t mean fat may be healthy. I’m saying “heavier” may be healthy.

I once applied to a gym that told me my ideal weight would be around 112 pounds. I am 5’8", and I believe it would be folly to try to fit myself into that not-so-round hole. Yes, I could be lighter than my present 200 pounds, probably about 30 I would say. But all sources tell me that 170 would be too much on my largish female frame. Luckily, I know better.

Oh, and Quartz, I believe Mrs Beeton’s editions go back even further than 1908, and were probably updated at the time. The recipes I was thinking of go back to the early 1800’s.
Evolution takes quite a long time, and we are just starting.

11

Then you aren’t paying attention. It’s a huge topic of discussion, I hear it all the time. Look into the arguments about organic vs factory farm food.

12

1861, per Mrs Beeton’s intro.

13

Is that a medical diagnosis, this “knowing better”?

When it comes to just looks, between certain ranges preferred heaviness is rather an esthetic choice. (The top of this range is around where you start developing additional ‘folds’, I’d think.) Myself I like a woman with a little padding on 'em, even. But this has squat to do with what’s healthy, and how we’re ‘evolving’.

14

I find most discussions of organic vs factory farm revolve more around pesticides, animal rights, and global warming (where “localness” becomes a factor) I’ve never heard someone claim factory farmed products make you fat. I’ve heard processed food makes you fat but again, nobody claims that “processed” is “improved”. Hormones was mentioned before. Yes, I think that’s get discussed but certainly not to the extent that that it should be.

Still no thoughts about cutting the sugar in corn? I am surprised.

15

Technology and genetic modification certainly is increasing the ease of growing food, but what is it doing to the food value and nutrient profile?

using the heavily hybridized “SuperUltraMegaRotYourTeethOutOfYourSkullSweet” corn as an example, corn has been bred and hybridized to both increase it’s sugar content and it’s durability and ability to withstand cross-country shipping, but at the cost of nutrients

From what I’ve been reading, open-polinated, non-hybridized Heirloom corn has a much shorter duration of flavor, typically it must be cooked and eaten as soon as possible, because the sugars start breaking down the moment the ear is pulled off the cornstalk, hybrid corn has less/slower sugar breakdown

This will be the first year I plant a garden, and I’ve made the conscious decision to avoid Hybrid seeds whenever possible, going for Heirloom/Open Pollinated/organic whenever possible, you have no idea how hard it is to find a non-hybrid corn in my area, 95% of the corn seeds sold in garden stores and hardware stores are hybrid, I did find a local shop that carries one variety of Heirloom corn out of at least thirty different types of corn, ONE variety

I plan to plant at least one “Three Sisters” type of garden (Corn, Pole Beans and Squash) to see how it works, as well as at least one “Square Foot” style raised bed

getting back on point though, technology has made growing faster and easier, I have some containers in our sunroom going the low-tech approach, basically big pots of cherry tomatoes, basil, and cucumber in one pot, a lettuce mix in another, and an upside-down planter growing a single cherry tomato plant, they get nothing more than southern-facing sun, water, and organic fertilizer, and they’re growing, slowly, the tomatoes were planted in November of 2008, and the tomatoes are just starting to get “shiny”, signifying a color change is on the way

on the kitchen counter, I have an Aerogarden 3 with a Golden Harvest cherry tomato plant, also planted in November, it’s been steadily producing ripe tomatoes now for the last month or so, upstairs I have two Aerogarden 6’s, one with cherry tomatoes that are now on their second and third crop, and one that has just finished up a gourmet herb garden that lasted for four months, the basil and mint are still going strong now even, it’s now planted with a Micro Tom cherry tomato (3" tall and producing tomatoes), two everbearing strawberry plants, some Lemon Basil, a yellow Dwarf Rose, and some sprouting Marigolds, below the AG6’s, illuminated by two twin-tube 4’ flourescent shop-lite fixtures with grow/daylight bulbs and warm white/cool white bulbs, I have a homebrew hydroponic rig with one lettuce pod left that refuses to die, it was planted in November too, and my Mint plant from the upper AG, I also have a few dirt pots of Stevia seedlings, Chives, Snap Peas and Borage

my point is this, here in New England, we have a very short growing season if it wasn’t for my hydroponic rigs, homebrew and AG, and flourescent shop-lite fixtures, I wouldn’t be able to even START crops until May or June, due to a combination of cold weather and limited daylight, there would also be crops that I couldn’t grow at all because they take too long, or aren’t cold-hardy (we’re in Zone 5a here)

If we were limited to the technology available during the “Chicken of Tomorrow” MST short, we’d be very limited in what we could grow, we’d have to use the grow time to grow hardy, easy-to-stockpile staples like (dried) beans, winter squash, and corn, no tomatoes, no melons, …must…resist…urge…to…pun…DAMMIT, I can’t help myself… and no bananas…

16

If there was less sugar in corn, wouldn’t they just use more corn syrup? The intent of the stuff is to adjust the flavor a certain amount, not to use a specific amount of corn.

17

No, it means knowing what’s reasonable. Suppose that person at the gym had given that 112 pound figure to someone not so reasonable. Suppose they became determined to reach that 112 pound weight, because it was “ideal”. Can you say eating disorder?

18

I can say “second opinion”. There are several internet calculators that give ideal weight estimates; I picked one and it (using several calculations, and a guess as to your age) it offers 158lbs, 125 - 164 lbs, 139 - 153 lbs, and 141 lbs as possible calculations (preferring the first two). Based on that, one has to wonder where that gym was pulling its number from. (Charitably we won’t even suggest the “drum up more business” calculation. Won’t even hint at it. Not even once. Won’t even mention it.)

Obviously, if you’re operating on a terribly incorrectly low goal weight, that’s not really a good thing. But neither is pulling an incorrectly high goal weight out of midair and operating off of that.

19

Well, my figure of 170 is only about ten pounds more than what you come up with.
And I’m comfortable with that. I like being big. It intimidates the bad guys.

20

Well, the 158 is an estimate based on looks - if your goal is to actually be healthy, they suggest you stay in the 125 - 164 range. (They disparage the latter two calculation methods but include them for completeness.) So you might as well drop six more pounds and stave of horrific death, eh? You’d still be somewhat big and intimidating.