CAFO system and Overeating 'The double trouble'

            

     In this blog I will discuss the relation between the cafo system and overeating, and how they complement each other. Overeating is a prospering reason of obesity, and obesity is one of the leading causes of death in The United States, on the other hand there is cafo system which promotes overeating by producing large quantity of cheap meat and dairy products.  According to Dr. Kessler's research in his book 'The End Of Overeating' he concluded, "certainly food had become more readily available in the 1970's and 1980" readily availability of food here means: cooked food; that means no more homemade food and  mom's don't need to cook food at home because everything is easily available in neighborhood food outlets and it cost less. Eating out just became a culture in the United States, what happened that lead to a sudden change?  Something happened in 1970-1980, something abnormal that changed the entire food system of the United States. People who were doing well earlier started to gain weight, this was something new something beyond expectations, earlier they ate and never felt the need to think about the numbers of calories they consume, and never gained so much weight to be noticed and point out as 'fat' and ‘obese’ and if there was any weight gain it was a little and could be taken care of easily. Suddenly the people started to gain weight so fast that the number of overweight people was unbelievable that even the researchers were not sure about the figures they were looking at, they kept on rechecking their data to assure the accuracy of the numbers they had, again and again until they were sure. Such dramatic change of million and million pounds in the population of United States, seemed to be the output of the increase in all these fast food joints, restaurants and eating hubs; they started serving food in massive quantity and on very minimum price with the help of CAFO's which made everything easier, faster and cheap for US food industries. CAFO's and overeating go hand to hand, they promote each other and their existence depends on each other, the more people eat the more CAFO's produce, the more CAFO's produce the more people are going to eat. According to Dr. Kessler "we have larger portion sizes, more chain restaurants, more neighborhood food outlets and a culture that promotes out door eating". That leads to eat more and more, I guess mankind has a tendency to buy things on cheap price even if it’s not necessary or wanted at the time and once  one  buys  the cheap food provided in massive  quantity they ‘eat it’ without giving a second thought about the pros and cons of it.

            Most of the people 'eat' not to satisfy their hunger but to satisfy the ‘psychological urge; the craving for food. People eat food to feel good, the concept of eating have changed for many people over the years, now they consider food as 'reward' rather than necessity to survive. The main ingredients that make people addicted to food as a source for seeking pleasure are salt, sugar and fat. According to Dr. Kessler "Sugar, fat and salt makes us eat more sugar, fat and salt”, the reward system in our brain demands fatty food, demands high calories food: food which is high on sugar, fat and salt because after eating these, a chemical named dopamine is released in our brain which makes us feel good, the same feel one gets from taking other drugs such as: cocaine, marijuana, weed and are as addictive as these drugs. People desire more food for more pleasure  and they can’t stop eating. Resisting temptation is so hard that one can’t tell the difference between what’s good and what’s not, temptation becomes more powerful then health. People need to understand the importance of food in our lives and should know the difference between healthy and non-healthy food. So they can make better decisions and protect their health. Excess of anything is not good, same applies on food too.