"Healthy" Foods: yeah, they're kind of a marketing "scam"

Original article: http://www.popsci.com/calling-food-healthy-doesnt-really-mean-anything

Calling Food 'Healthy' Doesn't Really Mean Anything
Nutritionists and food policy experts say the word is nothing more than a marketing term
By IAN GRABER-STIEHL OCTOBER 10, 2016

Back in 1994, the FDA decided to regulate a word that began popping up on food packages across the country: healthy. At the time, fat was America’s pariah fuel source and as such, these new “healthy” labels mostly dominated foods that were low in fat, letting foods high in added sugar slip through the cracks as “healthy.” Now, as more and more research shows the health implications of eating too much sugar, the FDA is stuck scrambling to find a work around.

At the end of September, the agency announced that it would begin the process of redefining its official meaning of healthy, and would take into consideration public opinion. However, nutritional and medical experts as well as public health policy specialists say that the real root of the problem may actually be the word itself. They argue that defining healthy should not, and perhaps cannot be done.

In September, a paper published in JAMA revealed that in the 1960s, as research started coming out that linked sugar and fat to a host of health conditions, sugar interest groups began funding and publicizing research that focused only on the latter link. Diet fads came to capitalize on that data, and turned “fat” into a four-letter word.

What did Socrates teach us? Nothing.

While there is no question that Ray Kurzweil is very intelligent and has contributed a lot of great work to the world, he strikes me as an excellent example of the unfortunate fact that, in our world, you don't actually have to fully know what you're talking about; you just have to come off as solidly confident that you unquestionably do. And then a lot of people will see that as an obvious sign of your "genius" and flock to you.

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So much of the time I have so many thoughts in my head, so many things I want to say, or ask, or propose, so many connections I want to make, sometimes it's overwhelming, and stifling. Besides, at the end of the day, whatever I might have to say, or think, or might have to offer, doesn't really matter anyway.