The Enlightenment

Portion sizes at American restaurants have gone up over the decades.

And when I say gone up, I mean REALLY gone up, as in fast food portion sizes are 25% bigger than they were 40 years ago.

You know what else is crazy? All this added sugar you see in everything. Cereal, canned food, even ketchup! I was devastated to find out that the real thing I was enjoying about ketchup all these years was its added sugar, after trying the sour, sugar-free version.

Have you ever had a can of green peas? It’s in a murky, sugary mixture that is nothing more than a blatant attempt to get you hooked on canned food. That stuff has a lot of sodium in it, too.

And cereal is basically poison. That bowl of cocoa puffs you’re making for your kid? It has enough added sugar to exceed their daily recommended value.

Not to mention, the greatest culprit of them all: high fructose corn syrup. It’s in everything, and it’s killing us. Want to know a little secret? It first started to be marketed to the food industry in the 70’s. You want to know when American obesity rates began to tick up? The 1970’s. Hmm.

In all seriousness, I think these things need to be regulated and banned. At a time when over 2/3rds of Americans are overweight and obese, 10% of Americans are diabetic, and the leading cause of death is preventable heart disease, these shameless tactics by big business to get us hooked on their food need to be banned.

Congress and the states should address the issue by passing laws banning or severely limiting added sugar and establishing review boards to assess steep fines or bans on foods that violate these rules.