Here's an message I just sent to the Secretary of Agriculture ( SecAg@usda.gov ）：
President Obama is trying to reduce healthcare costs, but the USDA actively encourages people to eat higher-calorie, higher-fat cuts of meat by continuing to support use of categories such as 'Prime' and 'Choice', which Americans have been conditioned to equate with high-quality. Stop it!
Please shift to terms that reflect the NEGATIVE consequences of high-fat meat. Feedlots are bad for health, bad for the environment, and bad for the nation's well-being. It's time to put discontinue use of these outdated categories.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
C-units: a proposal to reduce healthcare costs
Here's an idea I submitted to www.healthreform.gov a few minutes ago...
Reduce healthcare costs significantly by attacking a major cause of illness: over-eating! Make it patriotic to lose weight and get fit. Make it UN-patriotic for businesses to push big portions and unhealthy foods.
Here's an idea: create a new unit equal to 100 calories. Call it a 'C-number', or something. Require restaurant menus and fast-food receipts to show the 'C-number' for each individual item. An order of french-fries might be 2.5 C-units. Pasta with cream sauce might be 11 C-units. Then have a big campaign to constantly ask people "what was your C-count today?" and push the fact that generally C-counts shouldn't be more than 20 per day. This would raise awareness that too many of us eat far too many calories, and (hopefully) raise the demand for more reasonable portions and healthier foods.
Of course, you don't need 'C-units' to count calories; but the advantage to 'C-units' have is that they would allow people to deal with smaller numbers. It's much easier to count to 20 than to 2000.
Reduce healthcare costs significantly by attacking a major cause of illness: over-eating! Make it patriotic to lose weight and get fit. Make it UN-patriotic for businesses to push big portions and unhealthy foods.
Here's an idea: create a new unit equal to 100 calories. Call it a 'C-number', or something. Require restaurant menus and fast-food receipts to show the 'C-number' for each individual item. An order of french-fries might be 2.5 C-units. Pasta with cream sauce might be 11 C-units. Then have a big campaign to constantly ask people "what was your C-count today?" and push the fact that generally C-counts shouldn't be more than 20 per day. This would raise awareness that too many of us eat far too many calories, and (hopefully) raise the demand for more reasonable portions and healthier foods.
Of course, you don't need 'C-units' to count calories; but the advantage to 'C-units' have is that they would allow people to deal with smaller numbers. It's much easier to count to 20 than to 2000.
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