Flashback – The Blame Game

Many Americans stumble through life following rules of thumb they heard somewhere while making no attempt to verify their effectiveness: drink 8 glasses of water a day; avoid eating fat; wolf down Vitamin C for a cold; shun fast food, etc. They take the same attitude toward so many myths: fear GMOs and food additives; fear nuclear power; fear fluoridation of drinking water; fear vaccines; worry about (extremely rare) school shootings and child abduction and more. When anything goes wrong they look for someone else to blame and to the government to fix it. Many legislators understand and relish their role as savior, which allows this lack of responsibility to continue.

 

Here from almost 7 years ago are my comments on this tendency to blame and depend on others to help.

[I just finished reading a book called Scapegoat:  A History of Blaming Other People. In it the author tells how, back as far as the Garden of Eden, we have been finding others to blame for our problems and shortcomings. We have blamed foreigners, other religions, the rich, the poor, bankers, God, Satan, witches, priests, kings and animals, even the weather. I think he left out all the “Bigs”: big business, big pharma, big tobacco, big oil, big government, big banks and the rest. No one takes responsibility and it began with Adam blaming "the woman" and Eve blaming the serpent.

This was coincident with two news articles: one about a common whipping boy, MacDonald’s, and the other about our lack of faith in the government.

The first is in the form of a video.  A high school science teacher from Iowa challenged his students to develop a diet for him based purely on the menu from McDonald’s. They were instructed to vary his meals and keep the total intake of calories and fats to within set guidelines. After eating three meals everyday from MacDonald’s and beginning an exercise program where he walked for 45 minutes a day, he lost 37 pounds and his cholesterol dropped from 249 to 170. This flies in the face of popular opinion and documentaries like “Super-size Me” that try to shift the blame from individual behavior to the fast food industry. As the teacher says, “It’s our choices that make us fat, not MacDonald’s.” Behavior has consequences.

The second related piece of news is the results of a recent poll showing that about 70% of Americans have little faith in government. “The percentage of Americans saying the nation is heading in the right direction hasn't topped 50 in about a decade.” Many are looking for fundamental changes in the structure of government, as “61 percent are pessimistic about the system of government overall and the way leaders are chosen.” The underlying premise here goes against the idea of responsibility as we look to the government to solve our problems and worry about their inability to do so, instead of being more self-reliant.

Perhaps it’s time to stop looking for someone else to blame, whether it be the government, fast food, or any of the other popular targets. It’s time to start solving our problems with better choices all the time.]

Flashback – Does Luck Have a Half-life?

This takes us back almost seven years to the minimum wage protests at fast food restaurants. The question is whether people learn to change behavior when they are bailed out from predictable consequences. I have long argued that the reason you can’t raise a family on the minimum wage is that no one should start a family if they can only get a minimum wage job. Bad luck is not forever.

 

People who caught a bad break certainly should be helped, but behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Irresponsibility rewarded breeds more. Over the past seven years a lot of irresponsibility has been rewarded. Here are my 2013 comments:

[More protests are breaking out around the plight of fast food workers unable to survive on the minimum wage. They are demanding a wage increase to $15 an hour. The news has presented the arguments pro and con, but have usually given more time to the protesters, sometimes, as in this CBS piece, picking out one as a kind of “poster child” for the cause. The hidden problem is that minimum wage, unemployment extensions, food stamps and other proposed government solutions ignore behavioral factors.

A primary argument in favor of this issue tells us that all these people are less fortunate, that they need a helping hand to get back on their feet, that "there, but for the grace of God,” go we. They completely ignore well-known wisdom that behavior has consequences. We are presented with the argument that every one of these fast food workers is merely down on his luck or a victim of a bad economy, and that the situation has nothing to do with consequences of behavior. This unbelievable scenario is widely accepted by otherwise rational people. The media and many politicians never challenge it.

This leads to an interesting comparison: In other circumstances, how do caring people really act? If your teenage son sits on the sofa all day playing videogames, ignoring homework and refusing to do his chores, do good parents excuse the behavior and cover for him? Do they pass it off with, “That’s OK; he’s going through a tough time”? Even non-parents know the answer. Good parents will institute consequences for this poor behavior, knowing that if they don’t, life and reality will later institute much harsher consequences. Teenage sons can be very difficult, but good parents anticipate with a pattern of similar, consistent reactions to deal with natural childhood resistance and laxness. That’s how caring people act. They don’t always come to the rescue – behavior that makes the rescuer feel powerful, but often causes long-term harm to the one rescued. When the bad situation is a bad break, sympathy and a leg up are appropriate. If the son is mugged and loses money, parents may reimburse him for the loss. If he loses it gambling, that’s the consequence of bad behavior. Bailing him out is inappropriate, dulls the impact of the consequence and no learning occurs. (For an extreme example see the recent case of "affluenza" in Texas.)

Returning to the case of minimum wage employees, especially those presented by the media and never challenged, we must ask if it was bad luck or consequences that contributed to the situation. If it’s luck, then some temporary help is appropriate, because bad luck does have a kind of half-life or statute of limitations. A little help can turn things around, but caring people do not bail out from consequences. That only fosters more problematic behavior.

Even in these seemingly innocent human-interest stories the determination requires only a few simple questions. Where did those two or three children come from? Where is the father (or fathers)? What contribution is he making? If none, why not? Did the workers finish high school; were drugs ever involved; are they applying for better jobs, are they looking for ways to increase skills, etc., etc.? What is the long-term plan, if any? (CBS later reported that their "poster-child" example turned down promotions more than once because it didn’t fit her preferred personal schedule. Another news story told of a kind social worker repairing at minimum cost the car of a woman who hasn't been able to work in 5 years due to a neck injury. She can't work, but she can drive?!)  

Looking at the situation through the behavioral lens would probably determine that many of these people are not victims. Many are living with the consequences of earlier choices. Should caring people run to bail them out, labeling them all as “less fortunate,” as the compassionistas would have us believe? Not only do they not learn and grow, but the next generation, poised to make the same mistakes, sees no example to discourage them from following the same path. So, the current, non-behavioral approaches, which lump them all into the same category, lead not to solutions but to perpetual problems.]

Economic Understanding

Everyday we see on the news some reference to economic results or statistics. These should be of interest to everyone, not just those Wall Street tycoons and rich investors. Whether shopping at the grocery store, filling the car with gas or looking for a new job, economics affects our lives in so many ways.

One basic tenet of economics is the law of supply and demand. 

In a free market, the relationship between supply and demand determines the price of goods and services. Things that are scarce cost more because people who own them can wait to get the best offer from the highest bidder. Things that are common cost less because people who need them have a choice of sources; they can take their time to shop around for the best deal. As the supply of a product increases, the price goes down, simply because there is more of it. The opposite is also true.

This idea of supply and demand is behind many price changes, but it hits close to home when it affects jobs and wages. 

A couple of weeks ago the Business Insider ran a headline that made the point clearly: “The US unemployment rate fell to 3.7%, a 48-year low, in September.  What should be good news is bad news for the fast food and retail industry.” Why would it be bad news for the likes of McDonalds and Wal-Mart? The answer is supply and demand.

When the unemployment rate drops to today’s historic lows, the supply of available workers has decreased. That pushes up the cost of hiring people, that is, buying their services. Many of those jobs typically do not require a high level of education. Needed skills can be learned on the job. But with openings at many potential employers, workers would wisely look to where they could get the best deal – selling their skills to the highest bidder as fast-food locations and retail outlets compete for their time and loyalty.

But there is a downside to this as well. As I have written often before, there is no magic money tree.

The Business Insider continues: “Companies are giving workers higher pay and better benefits to compete – and trying to figure out how to cut labor hours by replacing employees with robots.” The higher wages and benefits must be paid for somehow. Do they pass along the added costs to their customers by raising prices? Do they try to absorb the added costs by making their operation more efficient? In the first case, it would be illegal to collude with their competition to get everyone to raise prices. They must continue to compete honestly. In the second case, using robots is one answer. Fast-food restaurants, grocery stores, banks and others have already increased the amount of self-service they expect from their customers.

Neither of these options is evil. People have raised prices and used automation for years. They are just trying to stay in business. Long distance phone calls used to be very expensive until they replaced operators with computers. Now distance is not even a consideration.

But what happens when the controlling factor is not supply and demand, when instead the government forces or coerces companies to pay more? For example when Senator Bernie Sanders wants McDonald's to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, they have the same options, raise prices or find ways to reduce overall labor costs. 

Notice that when Amazon came under the same pressure, they did promise all workers a $15 minimum wage. But according to CNBC, “the company is getting rid of incentive pay and stock option awards.” Although Amazon denies it, many workers complained that they will make less with the pay raise than they did before with the other benefits.

With a little economic understanding, none of this comes as a surprise, but people continue to act like there really is some magic money tree and that any well intentioned changes just make the world a better place with no ramifications whatsoever. Then, when the robots fire up and companies are only willing to hire people with $15-an-hour skills to fill the few jobs that are left, where do young people go for a first job experience? Where do today's fast-food workers find other employment?

New Study, Indeed!

Here is another no-brainer for the discipline-challenged.  According to this source, researchers at Harvard University released late last month “a major study” investigating the influence of behavior on longevity.  They used lifestyle questionnaires and medical records from 123,000 volunteers to understand how much longer people could live if they made some simple adjustments to their lifestyle.

The dramatic headline read: Five Habits That Can Add More Than a Decade to Your Life.”  That is an announcement sure to capture attention, especially for people looking for the easy answer, the magic bullet, to ensure longevity.  In this era of fads and gurus one is tempted to suspect such a new discovery would be about a vegan diet, avoiding processed foods with their additives and preservatives, eating only local or organic produce, going gluten-free and shunning the GMOs and fast food, drinking only bottled water instead of tap water or discarding the artificial sweeteners – and don’t forget the periodic detox.  These are the so-called secrets we hear about daily, the warnings we hear about on the news, fears that advertisers pick up on in their promotions and food packaging.  Surely a high-profile study from Harvard with a very large sample size would be able to validate at least some of these popular beliefs about healthy lifestyles.

Actually what they came up with in 2018, they could have easily come up with in 2008 or 1998.  As a matter of fact, except for some of the wording, this was common knowledge in 1968!

Here it is, straight from the article:  “The five healthy habits were defined as not smoking; having a body mass index between 18.5 and 25; taking at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, having no more than one 150ml glass of wine a day for women, or two for men; and having a diet rich in items such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains and low in red meat, saturated fats and sugar.”

Wow!  Imagine that! If we don’t smoke, keep our weight down, drink alcohol only in moderation, exercise, and eat healthy foods, we have a better chance of living longer, even 10 years longer.  Notice that the recommended foods were available 50 years ago, and they made no mention of the fad foods, special fruits (acai berries), super-foods (beet juice), or ancient Chinese secrets with a new one coming into vogue every year like the colors in a fashion magazine.  Where is the mention of nutritional supplements that the majority of Americans pop every morning or evening?

It seems Harvard spent a good deal of time and energy confirming what we knew, or should have known, all along.  No easy answers?  What a disappointment!

Something About Eggs

Critical thinking and economic understanding lead to some interesting questions and answers on a wide variety of subjects.  This time it’s chickens and eggs.

My curiosity was aroused by a report about one company reconfiguring their operation to offer cage-free eggs.  With consumer demand for cage-free eggs at an all-time high, many fast-food chains and grocery stores are moving to completely cage-free in the next few years. “That means egg producers are under pressure now more than ever to go from cage to cage-free.”

In response to that pressure, they asked a contractor to build stronger cages and “design a [new] building around the cages and just wrap the cages with two inch insulated metal panels and completely eliminate the [existing] building.”  This seemed somewhat confusing as they were still talking about buildings and cages, but the new design would give the hens more options to “perch, run, nest and fly.”  A conveyor belt will move about a million eggs a day from the new buildings to an adjacent grading facility.  Overall it seemed like a small but costly change.

Research into the once-simple subject of chicken eggs shows that today’s choices include standard, cage-free, organic or free range. What are the advantages if any?

WebMD gives some information about the health benefits.  “'Those terms (organic, free-range, and cage free) have nothing to do with contamination. That does not assure eggs will be salmonella-free,' says Mike Doyle, PhD, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety.”

The Food Safety News reinforced this information from a legal standpoint.  “There’s no food safety argument to be made for cage-free eggs versus those from chickens in other types of housing, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Nor are cage-free eggs more nutritious.”

WebMD adds organic eggs are from hens “that may be kept in any kind of caging system, but generally are cage free. They eat an organic feed and don’t receive vaccines or antibiotics.” They must have access to the outdoors, but it may be just a porch or patio.

Since there is no health benefit, then it’s all about the chickens.  Some animal advocates argue that it’s not humane to keep the hens caged up with little leg- or wing-room.  We should care enough about them to afford them a more pleasant life.  But a summary of studies from the Iowa Farm Bureau explains “the hen mortality rate in…cage-free systems was higher than in conventional production because of the ‘pecking order’ in flocks.”  The bigger ones often peck to death the smaller, weaker ones.  Likewise they “tend to have more breastbone injuries from flying inside a barn.”  Air quality is often not as good due to the chickens scratching and stirring up dust.

So maybe the simplistic view of happier chickens is not a valid justification.  Despite that, another site called The Spruce takes the same stance: “At the very least, getting cage-free eggs means you've avoided supporting the worst of the egg industry's all too common practices” of keeping hens in overly cramped quarters.  Again, it sounds good and caring in the abstract, but ignores those real world issues pointed out above. 

All Pet News goes even further, criticizing some cage-free operations for meeting only minimum standards.  They may still keep hens confined for part of the day.  They ask, “How can I eat without feeling guilty?”  This gets to the heart of the matter.

It is becoming more common today for advertisers to coerced shoppers into paying more for food with pseudo-scientific guilt trips about feeding only the best to your family.  Now the animal-rights advocates pile on with concerns for the chickens’ lifestyle.  And each of these adds cost to our grocery bill.  Again from the Food Safety News:  “To meet all the increased demand for cage-free eggs such changes are projected to create, producers will have to invest $9 to $10 billion to switch to cage-free housing, according to some industry estimates. Cage-free eggs currently cost $1 to $2 more per dozen than eggs from hens kept in battery cages.”  That is a cost to everyone, not just to the people pushing for the change; and as always the poor will be the ones most affected – that’s poor people not poor hens.

In an ideal world, we should each be able to make our own choice about eggs: standard, cage free, etc.  That should be the case for all food.  Unfortunately, when a single-minded, vocal minority begins the emotion-charged campaigns using fear, guilt and compassion to manipulate a naïve public, producers, retailers, restaurants and advertisers are forced to respond to the pressure of shifting consumer demand.  (Remember the baseless “pink slime” fuss a few years ago?)  Then our choices are limited, and everyone is forced to pay more.

If the Burgers Don’t Kill You, the Packaging Will!

A few days ago I turned to CNN Health to find this distressing headline: “Report finds chemicals in one-third of fast food packaging.”  First, everyone knows chemicals are bad.  Just put the word in a headline and you get attention.  Second, everyone knows that fast food is bad.  It makes you fat and sick.  Put both in a research report and news organizations are bound to jump on it, seeing another opportunity to put everyone in a panic, hopefully guaranteeing that they will comeback for more scary details.  Journalism today is about getting pageviews. And there is no better way to do that than with a hard-hitting health scare.

For the record, my Merriam-Webster defines chemical as a substance obtained by a chemical process.  Such a process may occur by itself, as for example burning or rusting, or be caused by an outside force.

This article, “Everything is Made of Chemicals,” describes a cup of tea as a “cocktail of butanol, iso amyl alcohol, hexanol, phenyl ethanol, tannin, benzyl alcohol, caffeine, geraniol, quercetin, 3-galloyl epicatchin, 3-galloyl epigallocatchin and inorganic salts.”  So there are many good chemicals, but the use of the word, as in “chemical warfare” or “chemical dependency” has given it an automatic negative connotation.

As for fast food itself, all things in moderation applies.  The 2004 documentary “Super Size Me” did a lot to spread the rumor that all fast food is bad.  But since then it has been debunked by many and characterized as a joke, a stunt, and full of misinformation.  In 2014 an Iowa high school science teacher actually lost weight on a McDiet proposed by his students.  Furthermore, the Super-Size-Me experiment has never been reproduced.  But the original misperception thrives.

So the headline itself, calculated to portray scary health news, is based on a couple of widely held but basically false beliefs.

Now back to the story.  The report featured in the CNN headline came from the Silent Spring Institute, not the most objective source.  It said researchers found fluorinated chemicals in one-third of the fast food packaging tested.  They took 400 samples of packaging from 27 fast food chains.  That seems like a decent sample size, but then they split it into 6 categories.  Now we have sample sizes of about 65 to 70 making it far less reliable for drawing generalizable conclusions.

In conclusion they tell us, “The packaging your food comes in could also have a negative impact on your health” because similar chemicals that have “largely been phased out” have been “linked to” several diseases.  That’s not exactly how they put it, but when you put all the information together it’s hardly very persuasive.

Fluorinated chemicals are used in fast food packaging for their grease-repellent properties, but are also used safely in many different products from carpeting to auto parts, from hospital gowns to the surface of touchscreens, from body armor and other protective clothing to nonstick cookware.

With such a variety of applications, it almost seems silly even to ask how we can protect ourselves from them in fast food packaging, but they do.  "For people who wish to reduce their exposure to these chemicals, they may be able to take some steps ... for instance, by taking the food out of the packaging sooner rather than later.”

Of course standing in most fast food restaurants, it’s easy to observe how little time the food stays in the packaging.  When it comes off the grill or out of the fry basket it goes into the packaging and the cashier generally puts it immediately into the bag and hands it to the customer.  Even if you drive all the way home to eat, the exposure time (to perhaps dangerous chemicals) is probably less than twenty minutes.

People are likely get more exposure from their carpets, touchscreens and nonstick cookware.  But that’s not the point when a journalist can compose scary headlines or a research group can use it as a reason to entice more donors.  Critical thinking, People!

Buzzwords and Endorsements

Good news for advertisers!  They don’t have to present us with facts or evidence.  They don’t even have to tell us about benefits.  By just relying on buzzwords and endorsements, they get our business.  Sometimes though, it just doesn’t work out well for the advertisers or for the customers.

Buzzwords, which I have also referred to as trigger words, are those words that we have been taught through endless repetition to believe are good, wholesome and healthy.  They are words like all-natural, gluten-free, ancient wisdom, holistic, herbal, alternative, organic and others.  The objective is to create a kind of favorable, knee-jerk response among customers.

For several years Chipotle has been doing this by promoting their commitment to better ingredients—including meat raised without antibiotics, pasture-raised dairy, and local and organically grown produce.  Rather than address each of these premises, let’s turn to recent news about corporate apologies after numerous problems.  Health officials closed one location in Seattle last week, citing “repeated food safety violations within the past year.”  This came not too long after an “outbreak of norovirus at a restaurant near Boston College sickened 141 people. In addition, a widespread E. coli outbreak linked to the chain has sickened 52 people across nine states, including 27 people in Washington State.”  The Wall Street Journal reports:  “Chipotle has experienced five disease outbreaks since July, including a salmonella outbreak involving tomatoes that sickened 64 people in Minnesota.”

In this case it was the locally grown produce used as a buzzword to lure us in, but now they are moving to reduce the uses of those local sources and increase centralized preparation of some vegetables in the interest of food safety.  This centralization comes after already changing their definition of locally grown from farms within about 200 miles of its restaurants to those within 350 miles.

I know locally grown food tastes better.  That’s why I have a garden in my backyard every summer; but when I go to a restaurant, especially a fast food restaurant, I am willing to trade off the little bit better taste for uncontaminated vegetables.

But when advertisers can’t attract us with buzzwords alone, why not add celebrity endorsements?  That always works.

Wen shampoo and conditioner had all that.  Endorsements came from Brooke Shields, Angie Harmon, Ming Na-Wen and others.  CBS news explains that they were “advertised online or on TV as a type of miracle for hair, promising to make it healthier than ever. Instead, the plaintiffs [in a class action lawsuit] claim a litany of problems, ranging from scalp irritation to extreme hair loss.”

How can a miracle in a bottle cause all those problems?  Many studies have shown that the expensive beauty products are little, if at all, better than the common brands, yet people are suckers for these kinds of promises and promotions.  One customer, after learning the hard way, posted on Amazon, "Please don't be fooled by commercials and the paid actresses."

Do we really stand a chance?  As advertisers work every day with focus groups and psychological testing to determine just the right way to cut through our resistance and sometimes our common sense, how can we resist and make good, rational decisions?  Critical thinking and perspective play a role here.  Food can be natural and organic, but nicotine is natural.  We should be careful, but sometimes we go overboard trying to be so careful and correct without understanding the real benefits and dangers that it backfires.  Likewise, there is no miracle for your hair.  Who are you trying to impress?  And if they don’t like you because of your hair, are they worth the effort?

Most of life can be happily led in the middle of the extremes.  Good enough is often good enough – and a whole lot easier, less problematic and less expensive.

Much Ado About Nothing

The latest fast food controversy involves Chipotle’s new advertising campaign announcing that virtually all its items would be free of genetically modified ingredients and antibiotics.  CBS reports that the non-profit Center for Consumer Freedom “launched a campaign last month asserting Chipotle's ‘G-M-Over It,’ campaign is misleading,” because their fast food can lead to obesity.  The counter argument shows pictures of morbidly obese people as examples of what can happen.

The company responds that they are sincere about their commitment, but sincerity is not the same as telling the truth.  You can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that doesn’t make it so.  Reporters side with the company, pointing out that the critic has been sponsored by tobacco and food companies in previous campaigns, that some of those campaign “targets have included unions, the Humane Society and Mothers Against Drunk Driving;” but questionable associations, possible conflicts of interest or just having an ax to grind might imply, but does not necessarily prove, falsehood.

First, despite trying to dress it up with catchy advertising as a healthy alternative, no fast food is really the healthiest choice.  On the other hand, it may lead to, but is not responsible for obesity – behavior is responsible for obesity in almost every case.

Second, what they are fighting about is beliefs and not facts.  GMOs have never been shown to be dangerous or even unhealthy.  Genetic modification has happened in nature for thousands of years, sometimes randomly and sometimes directed by humans and today it also happens in the laboratory.  I have provided details with sound references to back this up several times in the past (Genetic Engineering and More on the GMO Panic and Food Paranoia).

Experts agree.  Last spring, ten doctors from various institutions sent a letter to Columbia's dean of medicine calling for the dismissal of Dr. Oz from the staff.  The letter read in part:  “Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops."

So Chipotle tries to lure in customers based on unfounded beliefs that avoiding GMOs will somehow make what is essentially fast food healthier.  The company is counting on the fact that unlike beliefs in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, people will not grow out of this one.  They are, after all, sincere.

This reminds me of a story I heard in the Seventies from some college students who would mix chocolate milk in the dorm cafeteria with skim milk rationalizing that the low calories of one would offset the less healthy effects of the other, but still deliver the chocolate taste.  At least this had some logical backing.  Trying to rationalize indulging in fast food with the promise of some mythical non-GMO benefit does not even live up to that questionable standard.  So what are they fighting about?