The Appearance Trap

I’ve written before about how better decisions occur when we use critical thinking and avoid being swept away by our emotions.  Even searching for rational justification for feelings can be dangerous and costly.  Too often Americans let appearance, visual appeal, overly influence decisions whether they be about buying, hiring or making social judgments.  Evidence of this shortcoming abounds as cute kittens, happy babies and curious bears go viral on the Internet (even on national news), squeezing out substantive issues and real news.  Here are a few more recent examples.

Someone drove past an Iowa farm and snapped pictures of what have been dubbed fluffy cows.  As they hit Facebook and other social media, the farmer who owned the cows saw it as an opportunity to promote the “great people and cattle in the beef industry."  But others are worried “that the focus on ‘fluffy cows’ could backfire,” especially when responses on Reddit and Twitter sounded like this:  "That's too cute to kill" and "That almost makes me want to become a vegetarian."  Cattle are not pets and not comparable to teddy bears, but see how we are swayed by appearance.

A second series of stories focuses on the appearance of our food.  The first tells how some companies are moving toward more natural looking processed food, eliminating the perfect shapes of machine-cut meat for a sloppier, handmade look.  “Americans still love their fast food and packaged snacks, but they're increasingly turning their noses up at foods that look overly processed.”  Less perfect looking food is seen as more natural, wholesome and authentic.  See again the influence of appearance alone.

Beyond this issue of manufacturers trying to trick us with these tactics, grocery stores respond to our purely visual preferences by becoming increasingly fussy about the appearance of their produce.  “Many retailers insist that fruits and veggies meet exact cosmetic criteria, including specifications for size, color, weight, and blemish level — leading to culling and incorporating waste as part of doing business.  The article emphasizes that many are beginning moves to eliminate this waste, but still, according to the USDA:  “Food waste in the United States is estimated at roughly between 30 to 40 percent of the food supply."  Department of Agriculture estimates supermarket losses at $15 billion per year in fruits and vegetables alone.  Much of the overall waste can be attributed to appearance issues either at the store or at home after the purchase.

This reaction to appearance is quite predictable.  When I first saw the news story about the USDA agreeing to inspect a horse slaughtering operation in New Mexico on June 28, I expected a reaction from horse lovers.  In less than 3 days a lawsuit had been filed to stop it.

Horsemeat cannot be sold as food in the US and horses cannot be slaughtered without a USDA inspection.  Congress stopped funding the inspections in 2007.  Horses, however, may be exported as nearly 159,000 were last year.  At that point they may be slaughtered and sold for consumption in countries that allow it or used as feed in zoos.  One opponent argues:  "Horses have been our companions, fought battles with us, worked sun-up to sundown by our sides ... we will not abandon them now."   That’s pretty sweet and squishy and it reeks of the “Bambi Factor," but it’s not an economic argument. 

It’s not even a caring argument.  If horses cannot be slaughtered and are not healthy enough for export, or if the owners just can’t afford to keep them, what happens?  This source tells us that after the 2007 artificial ban (through the cutoff of funding) “the Government Accounting Office of Congress did a study that suggested horses were suffering more with the ban than without it.” 

So where does this love of horses leave us?  It leaves us in the same place as the preference for pretty produce and cute cows.  Gaps in critical thinking, leading with our hearts instead of our heads, result in waste, suffering and extra costs – but in our innocence, we are left feeling like we have done the right thing.

More on the GMO Panic

Many people are marching lately in protest of Monsanto and their genetically modified (GMO) seeds.  Despite good evidence to the contrary, they are worried that products containing genetically modified ingredients, especially corn and wheat, will be harmful to themselves and their children.  At the very least, they want those foods labeled so that “we know what we’re eating.”  Two questions to consider…

First, here is a story from the BBC about the problems of ash dieback, which is spreading throughout Britain.  An epidemic of fungus is killing ash trees, except “a strain of ash from Denmark originally bred nearly 100 years ago, which has shown an ability to tolerate the fungal disease, when virtually all its Danish relatives were wiped out.”  Scientists are looking for ways to crossbreed these trees with others to fight the fungus.  Those breeding techniques used 100 years ago on these trees were studied by Gregor Mendel and others, and employed by George Washington Carver to improve cotton and many other plants.  Today we have better food thanks to the efforts of these and many other scientists.

Question number one:  Why is it OK for Nature to modify genes or farmers and scientists to do it with 100-year-old techniques, but scary to study the genes themselves and make direct modifications?  In each of these cases, we are never absolutely sure of what we are going to get.

Earlier this month 118 people became sick with Hepatitis A; 47 required hospitalization.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked the outbreak to frozen berries.  This article gives the example of a mother of five who "went on a health kick and had been feeding her family fruit smoothies for breakfast for two weeks” before she was notified of the problem.  Her children’s vaccinations were up to date and they were fine, but her husband developed symptoms.  The berries were labeled:  "Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend" berry and pomegranate mix.

Question number two:  Is labeling, so that we know what we’re eating, really going to promote safety or will it just keep alive this unwarranted fear of GMOs and result in higher grocery bills for everyone?

Meanwhile the chief technology officer at Monsanto was among those awarded the prestigious 2013 World Food Prize, which “recognizes the work of individuals who have improved the quantity and availability of food throughout the world.”

Which brings up a bonus question:  Is it a good idea to let millions starve while elitist moms (with little or no scientific background) dictate what we can buy at the grocery store? 

A Turnaround on Vitamins

When reading about the pros and cons of dietary supplements, most people don’t think about ordinary multivitamins.  These have been recommended and taken by children and adults for years.  Anyone who does not eat the perfect diet, we are told, must take a vitamin to make up for any possible deficiency.  Long before ginseng, St. John’s wort, chondroitin and other more exotic supplements entered mainstream America, the daily multivitamin and mineral tablet (MVM) was accepted as part of a wise, preventive health regime.  More than a third of Americans spend over $5 billion, each year on ordinary multivitamins.  That cost excludes high-dose options and other combinations of vitamins and minerals.

Although people, including health professionals, tend to view MVMs as a safe, inexpensive insurance policy, NBC news republished a report earlier this week from Prevention Magazine on two “massive studies" that cast doubt on that assumption and on the wisdom of our $5 billion expenditure.

“The first, a review of 63 randomized, controlled trials (the gold standard research method) on multivitamins, published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, found that multis did nothing to prevent cancer or heart disease in most populations (the exception being developing countries where nutritional deficiencies are widespread).”  Another study from 2012 “followed 160,000 postmenopausal women for about 10 years,” and concluded:  "Multivitamins failed to prevent cancer, heart disease, and all causes of death for all women. Whether the women were healthy eaters or ate very few fruits and vegetables, the results were the same."

The same article makes other surprising observations.  A “review of eight studies found no evidence that multis reduced infections in older adults. Another study found that the vitamins didn't improve fatigue among breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. And inner-city schoolchildren who took a multi did not perform any better on tests or have fewer sick days than students who didn't take one.”

A second source, the government's National Institute of Health backs up these claims with a more detailed account of those studies and others; and it goes even further, giving examples of how use of MVMs can lead to unsafe high levels of certain vitamins in specific cases.  One finding it points out is that “investigators found that use of MVMs did not reduce the risk of any chronic disease.”

Since they are dietary supplements and not regulated by the FDA, they cannot claim to cure diseases.  As I have mentioned before, it’s left up to us to find reliable information regarding their safety and effectiveness.  Since MVMs are sold by large, reputable companies, there should be little concern about their safety, per se; and fortunately, their high popularity leads to many independent studies, separating facts from assumptions and advertising.

The latest news about MVMs agrees with the federal government's 2010 Dietary Guidelines:  "nutrients should come primarily from foods...Dietary supplements…may be advantageous in specific situations to increase intake of a specific vitamin or mineral."  Surprisingly, the population that takes MVMs tends to be better educated and take better care of themselves anyway:  keeping their weight down, drinking and smoking less, exercising more and getting regular checkups.  With a few exceptions, pregnant women for example, most who take them don’t really need them.  Couldn’t a substantial chunk of that $5 billion be put to better use?

Who Killed Princess Di?

When I saw the story about Halle Berry testifying in support of a proposed law to limit the ability of paparazzi to photograph the children of public figures, I was once again reminded how we Americans bring problems on ourselves.  The article explains how Ms. Berry’s daughter is afraid to go to school because of her experiences with aggressive photographers.  Other celebrities have backed this proposal in California and similar ones in other states.

The article makes very clear the motivation of these photographers.  It’s all about money.  Paparazzi are, by definition, freelance photographers.  They take the pictures that they believe they can sell to magazines and tabloids.  The magazines and tabloids, in turn, only buy the pictures that they believe will earn them a profit.

It’s the economic process in action.  Instead of someone else, usually the government or corporations, spending money and then getting it back from us through higher taxes or higher prices, this is a case where we spend money that, at the end of the chain, causes people to behave badly.  The media's profits from sales to us are used to offer big bucks to those photographers who get the most intimate and invasive pictures.  Americans get excited and snap up the tabloids as they wait in checkout lines or tune in to celebrity-gossip TV shows.  There is a market for those photos, and the simple answer to stopping the harassment is to go to the source – the nosy element of the public that creates that market.

The irony of the situation is that these same people who buy the magazines are the ones who will tell you how they love these celebrities.  They see their movies or watch them on TV, buy the products they endorse and adopt their political viewpoints.  They are the last ones who would intentionally bring harm to their heroes or their families, yet their very behavior starts a chain of transactions that does just that.

The question then is, how many mourned the loss of Princess Di, who “died in a car accident while speeding away from paparazzi in Paris with boyfriend Dodi Fayed,” while they were at the same time in some way responsible for the presence of those paparazzi?  Can they even see the connection between behaviors sparked by an unhealthy obsession with celebrity and such unfortunate incidents?  Even if conspiracy theorist are right about her death not being an accident, the guaranteed presence of paparazzi would have been used to mask the supposed plot; and this can be traced back to the behavior of some of the very people who were most shocked and saddened by her death.

Never Enough

In January 2012, I wrote that Americans 30 to 50 years ago lived comfortably on the equivalent of $50,000 (adjusted for inflation), today’s average income.  They did this by wanting less, buying less and being more satisfied with what they had.  Today’s culture is different.  We work more hours to make more money to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t even like.

Blame it on advertising and the media for persuading us that our wants have turned into needs.  The number of cars and house size of the average family have increased.  We take more vacations and spend money on items that didn’t even exist 30 years ago, but now have become “must haves.”  At the same time we continue to hear how bad the economy is, how everyone is just scratching to get by, with only 24% of the population not living paycheck to paycheck, while 27% have no savings at all.  

That’s why it’s shocking to read stories like this one.  Under the circumstances described above, the initial sentence seems unbelievable:  “DRINKING tap water is essentially free, but even during the economic downturn, consumers have sprung for bottled water, with sales in the United States increasing 6.7 percent in 2012, to $11.8 billion.”  That’s not enough.  It goes on to tell how Nestles is introducing a new premium bottled water called Resource, “aimed primarily at ‘a woman who is a little more on the trendy side and higher-income side’.” 

The latter part of the article that describes the advertising reads almost like a parody.  They are trying to avoid FDA interference by not directly claiming health benefits, which they must prove; but promoting the electrolyte content.  “With the exception of distilled water, all water contains some naturally occurring electrolytes,” but they state it in a way that “allows them to leave it up to the consumer to imagine the benefits that might come from electrolytes.” [emphasis added.]

Step back a minute and be amazed!  Consider that not too many years ago our main concern was whether the (free) water would bubble up high enough when we pushed the button.  Today we must carry around our own bottle (and many public places have removed drinking fountains so as not to compete with their vendors).  Marketers want us to believe that this is not yet good enough, that we must now impress others by the brand of bottled water we carry.  We are talking about water!  It falls from the sky!  What comes from the tap or a public drinking fountain is inspected and guaranteed to be safe.  Water sold in bottles is not, but the label shows how "trendy" we are.

What's next?  Will they next try to sell us bottled air that claims to be better and purer?  With critical thinking and perspective in such a sorry state, I wouldn’t be surprised.