The American “Healthcare” system is a money-making venture, first and foremost. Health care is simply the structure the corporations use to wring as much money from the masses as possible.
I saw this while in Mexico and really liked the idea. I was then immediately bummed out when realizing almost everything had that label on it and buying food without excess sugar and salt was a lot trickier.
Yeeeeeppp. Eating cereal in the morning is a very recent invention by American megacorps. Why would you load yourself with carbs first thing in the morning? Eating proteins or not eating at all until lunchtime is better.
Any food with … more than 37 grams of added sugar in a 100-gram serving is also banned from including a mascot on its packaging
Damn, that’s really good. Sounds a little bit like the plain packaging laws many countries have on cigarettes, which have proven to be extremely effective in the decade since they were first rolled out. It’s obviously a bit more limited, but it’s still a great move.
Some people really don't. They grow up with commercials telling them that the cereal is "part of a balanced breakfast" without understanding that that means the cereal should be a small part of the breakfast.
It’s also the case that not all cereals are created equally. Most of Kellogg’s most famous cereals are stuffed full of sugar, but they do have some options that are relatively healthier, like their All-Bran Wheat Flakes. And from other companies, there are some actually-healthy options. Australia’s most popular cereal is probably Sanitarium’s Weet-Bix, with just 3 g added sugar per 100 g. And even healthier than that is my preferred breakfast cereal, Uncle Toby’s Vita Brits, an otherwise-similar product with 0 g added sugar. Both Weet-Bix and Vita Brits are high in fibre and made from mostly whole grain wheat.
The poms have a version of Weet bix, too. Weet bix have to be commended for their marketing though, I still remember all the ads I’d see growing up if sports stars espousingvthe benefits of em. And they pump a lot of money into kids sport (do they still have the kids try-athlon series?) Kinda crazy given how marketing around food is these days.
Yeah the poms call theirs weetabix (not sure how it’s spelt). Dunno where precisely it sits health-wise relative to Vita Brits or Weet-bix.
Honestly I’ve never noticed that much marketing from Weet-bix. The cereal I most associate with sport is Nutrigrain, which is a much more sugary cereal (though not as bad as ones like Cornflakes or Rice Bubbles). I recall Nutrigrain being particularly associated with Iron Man races (the weird surf lifesaving Iron Man, not the triathlon).
My packet of Sainsbury’s own-brand Wheat Biscuits (same stuff, but only £3/KG), says 4.4g of sugar per 100g without milk.
As the ingredients say 95% of it is wheat, and sugar is 3 down the list from there, it’s probably about 2g of added sugar too.
I’m old. There used to be a number of “how many do you do?” campaigns with cricketers, soccer players etc for Weet bix. And yeah, nutri grain has been sponsoring that tournament since the 80s. It’s basically trash though, when it comes to nutrition. Rice bubbles and corn flakes are also fine enough sugar wise, both are below 10%. Not much else going for them though as they are both low in fibre.
Rice bubbles and corn flakes are also fine enough sugar wise, both are below 10%
Oh huh. Both of those are the ones I first think of when I think “sugary cereal”. They’re what I might buy occasionally as a treat. Are people actually buying and eating as their main cereal the ultra-sweet cereals like Crispix and Frosted Flakes? 🤢
I saw a commercial for healthcare.gov. It talked about how people only paid a few bucks for healthcare. It was all after government assistance.
The fact that you need heavy government assistance to get healthcare shows how much of a failure things are here.
Also in Mexico they have legal price limits on drugs. They’re printed on the box so you know if you’re getting a deal or paying the max. Also can see a doctor for like 40 pesos (about 2 to 3 USD). It’s much cheaper than my post insurance copay. I understand it’s a different market, but they have better general healthcare than the US.
Also as a side note, most drugs don’t need a prescription. You can tell the pharmacist what hurts and they can tell you what should help (or when to see a Dr). If I want to see my Dr, I’m on hold for 20 minutes then get an appointment in 2 weeks. Once again: viva Mexico!
In the US, when I want to see my doctor I drive 15 minutes to get there and tell them I need to be seen for whatever and then I wait 15 minutes and then talk to the doctor. If they say I need to talk to a specialist, that may take 1-2 weeks after making an appointment though. It’s not cheaper, but at least I can get care when I need it.
Of course, not everyone can afford healthcare in our country. That’s the biggest problem. But it’s generally fast and competent.
Most people cannot see their primary care physician just by driving up and being like, hey, I need to be seen for x issue. You pretty much have to make an appointment unless you go to a minute clinic or something. And that’s with insurance. Your experience is very much an outlier.
No kidding. There’s at least a month long wait to see any of my doctors. Same with my dentist unless it’s urgent. Usually it’s closer to two months.
If I need immediate attention, I have to go to an urgent care clinic or emergency room.
The nice thing is that in the year 2023, all of my doctors are reachable via the hospital system’s app and they respond to questions relatively quickly. So there’s no need to schedule a 15 minute appointment that ends up taking hours just to ask a simple question or two or to get a referral.
Where I am in the US, dentist schedules 6 months out, doctor likes you to schedule annual exams a year out and non urgent a couple of weeks at a minimum but there are some urgent care appointments available each day (or most days). Dermatologist and GYN a couple months wait for routine care. But there are lots of independent urgent care standalone clinics, including for orthopedic stuff, so for broken bones I did not have to go to the emergency room and incur that cost.
It’s uneven I would say. Definitely not worth what we are paying in taxes, insurance premiums and payments to providers, though.
Man this is less and less the experience I’m seeing. Months to see my primary. Urgent care I can get in same day, but I work at hospital that saves slots for their employees
So about the same waiting times as developed nations with a healthcare system, but with 10 000 times the cost.
I pay like 5€ in Belgium to go see a doctor, the rest is paid by my insurance. I can walk into a hospital right now and get service. As long as the issue warrants urgency of course. And a call to my house doctor can be met with a half hour wait time if it is less urgent.
As always, the intent is to make it more difficult for normal people to exist. Healthcare suffers, women suffer, the poor suffer, and republicans cheer. All joking aside, both sides are just as bad as the other, right fellow Americans?
Conservatism is the reason pharma companies are able to legally exploit suffering and death. If you have a loved one who could have had a better outcome, thank a conservative.
Conservatism is a plague of misery and death. It always has been.
Invariably the law. I doubt they want that to be true, but going to prison in America is essentially a sentence to torture and death. There's no practical penalty for being forced to break the oath.
I don't think flu has a big pay time between becoming infectious and becoming symptomatic though, like COVID does. That makes it easier to avoid (if I'm right.)
Edit: Looks like people average one day infectious before they themselves show symptoms.
True, but these people are the same ones who don’t stay home when symptomatic, or even cover their cough or sneeze with their elbow. They’re probably still out and about infecting people.
Yeah I totally get that. But apart from forcing these people there's no reasoning with with anymore. So if they are gonna go without vaccines (and they definitely will) I'm not gonna lose a lot of sleep over them landing in the ground when it's all over with.
I say boomer specifically because they're the age group most likely to die from covid or the flu. Definitely know there's plenty of dumbass younger people too.
But it’s not just them it affects unfortunately. I’ve personally seen previously totally healthy kids die from the flu. It’s a nasty virus anyone is better off without. And there’s many people out there of all ages who are immuno compromised or at increased risk from the flu through no fault of their own, or can’t be properly vaccinated for a variety of reasons.
I live this every day. I’ve had a United Medical Director tell me that being able to feed yourself was “not an essential skill” worthy of rehab because it could be performed by staff or a family member.
This man tried to tell me that my patient in their late 60s was unworthy of a rehab stint for strengthening their upper arms to be able to feed themselves because someone else could do it for them for the rest of their lives.
Stay the hell away from Medicare Advantage plans. No matter what they promise, it’s irrelevant because they won’t actually provide it when the time comes.
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