Yesterday I came across a blog post shared on Facebook…you may have seen it on my Facebook page. I’m pretty sure this post has gone viral. And so it should! It’s an eye-opener. It’s the hard truth. And sadly, It’s reality.

The post is entitled “The World Is Fucking Insane”. Great title. It was written by a guy called Nick Crocker who wrote it for the blog, Medium. Medium is a collaborative blog “designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world”.

Nick’s post is about what he came across at his local supermarket…aisles filled with massive amounts of sodas, chips, chocolates and trashy magazines (which we all buy!) with pictures of slightly overweight celebrities in bikini’s with headings such as “Too hot to care”…making out they should be ashamed to want to strip down! And then there’s the health mags Nick took pics of such as Diabetic Living and Prevention magazine. Hmm, so basically once these consumers have bought their chips and Wonka chocolate, they should read about diabetic living and “prevention” as they’re waiting in the queue? Gotcha.

At first I thought this guy was from America; my rationale being it’s ONLY in the US where you’ll find supermarket aisles like the ones Nick took pics of. Surely.

Wrong….

This post came straight from an Australian supermarket, albeit it wasn’t one of our mainstream supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths. But even more disturbing, it was a local, independently owned supermarket. Now I’m not into name bashing which is why I’m not going to mention the name of the supermarket on my blog; plus this supermarket and its consumers are heavily involved in several charities, which is great. But one does have to wonder why an independently owned supermarket who is supposedly passionate  about “providing our customers with fresh local produce”, would have monolithic amounts of crap food. Is this particular supermarket situated in low, socio-economic suburbs? I’m not sure as I’m not from this city, however I do know there are 115 stores with plans of more opening. Eeek!

detective liz

Putting my investigator hat on, I decided to go to my local supermarket, a mainstream one, with my eyes wide open to see if it resembled the pics Nick took of his local supermarket. Usually when I go to the shops I stay on the outskirts where the fresh produce lives unless I need basic stuff like toilet paper and glad wrap. This leaves me (intentionally) unaware of the processed crap on offer.

Now every supermarket out there has their aisles dedicated to soft drinks, confectionery, cereal, fruit juices etc, so these aisles weren’t out of the ordinary. I was looking for anything that really stood out – on purpose. Strategically positioned right at the front of aisles like in Nick’s pictures. And bingo, I found one lot of soft drink stacked up pretty high right in between the soft drink and confectionery aisles. But that was all the evidence I could find. Not that alarming considering the pics Nick took of his local store.

a little bit of hard truth

Australia is now the most obese country in the world. Fact. And it’s not ground breaking news that those who live out in lower socio-economic suburbs are faced with more Maccas, Chicken Treat and supermarkets devoted to making you fatter. Even those who live in the city are obviously still faced with takeaway foods and aisles of processed food, making it very easy and tempting for the consumer to give in and buy this crap.

But seriously people, if you decide to buy this shitty food, I do not feel sorry for you getting diet induced diabetes one day or for getting fat. I don’t even feel sorry for you if your kids are getting fat. In fact it just makes me mad at you and very sad for your children. If you are reading my blog right now, that means you are part of the converted population. You just wouldn’t be reading this if health & wellness weren’t of interest to you, so what I just wrote probably doesn’t even relate to you. I hope!

And if it does? Well all I can say is WAKE UP. I do understand that you’re all busy and tired after a long day so convenience often wins. I really do get that. But it still comes down to choice. And there’s bucket loads of information out there on how to lead a healthy life. There are hundreds of blogs committed to giving you FREE recipes on living paleo, vegan, gluten-free, raw, on a budget etc etc. There’s organic shops, health food shops and farmers markets (amazing for getting incredibly fresh and cheap produce!) in every State. There’s no excuses! Not time, money or anything else you want to throw at me (or brainwash yourself with).

Just Choice

So what’s it going to be? What choice are you going to make for yours and your family’s health and future? I know what my choice is.

What do you think? Does your local supermarket make it easy for you to buy fresh produce? Do you still find it difficult to say NO to the processed crap on offer? Leave a comment below and feel free to share this post. Let’s make a difference! 🙂

P.S. if you really do struggle with your weight and being led into temptation, feel free to email me. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve 🙂