Processed Foods: The Disservice
For over half a century the transnational corporations that today own most of the food supply and growing lands in this country and abroad have done a grand disservice to the people. Through their subsidiaries and associated companies that make and market the packaged and processed things we put in our bodies they have created an environment that encourages all sorts of bad habits and contributes to the non-stop health issues in this country and the world over.
The fact that we have never been able to know for certain what is the quality and whether we’ve been getting our foods from the better quality crops is bad enough. The processing and the additives are the worst part. Stripping the food of nearly everything that gives life and then adding back in a few processed vitamins, sweeteners, other processed items and preservatives make it something neither people nor animals should eat.
The advertisement of vitamin/mineral “fortification” causes further problems because of the fact and the manner in which we are taught to suspend questioning and thinking because of repeated false reassurances. People tend not to question or think about things when they’re encouraged to take them for granted or view them as being someone else’s job which has already been done (a slightly different way of saying the same thing). So we grab that box of cereal off the shelf and don’t look much beyond the banner in the corner that says it’s “FORTIFIED.” We drop it in the cart and pay for it and feed it to our kids without going over the label and asking ourselves why the cereal has both high fructose corn syrup and sugar and why the low percentage of RDA of vitamins make a flimsy fortification at best.
Another example is cult-like devotion the public has developed for fluoride. Again we’re lulled into a sense of cozy safety by being told that four out of five dentists recommend this or that. I want to know where in hell the fifth dentist is. Was he just thanked and paid for his participation and that’s the last he was heard from? I want to read the minority opinion. If the fifth dentist doesn’t recommend that type product what does he recommend? And if the fluoride in the toothpaste isn’t enough, then they want to put it in the drinking solution they’re piping in to everyone’s house. So we keep putting this substance in our bodies and going to the dentist and not knowing or questioning whether there would have been any reduction in the number of cavities suffered over a lifetime without it.
People are intelligent enough to make their own decisions about what and what not to put in their bodies. All we need is some self-ed on nutrition and a bit about biology and we can eat healthy all the time. But with all the crap that comes at them from all directions how is one ever to have enough silent moments strung together to learn about the human body and what it needs and doesn’t need? So we show up at the grocer exhausted and let the nanny of instant food in easy open throw away containers make our decisions for us.
If what I’m saying here pisses you off, good. Now go take that drive-thru fast food money and give it to the farmer because the only thing that’s pure is what comes from the Earth.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 19:00 and is filed under RogueSun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
