What are we eating?

This guy is awesome! I think he makes a whole lot of sense! I remembered him from the documentary Food Inc. and a friend of mine just went to his farm for a visit. She uploaded some pics on fb and I said, "Hey that looks like the Food Inc farmer!" I guess he's written a book now called "This Ain't Right" and is becoming pretty well known. This is a good thing!


Two things he says in this clip that strike me are how we have allowed ourselves to become so disconnected and ignorant about something as intimate as the food we put inside ourselves every day. And the end when he's talking about the people who view the pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design humans can foist upon it, (for example combining its genes with salmon to create bigger, more cost-efficient salmon that will be introduced into the wild and kill all the others), will probably view people with the same type of disdain, disrespect and controlling-type mentality. In short, view people as nothing but paying consumers OF that Frankenfood.


Bertrand Russel in his 1953 book, "The Impact of Science on Society" said, "Diet, injections and injunctions will combine from a very early age, to produce the sort of character the authorities consider desirable."


Probably the biggest food bullies of them all, Monsanto, unabashedly said that it is their GOAL to take over the food biosphere of the planet. One of the things they are a little bit known for, (and should be better known), is bovine growth hormone produced by Monsanto to inject into cows to make them produce more milk and thereby more money. This growth hormone was investigated by many countries and disallowed because of dangers. Luckily Canada was one. But in the U.S. kids are reaching puberty at 8, boys are growing playoff beards along with their Dads, and a whole pile of other scary things linked to this hormone are obviously happening but people don't know why. Fox News was going to produce a story on this hormone in milk and a high-priced, Monsanto-hired lawyer sent them a letter stating that there would be dire consequences if the story was aired. The station chief shut it down. This is why Fox News is, well, Fox News.


Then there's the Monsanto Frankencorn that grows its own pesticides. About 85% of the corn in the States is this stuff that is linked to organ failure, sterility, caused lab animals' stomachs to explode... but it's a good cash crop! The corn farmers don't eat the corn they grow. NONE of them! Well not the Monsanto crap anyway. That is all I need to know. Pancreatic cancer, mercury poisoning, brain damage... Because of FRUCTOSE, sugar we get from corn and is in almost everything nowadays, it is estimated that Americans eat 5X the upper limit of allowable mercury.


Why the fructose? It goes back to 1977 when sugar tariffs pushed up the cost of imported sugar so corn syrup fructose became and attractively cheap alternative to the food and beverage manufacturers. As always, it's about the money.


Asparatame is reportedly made from the feces of genetically engineered ecoli bacteria that is fed toxic waste! Now I don't know if that's true but I've had a lot of people tell me to eat shit and die. Maybe I am doing just that! Maybe we ALL are!


Apparently Nazis added sodium fluoride to the water supplies of the labour camps during wartime to make the prisoner population more docile and easier to control. Also it caused sterility. They used one part per million. In some products sold nowadays there are 900 parts per million of the same stuff! And it's legal.


2 cups of flour could have a U.S. F.D.A. allowable 375 insect fragments and 5 rodent hair/feces fragments.


It sure looks like SOMEbody is trying to make us more docile, easy to deal with, and possibly kill us with the food we eat! I've noticed since coming back to Canada that my reflux and stomach constancy has deteriorated. Well they have increased and deteriorated respectively. They both got worse is what I'm sayin. I thought it was just the kinds of foods I've been eating here compared to Korea. Maybe it's the additives IN those foods.


"Chemically treated produce, highly processed foods, and refined ingredients like white flour and sugar cause sickness and disease as well as a host of minor ailments such as digestive issues and lack of energy." Miami Herald


But I'm not all that worried. In fact I think my diet could best be called the opposite of what's supposed to be good for me. I eat eggs and high colesterol butter or margarine all the time. I have plenty of salty snacks on hand at all times in case I feel my blood pressure dropping dangerously low to around what science tells us is normality. Pasta is my friend Atkins-be-damned! I once saw a friend of mine eat an entire loaf of white bread. No jam, peanut butter, butter, just the bread. He is a doctor now. The bread did HIM no harm and I don't think it hurts me at all either even though I eat a LOT. Usually it's not white bread but sometimes... Oil, bring it on! It keeps my coat nice and shiny.


I follow one easy rule at the grocery store: get what's the cheapest. It may be cheap because it is the unhealthily mass produced junk the corporations poison us with, or it may be cheap because the carefully produced, vitimin enriched, low-cal, high fibre, dietary, cholesterol-free, penis enlarging, trans fat friendly, heart-helping, lipophobia-easing, polyunsaturated, hydrogenated, soybean-based, Bulgarian Shepherd approved food requires a little higher sticker price for all that goodness. Not to mention labelling.


Whether food becomes cheaper or more expensive when science, (and the corporate world), starts messing with it is a little too hard for me to ascertain at this time. So I'll take my chances that I am losing years off my life eating what I want. Those years will come off the end of my life when the quality thereof is not so high.


I read some interesting stuff about food in the National Post "Junk Science" week recently. It just made things even more confusing. One of the interesting things written about was the "good bacteria" in yogurt called bacillus Bulgaricus that allegedly prevents mental illness, sexual dysfunction, tuberculosis and scores of other problems including death by heart disease. A lot of this started from a study done by a Russian scientist named Elie Metchnikoff who said that Bulgarian herdsmen, and other yogurt drinkers, lived longer and were free from colon diseases. Even though the health benefits were found to be non-existent, with the help of the media, (and Danone fresh yogurt business), yogurt became all the rage.


It went a bit out of style but has made a recent comeback during this war on fat that has all kinds of political, social, philanthropic, media, corporate, government regulator, surgeon general and celebrity support. I guess a guy named Ancel Keys did a study comparing, again, Bulgarian herdsmen with American businessmen. Overlooking obvious variables such as smoking and stress, Keys concluded that it was high levels of cholesterol that led to so many businessmen dying of sudden heart attacks. So don't quit your job on Wall Street where you rip out your hair and smoke 2 packs every day because of the stress, just have some yogurt and you'll be fine.


You all remember the saturated fat and cholesteral concern that resulted. And you must remember the thousands of products and promotions like "Heart Smart", "Heart Check" and the like. At one point a U.S. government committee had some hearings on diet and killer diseases that included testimony that 98.9% of the world's nutrition researchers believed that there was a connection between blood cholesterol levels and heart disease. Well, in Feb. 2010 there were results published from some better science from 21 lengthy studies using almost 350,000 subjects that conclusively showed no association between saturated fat consumption and risk of heart disease.


The development of this fear-based marketing, and how to create a scientific consensus is fascinating reading! During all of this eggs went from good to bad so many times it's impossible to keep track. Whole milk swung back and forth like the Grim Reaper's scythe too. Margarine was heart-healthy and then artery-clogging. Butter too. Salt once considered essential to human existence is now white death in a shaker.


Polyunsaturated oil was actually considered a health food and Harvard nutritionist Frederick Stare agreed with the Keys "research" and advised swallowing three tablespoons of it every day as medication. But after so many studies TRYING to link saturated fat and heart disease failed, (That's the "junk science." When it's not objective it ain't scientific method. It's amazing how much junk science there is!), he reversed his position and co-authored a book denouncing the cholesterol scare.


The corporate action during this time may be even MORE fun to learn about. The American Medical Association saw a way to get in on the junk science. They supported the movement away from saturated fats but ONLY under, (costly), medical supervision. And long after it became apparent that the cholesterol scare was not based in good science, the AHA actually SOLD the right to use its "Heart Check" symbols to food companies. They got $2500 from Kelloggs for each of its products that sported the symbol including the heart-strengthening Fruity Marshmallow Krispies, and $200,000 to Florida citrus fruit producers for EXCLUSIVE rights to use it. Like only Florida oranges fought heart disease. California oranges were artery cloggers! The AHA got 3.5 MILLION bucks from ConAgra, like Monsanto, one of those companies that nobody knows about but you are probably going to eat one of its products today. You may be eating one NOW! Then in 2000 they introduced a "Heart Healthy" diet that got them an estimated 15 million in endorsements.


Nowadays there's supposed to be a child obesity epidemic. I see a lot of the same tactics being employed here. There's money to be made! The big target seems to be sugary drinks. In New York City they proposed to ban the sale of any sweetened drink in servings bigger than 16 ounces in places like movie theaters, fast food restaurants, sports arenas etc. I smell a rat. Anybody knows that buying more smaller containers will cost more.


Other cities are proposing taxes, like Richmond, California, of one cent per ounce on big drinks. For the good of the kids, of course!


How about one PUSH-UP per ounce? It seems to me that all of this illustrates that people will go pretty far out of their way to avoid two things: 1) lowering stress by maybe sacrificing some work/money and 2) exercise. Kids play more video games than they used to. Parents BUY more. Kids aren't allowed to go outside unless they have a full set of armour on. Even then they could get kidnapped or killed. Kids aren't less active than they used to be, they are KEPT less active. This has more to do with the obesity than what they're drinking. At least that's what I reckon.

Errrrverybody eats more when they exercise less. Sit in front of the computer for an hour and see if you don't think of food. I've been thinking of food the whole time I've been writing this. Or watch TV. Better with a bag of Doritos, right? Now go outside and take hockey shots or play catch with the frisbee for an hour. Bet you won't think of food so often. I love how exercise is mentioned parenthetically in all these discussions about obese children and what they are eating. I think most kids could eat almost anything if they exercised more. Take away all their portable electronic exercise inhibitors and boot them out the house! That's my parenting advice for the day.

But in sedentary societies where kids are obese a more popular refrain is, "Let's just give 'em DRUGS!" There has been talk of screening kids for, you guessed it, high cholesterol levels. Before puberty. Alan Cassels, a drug policy researcher at UVIC and author of the book, "Selling Sickness" says this is just silly. Yeah silly all the way to the bank for statin drugs like Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor that claim they are safe for use on children, (without any scientific research). He explains that most people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels and they are in their 60's or 70's. And he brings up that cholesterol is a substance essential for life. Much like salt being good for you, this fact seems to get swept under the carpet, or thrown over the shoulder.

Like every drug you see being flogged on TV, statin drugs are expensive, huge sellers and they have a list of risks that to any normal person should outweigh the benefits. Usually listed in a few seconds at the end of the commercial by an auctioneer speaking under his breath about anal leakage or semi-permanent heart stoppage or whatever. Kidney failure, cataracts, muscle pain, weakness, and liver damage are more likely effects of statin drugs on kids than reducing obesity. Cassels says that giving kids statin drugs is like drinking Big Pharma's Kool Aid.

So in the end, what do we really know about what we eat? Probably less than we THINK we might know. CERTAINLY less than we are told. I think I'll just eat and drink what I want and what is cheap. If somebody tells me I shouldn't be eating/drinking it because it's bad for my health, I'll just wait ten or fifteen years until science/economics reverses the modern trends and say, "Hey remember that egg I was eating 10 years ago? I TOLD you it was good for me!"