The food industry finds that selling processed foods is much more profitable than selling natural or whole foods. Take, for example, shelf life. Natural food oils only last a few months before turning rancid. About fifty years ago, scientists found that by heating grain or nut based oils to high temperatures in the presence of a catalyst, they could be converted to polyunsaturated oils, with a virtually infinite shelf life. Unfortunately, this pretty much meant turning them into plastics. The body recognizes such treated oils as a foreign invaders, and coats the veins and arteries with cholesterol to protect them from these polyunsaturated oil molecules. The biggest killer of most people in our country is heart disease. These coronary diseases are largely food-born. They come from our diet.
Most people are now aware of the sugar industry’s successful lobbying with the FDA to blame fat rather than sugar for most disease. We also know that high fructose corn syrup under whatever name they’re currently using to fool the public is a major contributor to obesity and diabetes. In the 1970’s when cyclamates were found to cause cancer, the FDA approved aspartame, a non-caloric sweetener it had already banned. We have Donald Rumsfeld to thank for that. They keep changing aspartame’s name too, in order to fool us.
It’s hard not to conclude that the FDA is more disposed to protecting the interests of giant food conglomerates than the health of the general public. One would have to bend over backwards to reach a different conclusion. Compared to actual starvation, chronic, expensive supermarket malnutrition seems a Cadillac problem. Starvation and rickets, scurvy and anemia are not a problem for most people living in food-secure environments, but diabetes, heart disease and cancer certainly are, and these are largely brought to us by the food we eat. Our giant food conglomerates have put shareholder profit ahead of public health. The regulatory agencies we depend upon to protect us have failed to do their job.
Endure and thrive 