Bit of a read but interesting stuff.
It said that the processed food industry is: The transformation of livestock and agricultural products into products for intermediate or final consumption.
Transformation. And apparently we needed this transformation? Because Nature didn't do such a good job?
The price tag for this transformation is over $500 billion dollars each year!
And that doesn't even include restaurants.
It doesn't include transportation. Because the food we eat wasn't grown anywhere near where we live.
This is just "transformation" costs.
And this is just in the United States. Worldwide, this industry zooms past a trillion dollars.
In any grocery store here you'll see tens of thousands of boxed, bagged, jarred and canned items begging for your attention with brightly colored packaging, pictures of cartoon characters and even celebrities or professional athletes.
The food industry routinely uses 2,000 different food additives in their processed creations, but the total number of available additives has been estimated at nearly 8,000.
These include vitamins, minerals, emulsifiers, buffers, artificial flavorings and colorings, and enormous amounts of the two biggies -- salt and sugar.
The average American eats nearly 150 pounds of food additives each YEAR!
This is broken down as follows:
* 130 pounds of sugar
* 10-15 pounds of salt
* 5-10 pounds of "enriched" vitamins, flavors, preservatives and colored dyes
Some people in the world don't even consume 150 pounds of FOOD in a year--and yet the average American sucks down that much in chemicals alone.
Now, there's one big, glaring problem here and it's this:
Your body isn't designed to ingest 150 pounds of additives (see the list above).
Or even ONE pound.
The human body doesn't have a way to deal with these chemicals and it cannot metabolize them. So they end up as acidic wastes, accumulating in your blood, organs and tissues and making you toxic, sick and fat. The liver and kidneys simply can't handle that much poison. This is the primary reason why the US leads all other countries in the number of people with major diseases.
So if you feel bad, are taking medications and are overweight (be honest now), then it's very likely because you are taking in a lot of food additives.
Right?
The truth is, our bodies were only designed to consume REAL food -- fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats, poultry and fish. That's what our bodies depend on for nourishment, proper digestion, elimination of wastes and maintaining a good acid-alkaline balance.
Anything else is, well, poisons that overload the liver, kidneys' ability to keep the blood and the body clean.
So now the obvious question is: Why the heck does the processed food industry use all these chemicals and additives, knowing that they make people sick?
Never fear -- the almighty food industry has six rationalizations for explaining away the fact that they knowingly make people sick in the interest of profits.
Here they are the so-called reasons we "need" food processing:
1) To improve shelf life
The original idea here was to help get food to more people and prevent waste and spoilage. Early examples are vacuum packed canned vegetables and dried fruits.
But now we've gotten to the point where things like breads are literally "embalmed" with chemicals. Great for the manufacturer's bottom line, but deadly to the consumer.
2) To make food more available
Again, an originally good intention gone awry. It's great that food is available to those that need it, but how much do people really "need" a TV dinner, microwave meal or cake mix with confetti colored candies in it?
3) To increase nutritional value
This is the funniest one of all...
Because food manufacturers process out most or all of the naturally occurring nutrients in the real foods that their products start out with. So they sprinkle in synthetic vitamins and label the product "enriched."
But there are two things wrong here.
For one, the manufacturers don't add back in everything that was lost. For example, vitamin B6, chromium and zinc are destroyed during the processing of whole grains and flours, but they are NOT added back into the final product.
And even if they were, the synthetic nutrients are not the same as what was provided by Nature. Nature doesn't just plop vitamins and minerals into food. Rather, they are woven into the organic structure of the plants. Food is whole, and its structure is matched to how your digestive system utilizes it.
4) To improve the flavor of foods
Processed food companies rely heavily on sugar, salt and artificial flavors to make their mashed up, reformed concoctions tasty. Billions are spent in labs where chemical flavorings are developed that taste amazingly delicious.
But there's another thing happening here. These sugary, salty or artificially flavored products are also very...addicting. How convenient. These chemicals are drug-like in their effects, after all.
So the more you gotta have that drug -- I mean food -- the more you buy and the greater the stock value of the drug -- I mean food -- company.
5) To make foods easier to prepare
Food manufacturers giggled with glee as more and more women began working outside of the home over the last several decades. That gave them a new angle for marketing -- convenience and speed. After working all day, isn't it nice to pop dinner into the microwave and eat in 5 minutes?
No matter to these manufacturers that those 5 minute dinners are practically dead, nutritionally speaking, and make you sick and fat.
6) To improve food's appearance
This is the scary one because the chemicals used to maintain a food's color or prevent discoloration are often toxic substances.
Earl
