Is The Food Industry Killing Us?

[Dr. Shane]

     I believe the reason obesity has become such a health issue today is because the food industry is making us sick.  That said, I am not going to beat up big corporations and lay the blame on them.  Big companies are in business to make money.  They provide jobs and fuel the economy.  They do a fantastic job of getting the food out of the field, packaged and onto our tables.  The more I learn about how the food industry works, the more impressed I am with it.  I can eat fresh fruit all year long as long as I am geographically in the developed world someplace.  The same is true for fresh fish and a host of other foods.  The modern food industry does a fantastic job of producing food, bringing it to the market and keeping the cost of it affordable. 

     The reason the food industry is making us sick is because industry provides what consumers want to buy.  This is true regardless if it is the textile industry, the automobile industry or the medial industry.  Industry supplies products and services that are in demand.  So the problem with the food industry is not the big corporations rather the consumers creating and maintaining a demand for products that are making them sick and killing them.  As educational efforts have raised the level of health education among consumers, we have seen corporations respond by marketing healthier food choices.  Corporations will supply what consumers demand.

     Consider how the ancients prepared food.  They did so with little preparation.  Rice and wheat were picked out of the fields and stored in bins.  Meat was dried and salted.  A stone mill would be used to grind wheat into flour producing what today would be considered whole grain flour.  Potatoes, beans, lintels and such were tossed in a pot of water and boiled.  Very little oil was used in the normal preparation of food.  The lack of refining resulted in food that was healthier and more filling.

     Consumers today demand food that goes beyond being tasty.  The ancients would have never considered boiling potatoes in oil and yet French fries are staples in the diets of many people today.  Ancient humans could not have imagined a jelly-filled doughnut with sprinkles on top.  Think of all the refining that has to happen for such an edible product.  Pastry flour is super refined.  The sugar is refined.  The gelatin is refined.  The artificial color is refined.  Consumers love it.  In fact, they are literally dying for it.  The big corporations are not the bad guys.  As soon as consumers stop demanding jelly-filled doughnuts, the corporations will stop making them.

     The big problem with all these refined foods are that they are not filling and not nutritious.  So people have to eat more of them.  I can go to McDonald's and order a Big Mac that has nearly 600 calories or I can stay home and make my own Big Mac that has 100 calories less.  My Big Mac would be made with vegetarian patties of beans and grains.  Instead of cheese, my Big Mac has avocado, it has the lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions too.  My bun is whole wheat containing a good amount of fiber and protein and less carbohydrates then the refined bun from McDonald's.  Here is the big difference.  My Big Mac is a meal in itself.  It doesn’t need a side order of fries.  And it will satisfy hunger longer than the McDonald's Big Mac.  I can eat less calories, get more nutrition and be hungry less by eating a healthy diet.  Eating the right food means I don’t have to eat as much of it.  The recommended calorie intake for women is 2,000 and for men it is 2,500.  That is plenty of food if a person is making healthy choices.  If a person is eating a bunch of refined food it is hard to stay under those amounts without going hungry.

[Outta Here]

The food industry is slowly making changes as the consumer becomes more aware of what is healthy and what is not.  But we can't ignore the fact that there is a whole industry built around changing the ideas of what people think they want. It's an industry funded by Big Pharma, the Beef Council, the National Chicken Council, the National Dairy Council, and so on and so forth...

"Milk it does a body good." 

"A chicken in every pot."

"Pork, the other white meat."

"Beef. It's what's for dinner."

Even the food pyramid is designed to deceive.

 

Luckily, there is a movement happening across the country with specials on Netflix, free videos on Youtube, bestselling books on New York TImes, groups on Facebook and challenges on social media where people are starting to wake up to the lies we've been fed about "healthy" eating. People are making the switch to a whole-foods, plant-based way of eating. 

Great resources (for anyone interested) include

 http://www.whatthehealthfilm.com/

https://nutritionfacts.org/

https://www.drmcdougall.com/

http://www.dresselstyn.com/site/

http://nutritionstudies.org/

http://realfarmacy.com/