Junk Food Is as Dangerous as Cigarettes

Certain deleterious health effects of smoking may appear faster, but junk food is just as toxic to your body, as well as addictive (yes, I'm talking about you, sugar).  

By now, we all know the dangers of cigarettes to the smoker:  respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, infertility, cancer.  And we know non-smokers suffer, too, as second-hand smoke similarly damages the health of its victims.  Smoking around babies and children causes them to suffer respiratory malfunctions (such as asthma), heart malfunctions and worse (SIDS).  Smoking during pregnancy will damage or even kill a woman's baby.  

But is feeding children junk food any less a form of child abuse than forcing them to breathe toxic second-hand smoke?  Junk food consumed by mom damages baby's development in utero and impacts long-term physical and mental health.  Consuming junk food seriously damages children's physical and neurological development and causes numerous health malfunctions, illness and diseases.  Of course, junk food damages adult bodies, too.

The average commercial junk food, like fast food, candy bars, soda, snack cakes, chips, etc. contain a toxic slew of frankenfoods (GMOs like soy and corn), high fructose corn syrup, highly processed "foods," additives, fillers, colors, preservatives, various chemicals.  These "edible" substances are laboratory-designed, factory-processed, denuded, adulterated sludge that don't qualify as food.

The negative health impacts resulting from the ingestion of said "foods" include:

• Liver disease
• Obesity
• Heart disease/Stroke
• Diabetes
• Immune suppression
• Mood Disorders
• Infertility/Endocrine disorders
• Respiratory disease
• Neurological malfunctions
• Premature aging
• Cancer

You are what you eat.  Simple truth.  It cannot be overstated.  The engine only runs as well as the fuel you put in it.  We could perform study after study and discourse in debate after debate, but is that really needful?  We intuitively know and understand that what we put in our bodies either makes us ill or well.  We see the age in which we live, the food stuffs available, the toxins ubiquitous in our environment, food and pharmaceuticals...we see the continuing rates of chronic illness in our culture.  It doesn't take degrees and certifications to understand such a blatant and simple truth.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Junk food maims and then it kills.  

Here are some links for further study, book recommendations and an informative video on toxic sugar.  And, to end on a lighter note, a satirical look at junk food by comedian Tim Hawkins:

Junk Food Lowers IQ

Some Truths about HFCS

Dangers of HFCS

GMOs Damage Kidneys and Liver

GMO Dangers Info

Smoking and French Fries Both Bad for Baby

Junk Food Marketing to Children

We Must Demonize Junk Food for the Sake of Our Children

 

Canola Oil is Not a Healthy Food...

...nor is it Real Food at all.  Controversy seems to surround this popular commercial "food," which is touted by the industry as a healthy, unsaturated oil.  [An oxymoron, of course.]  Questions about canola abound:  is it healthy, is it not healthy, is it GMO, is it not GMO...  I shake my head in frustration whenever I see canola oil being marketed as "non-GMO," as if such an animal exists.

Canola Oil history brief:  No, canola oil does not come from the canola plant.  Canola is an acronym that stands for Canadian Oil, Low Acid.  Canola's origins are a story of food politics and profit cravings.  Looking for a cheap, ubiquitous oil to replace industry-vilified butter, unpopular corn and soy oil, and expensive olive oil, food industry scientists in the 1970s began playing with the rapeseed plant, whose naturally high erucic acid content posed too much concern (erucic acid is associated with heart lesions).  Laboratory design and technological machinations gave birth to canola, originally named LEAR (low erucic-acid rapeseed) oil. 

Defenders of canola's manipulated beginnings say that the rapeseed plant wasn't originally spliced with genetic material from other species, nor was it injected with Roundup, etc, so it isn't really genetically modified in the dangerous sense.  They make it sound as if the rape plant is being bred as naturally and easily as a terrier might breed with a poodle.  That simply is not so...even a perusal of original scientific documentation reveals the level of technological manipulation involved to achieve the product we know as canola oil.  The truth remains that the rapeseed plant was manipulated, including seed splicing, the plant was tinkered with until it produced a desired effect, and an unnaturally occurring product emerged.  Canola oil would not exist outside the work of "science."  And today, canola oil is being aggressively genetically modified, with who knows what being added to its genetic code.  Eighty percent of canola being grown is GMO.  Science strikes again.

And that is the key issue here.  Food does not come from a food science or biotechnology lab (or any lab, for that matter).  Food grows out of the ground and in the ocean and comes from animals who eat what grows out of the ground and in the ocean.  Science doesn't create food, God did.  When science has to jump through hoops and apply its technology to create something edible (and profitable), the result is not food.  Just because you can chew it and swallow it, just because it tastes good and you keep breathing, doesn't make it food and it certainly doesn't make it nourishing.

As with all "vegetable" oils, canola is highly subject to rancidity, causing free radical formation in our bodies.  Like other "vegetable" oils, canola needs to be chemically extracted (petroleum in your food, anyone?).  Like other "vegetable" oils, canola lacks saturated fat, the essential nutrient that is the basis of human hormone, brain and heart health.  Like other "vegetable" oils, canola lacks a healthy balance of omega fatty acids, providing too much omega 6 (which can cause inflammation).  Shall I go on?  I'm sure you get the idea...  Canola isn't the only health villain in the bunch; vegetable oils as a group should be avoided.  Their marketing as "healthy" foods does not stand on honest, evidence-based science.  This snake oil is the work of the food industry, its partner the medical industry, and clever advertising.

Vegetable oils as a concept is somewhat ludicrous.  What vegetable or grain naturally produces oil?  When you pick up a vegetable and squeeze it, does oil emerge?  Not the way an olive does, or a nut...and certainly not like the fat from animals.  If we didn't have food science laboratories, we wouldn't have vegetable oils...and society would be better off for it.  In fact, if we didn't have food science laboratories, we'd all be healthier...we'd be forced to eat Real Food.

Read More:

Canola Oil: The Hidden History (the mustard gas/toxicity claims are a point of controversy, but the history is verifiable)

Know Your Fats: The Great Con-ola (Fallon's original article, same as above)

Methods of Breeding for Oil Quality in Rape (seed)   (original scientific abstract)

Why You Should Never Eat Vegetable Oils

If You Eat Industrial Beef, You Could Be Ingesting Pink Slime

Just talking about pink slime brings to my mind that old clip of Charlton Heston, in the film Soylent Green, screaming...."It's people!!  Soylent Green is made of people!!"  Now, pink slime isn't made from people (at least not that I'm aware), but it is disgusting...and it's an unlabeled ingredient in commercial ground beef products.  You know, the stuff you buy in the conventional grocery store, or order in any non-organic, non-slow food restaurant, or even have fed to your children at school.  

Pink slime is a popular news item of late, but how many consumers heard of it before now?  Likely not the masses of people who have been ingesting the stuff.  Pink slime is "a food additive consisting of heated and processed beef scrap waste treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria. This matter closely resembles disinfected beef puree. The material is not sold directly to consumers on its own, but is used as a filler in ground beef."  (Thanks, Wikipedia.)  To learn more about pink slime, read the links below.

This repulsive, harmful non-food product composed of animal waste...who knows exactly what and which parts...appears in 70% of supermarket ground beef and regularly fills fast food burgers (yes, we see you, McDonald's!).  If John Q. Public wasn't convinced before that no one should be eating the poison that passes for food at such establishments, perhaps this will be the needed catalyst for conviction.

I add the pink slime tale to the annals of "just another reason to ONLY eat REAL food."  The only slime I encounter is what grows on my kombucha scoby.  And I know that's good for me.

The silver lining to this slimy cloud is the impact that activism is having on the pink slime industry, actually causing the shut down of the plants that produce the vile stuff.  So the next time you think that your concern, your voice, your efforts to fight the madness pervading our society is all for nought, remember the slime.

Pink Slime in Burgers

Activism Shuts Down Pink Slime Plants

Pink Slime and the Restaurant Business

Pasteurized Milk Causes Cancer

Finally, for those who still believe they need "experts," and "scientific studies" to confirm what common sense tells us about Real Food:

Harvard Study Confirms Industrial Pasteurized Milk Causes Cancer

I have nothing more to say; it's all been said by Real Food activists before...  But please, share this information with your friends, family and neighbors who are still on the fence or fully indoctrinated.  Knowledge is power, and sharing knowledge is a wonderful gift to give.

Actually, there is something more to say...be sure to read part two of the above-linked Natural News article, and note how our government is promoting further dangerous and health-destroying farming habits in U.S. dairies.

Agent Orange Is Coming Soon to a Grocery Store Near You...

...At least, that's what Dow AgroScience wants.  If Dow's petition is granted by the federal government, the already dangerous patchwork of GMO corn being grown in America will become the recipient of a weapon of mass destruction.  I doubt anyone needs to be reminded of the pain and suffering caused by Dow's Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  So do we really want it to be sprayed all over the American food supply?  Not that GMO corn is food, but we all know how these evils spread....

To learn more, please read the following articles and make your voice heard.

Food Bits & Bites Newsletter Issue 8

Natural News: Dow Seeking Deregulation...

Mercola: Agent Orange in Your Food

We Were Right About Processed Food...

...It doesn't break down and digest properly in your body.  And now, with camera technology crammed into a pill, you can see the ugly truth for yourself.

Heba, author of the beautiful real food blog, My Life in a Pyramid, posted a great entry about an experiment conducted to show what really happens to the food you eat.  I hope it convinces any fence sitters that gatorade and ramen noodles are not food!  Check out the youtube video for yourself:

http://www.tedxmanhattan.org/2012talks Artist Stefani Bardin, TEDxManhattan 2011 Fellow, shows us her latest project -- using a "smartpill" to reveal how we digest differently processed foods. Stefani produces videos and immersive, interactive installations that explores the influences of corporate culture and industrial food production.

You Can Fight for Food Sovereignty

I am compelled to share this excellent food politics post and urge you to take action:

Maine Challenges Food Sovereignty

In summary, a small-town farmer in Maine, who happens to reside in a town where the local government has declared "Food Sovereignty," is being sued by the state for producing and selling Real Food.  The Food Sovereignty movement in Maine began in Sedgwick and grew to a handful of other small towns.

The town unanimously passed an ordinance giving its citizens the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meats, and just about anything else you can imagine. It’s also a decided bucking of state and federal laws. -- Food Renegade

The concept of declaring Food Sovereignty is brilliant and long overdue...if Blue Hill, ME falls to big gov't (whose witch hunt is of course prompted by big ag interests), where is the hope for the rest of us?  We should all get involved to promote similar ordinances in our towns.  

Please act on the plight of farmer Dan Brown and write to the Maine politicians involved (see info at the end of the abovementioned post.)

Grain-based raw milk can make you sick...

We "real foodies" are passionate promoters of good food in all its pure, natural glory.  And no real food seems to come under fire more than raw milk.  I have no desire to summarize the debate, nor highlight the issues here; I simply want to remind everyone that the quality of your raw milk matters.  To read more about raw milk, please see my article, The Truth about Real Milk.

Only grass-fed raw milk is real milk (specific to cows' milk).  It is not a good idea to drink raw milk from cows living on a grain-based diet.  All commercial, industrial milk comes from grain-based dairies, and it is all pasteurized, sterilized, deodorized, "supplementized," adulterated, etc.  We real foodies know to avoid such sludge...but it is important that we remind ourselves and our curious friends that grain-based raw cows' milk can be harmful and should be avoided.

Cows thrive on their natural diets...any creature does.  Because cows were designed to eat grass and grass alone, their guts are not equipped to properly digest a steady diet of grains.  Among other deleterious effects, such a diet changes the ph of the cow's gut, promoting the growth of malevolent e. coli...the well-known, oft-publicized cause of food borne illness.  

Raw milk is not the enemy...harmful e. coli does not infect cows and their milk arbitrarily.  The primary culprit is the grain-based diet.  So if you want to consume and enjoy Real Milk, make sure it is raw milk from free-range GRASS-fed cows.  To learn more, read:

Eatwild.com on Food Safety

Cornell News on Cattle Diet and e. coli

Science Daily on Diet and Disease in Cattle

Study on Grain Feeding and e. coli in Cattle

          

You do NOT have the right to eat what you choose?!

Yes, our world just keeps getting crazier and more infuriating.  The plots of decades-old dystopian, dictatorial, Big Brother books seem to be playing out before our eyes.  Are we awake and watching?

The government has said, more than once through different vehicles, that we, the people, do NOT have a fundamental right to eat the foods of our choice...to produce and eat our own food!  Lunacy...

This is not going away, my friends, and we need to fight this tide.

Just read for yourself and continue to research and warn others:

Wisconsin ruling

FDA Food Dictators

FDA Legal Brief (associated with link above)

Ever Wonder Why Commercial OJ ALWAYS Tastes So Good?

The truth about orange juice should come as no surprise to those of us who have begun to lift the lid on the dirty little secrets of the food industry.  But just in case you may be holding on to the hope that there is truth in labeling, or that Real Food can be mass produced and sold commercially without degrading quality, I am going to throw out this quick little bit of information.

Commercial orange juice is not real food.  There is a reason that carton after carton (even the "pure," not-from-concentrate kind), OJ exhibits an identical flavor profile.  That sweet citrus rush is not natural.  I enjoyed the truth-revealing post on the Food Renegade blog and thought I'd use it to kick off my "Did You Know" journal.

Read about the secret ingredient that sells orange juice and please pass it on.  Then, grab some ripe organic oranges (if you are able, you blessed warm-climate denizens) and make your own Real orange juice.  Or, better yet, eat them whole...keeping the fiber with the juice reduces negative fructose sugar impacts on your system.

Update on 2011-08-16 06:30 by herbalistmama

Mercola discusses the truth about OJ

Check out the book:

Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)