How could the way we eat improve in our future?
A huge amount of our health problems in this country are caused by the additives, processed, altered and fake “foods” that are available to us. Many people assume that a product for sale in a grocery store is either food or healthy. This is not true.
2021 Note: 80,000 new chemicals were added into our environment during the past 30 years. This includes stuff in our foods.
Years ago I met a math teacher and we were talking about hot dogs. Her belief was that “if it tastes good it is good for you.” Not true.
I had the unhappy experience of being in a grocery check out line behind a woman with two children around age 10. I could tell she was a working mom by the way she was dressed. Her cart was half full but there was not a single food item in it. This was the “food” and “fuel” for her family. Every item was processed and packaged and additive-full and nutrient-depleted. Yet, she thought she was giving her family things that would create health and sustain their ability to do school work and thrive. She didn’t know otherwise.
There are many additives in packaged foods that I, as a label reader, wonder WHY is this in here?
Why did the manufacturer think it was necessary to put FD&C Yellow #5 into horseradish sauce or fortune cookies or the hundreds of other products it is in?
The problem with FD&C Yellow #5 is that it depletes the Vitamin B6 in our bodies. The problem with that is we NEED B6 to function well and pain-free.
There are many, many more chemicals added to our grocery choices that are similarly unhealthy.
The solution to eating more REALfood–food that actually GREW–is two-fold.
1. Education: If people understood what the benefits or disadvantages of certain grocery purchases were, they could make educated choices: Health? Or sickness?
2. Food Manufacturing: If food manufacturers were more interested in providing health for consumers rather than profits for themselves, our selections would be vastly improved and so would our health. Products would include more of the whole–rather than stripped of natural nutrients–food and fewer chemicals and unhealthy additives.
I met a food chemist who was quite young. His belief was that humans can eat anything they want without consequences of illness, cancer, pain or decreased immune system function. His employer, he said, provided “food” that “tasted good” because that, he said, is what people want.
Not me.