If you can get something to look, smell, and taste just so, you can sell an awful lot of it!
It’s common knowledge that processed “food companies” like Nabisco and Kraft employ “Food Science Technicians”. The high-end in this profession are employed to meticulously and chemically alter the visual appeal, aroma, taste and texture (“mouthfeel”) of their products so that consumers will become chemically addicted and continue to buy them.
Pizza, french fries, sodas, chips, bread, cheese, chocolate, muffins, coffee, candy, are a few popular examples, but read on……
Many items are promoted as “Health Food” but really aren’t at all. A label can be very deceptive. It can suggest a food is very healthful when it is absolutely the opposite.
Take canned fruit. Fruit is a natural product – but once it has the nutrients cooked out of it and high fructose corn syrup dumped on it – it’s now degraded and not worthy of being consumed. Most fruit juices are much the same – boiled, bottled = butchered.
Muffins are still carbohydrate dense and nutrient poor no matter what the label says.
Most “Health Food Bars” are simply candy bars in disguise, with very little fiber, lots of processed carbohydrates, and a ton of sugar. “LARA” bars are one exception.
Example: “Quaker Natural Granola, Low-Fat”
It’s easy to be tricked by granola. Although the name is practically synonymous with healthy, some types—including this cereal—contain a startling amount of sugar per serving. One serving contains 18 grams of sugar, as much as a Twinkie.
You’re better off making your own healthier version from oats, various nuts, coconut flakes, raisins and a dollop of raw organic honey.
Food Dye
Think twice before eating your favorite strawberry yogurt from now on. According to the FDA, the red food coloring — called cochineal extract, or “Carmine”– found in popsicles, candy, strawberry yogurt, fruit drinks and even artificial crabmeat is made from the dried, ground bodies of an insect called Dactylopius coccus costa. Native to Peru, the beetles feed on red cactus berries. The berries’ color accumulates in the female and its un-hatched larvae before the insects are then collected, dried and ground into pigment. It takes approximately 70,000 insects to produce one pound of carmine.
Canola oil is a very highly processed item that is made from “The Rapeseed”.
Oh – you don’t recognize “Rape” or “Rapeseed” as a food source? Either do I – but it’s cheap to manufacture and is pawned off as some kind of “Health Food”.
Soy is another problematic “health food” you need to know about. See Soy-yes or no?
Processed organic food is as bad as any other processed food – (minus the pesticides & chemical fertilizers). So when you see “Organic Milk” but it’s pasteurized and homogenized – it’s been ruined. And be sure to carefully watch out for “ultra pastueurized” (completely dead”) milk. If you want your family to drink milk, the simple solution is to buy Raw Milk.
About 30 years ago, someone popularized the idea that since fat is called “fat,” it must be bad. The idea led to removing fat from food and replacing it with carbohydrates and chemicals. Most of this was marketed as “health food”. But somehow we kept getting fatter. In the nineties it was deemed that carbohydrates were the problem. Not surprising, considering how many we ate in place of fats. So carbohydrates were banished from health food, and more chemicals were introduced to make what no longer resembled food at least taste like food.
There are many terms that are misleading in the food advertising industry today. Think of how many times you see healthy phrases plastered all over food containers.
Common examples of “healthy food” words on product labels:
Fat Free
Reduced Fat
Low Fat
Sugar Free
Diet
We’re supposed to believe that each of these categories represents healthier food.
In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Translated, here is what those “healthy food” phrases actually mean:
Fat free, but full of sugar and chemicals.
Reduced fat, but increased processed carbohydrates.
Low fat, but high glycemic index. (Spikes your blood sugar.)
Sugar free, but artificial everything else.
“Diet” yes – you’ll lose weight and your health, – causes cancer in lab rats.
Part of the “Food Science Technicians” bible says that the item must not satisfy the appetite. This makes people keep eating more. Removing nutrients is the simple route to accomplishing this.
From a marketing point of view it really does make sense.
Real Foods have a wholeness to them, a wholeness which is innate and natural.
It’s not nice (or successful) to mess with Mother Nature!
When foods are altered from their natural state, to that degree, they aren’t beneficial foods anymore. Even when they’re “enhanced” with things someone thinks are good (example – synthetic vitamins) our bodies don’t utilize them well.
Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to optimally handle the foods that natively occur on this earth. When we mess with that, the results cannot be anything but bad. Growing waistlines, unprecedented obesity, and diminished energy levels that characterize these times certainly support this claim.
If it comes in a jar, box, can, or bottle it’s usually processed.
As much as possible – choose foods that are whole, pure, and natural.
By the way, the same is true with vitamins and supplements. This is why we offer Whole Food Concentrates by Standard Process, and do comprehensive testing to determine what’s right for you.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Gandhi.
No Responses