How many of us would feel comfortable being left alone in the middle of the jungle with no guide, no map, completely at the whim of the forces of nature? Not too many of us. Unfortunately, this is the truth for most of us at the grocery store.
We are subject to the push and pull of food marketers and their carefully designed displays. We are led through a predetermined track through the store. We become sheep at the whims of fat-cat businessmen, effectively herding us off a cliff of chronic disease!
We rationalize our choices with what others want us to believe. Consumers must translate food labels and health claims on increasingly tricky packaging. Although there may not be snakes, spiders and large predatory cats in the grocery store jungle, there are much more subtle dangers out there that are just as life-threatening.
Things like trans fatty acids, sodium benzoate, Monosodium glutamate (MSG), partially hydrogenated vegetable protein, food colorings, chemicals like alloxan in bleached flours and sugars, nitrates and nitrites in hot dogs and deli meat, and other preservatives and food additives that many of us just take for granted!
The FDA admitted to itself in 2007, that it is incapable of fulfilling its mission (USDHHS, 2009). The food industry is too quick to produce new chemicals and products and too powerful as a lobby to allow necessary change to occur in an appropriate timeframe. The FDA cannot keep up! Americans want everything at their disposal 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Such food variety and availability, however, does not come without its costs.
Food is designed to tease the palate, stay longer on the shelf, and be convenient and easy to prepare. For this to be possible, our foods are carefully designed with chemicals, additives, and rearranged genetics in order to meet such high demands. The FDA most notably responds to acute problems with the occasional E. Coli or Salmonella outbreak and still struggles with these outbreaks. Food safety personnel are not as attuned to diseases that take decades to develop.
Food contains as many derivatives of heavily subsidized ingredients like corn, wheat, and soy as possible to keep costs low, and profits high. Developing countries scramble to rearrange longstanding agricultural traditions, and adopt Western habits, to meet Western demand. Varieties of fruits and vegetables are becoming extinct. Our global environment is slowly collapsing.
This entire process is becoming devastating for our health, and if the crisis continues, experts estimate that the 21st century could see the first generation to ever have a lower life expectancy than their parents (Olshansky, et al, 2005)...and that's just from problems related to obesity!
As consumers, we need to be smart when traversing the aisles of the grocery store. The local market can be both the most health-promoting and most health-threatening place you will ever visit. Currently, agribusiness is running the show. They're calling the shots as to what we eat, what our children eat, and what our children's children eat. We need to put the control back in the consumer's hand. No longer can we allow ourselves to be trapped in the jungle without a guide. It is my hope that armed with this information, you can help turn the tide, confidently traverse the jungle, and EAT for change, purchase by purchase, and bite by bite!
Read More:
Getting Real About the High Costs of Cheap Food
Buffalo to Screen Documentary "Fresh" on Local Food
References:
FDA Science Board. (2007). FDA science and mission at risk. Retrieved July 13, 2009 from FDA Web site: article link
Olshansky S. J., & et al. (2005). A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century. N Engl J Med, 352, 1138-1145. abstract link
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