Posted on

Unfood

no-junk-foodDefinition of Food:

1) things people eat.

2) things people eat that nourish, sustain or supply substances to sustain growth, repair and propel vital processes and to furnish energy.

Sadly Definition One is how most people think about food. If it’s edible, it’s food. Edible seems to mean if it doesn’t kill you immediately or in the short term, it’s okay to eat.

I prefer the second definition but if we use it as a ruler, the majority of what we eat falls short of food. We tend to eat a lot of what I like to call “unfood”.

Unfood is edible in that it doesn’t cause immediate death. Unfood is usually heavily processed and denatured of its nutrients. Unfood often includes substances created in labs to enhance, smell, taste, mouth-feel and shelf-life of the product. The body doesn’t know how to process these chemicals so it sequesters them into fat cells or reacts to them with aches, inability to sleep and other disorders.

Sadly, our first inclination is to reach for more poison: over-the-counter painkillers and sleeping pills, which further add to the toxic burden our bodies bear.

Look at the labels on the packaged food in your pantry. Are there words you can’t pronounce? I suggest you look them up online. Find out what other uses there are for these chemicals to determine whether eating them is a good idea.

Real food doesn’t require dozens of chemicals. Bread is a great example of how our food has been adulterated. Real bread requires five basic ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, water and yeast. Gourmet breads may include eggs, milk, and seeds.

But check out the label on your favourite bread. Subway has over 50 ingredients in its bread. A recent news story touted Food Babe’s victory in convincing Subway to remove one chemical from its bread. Big Deal. It’s a start but it seems rather like “lip service”. “We care about your health so we are removing X to lull you into forgetting about the other 40-some questionable ingredients!”

Chemicals are used to cover up the stench of processed food, which is often made with inferior ingredients. Pink slime, a lab concoction of proteins captured from slaughterhouse waste, is washed in ammonia before being added to patties, nuggets, sticks, and other forms of “pre-chewed” meats.

There is an entire industry manufacturing and marketing grain-based foods, most of which are corn-based. These foods are evil on many levels:

  1. 90% of corn in North America is GMO. In studies (except those conducted by GMO companies) consumption of GMO foods led to gastro-intestinal issues and higher cancer rates.
  2. Much of this corn is fried in GMO oils like corn, soy, canola and cottonseed oil. Frying creates acrylamides and other toxic substances and consuming them leads to Omega acid imbalances. (They’re all too high in Omega 6 vs Omega 3.) And they’re GMO.
  3. These foods are a major source of empty calories. Digesting food is an enormously energy-sucking process for the body. To achieve optimum health and reduce stress on the body, it is best to eat high-nutrient foods.
  4. Grain has been used to fatten animals for centuries, millennia. Why do we think a grain-based diet (which is the recommendation of the USDA Food Pyramid and the Canada Food Guide) is NOT going to make US fat?

There is plenty of unfood in our grocery baskets. Soft drinks are a significant portion of the family grocery budget but they do not nourish or sustain or supply anything. In fact they rob your body of calcium and other minerals. They are most likely loaded with GMO High Fructose Corn Syrup, an evil sweetener, which is manufactured using dry cleaning fluid and mercury. Even if they contain sugar, it is GMO if it’s made with sugar beets and all that sugar (9.5 tsp per can of Coke) steals vitamins and minerals from the body.

A lot of people assure me they’re fine because they avoid sugar, opting instead for artificial sweeteners. Little do they know that diabetes has skyrocketed, in part because of the prevalence of artificial sweeteners. The body simply doesn’t know what to do with these strange chemicals.

Before food gets to the factory (or supermarket) it can be contaminated with dozens of chemicals, namely pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and other substances designed to kill things. The Environmental Working Group releases a yearly list of the most polluted fruits and vegetables called The Dirty Dozen. These are the most heavily sprayed food crops and one is prudent to choose organic versions of these. They also have a list of the Clean 15, those foods least likely to be sprayed.

I’ve never understood the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality of ignoring the consequences of toxic chemicals in food. I also don’t understand consumers’ blind trust of the system and their tolerance of governments, obviously in cahoots with powerful food lobbyists. These organizations care about money, not the health and wellness of their customer.

Sometimes it all seems hopeless. 100 years ago all food was organic. Now we have to pick our way through food minefields. Tragically, most of us won’t know until it’s too late that we’ve been poisoned by our food.

What can you do?

  1. Grow as much of your own food as you can.
  2. Get to know your farmers.
  3. Buy ingredients, not products made with ingredients.
  4. Choose organic products whenever you can.
  5. Ask for organic products from your store managers. Create a demand for clean food.
  6. Vote with your dollars, supporting local, organic, and ethical food.
  7. Be prepared to pay more for quality food.

Moving away from unfood is a process. It won’t happen overnight. But your health and your world will reap the benefits of your intention to banish unfood forever.

 

http://www.ewg.org/

http://foodbabe.com/

Posted on

Ritz Crackers are Not Grain: They Aren’t Even Food!

Ritz towerIn a recent news report a woman was fined $10 for not sending a grain in her child’s lunch, even though it had fresh vegetables including potatoes and carrots. The child’s lunch was supplemented with Ritz Crackers, under the pretense of providing the child with a grain.

This story appalls me on many levels.

First why was THIS child’s lunch the focus of persecution? What about the kids with fruit roll-ups, aka, sugar and food colour!?!?

What about the kids with white bread (stripped of its nutrients), slathered in margarine or mayonnaise, (hydrogenated “edible” oils, not food, but edible) and cancer-causing processed meat? That such a sandwich qualifies as food and fits nicely into the food pyramid is ghastly!

What qualifies a Ritz cracker as a grain?

Let’s examine the ingredients in a Ritz cracker.

Wheat Flour, (some labels say “enriched wheat flour”) Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Soybean or Cottonseed), Sugar, Raising Agents (Ammonium and Sodium Bicarbonates, Disodium Diphosphate), Salt, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Soy Lecithin, Barley Malt Flour.

 

The main ingredient is wheat flour. It doesn’t say whole wheat so it means they’ve taken the whole grain, removed all

the nutritious parts and the fibre and left the starch. The law states they must replace some of the nutrients, namely niacin, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, folic acid. Sounds good until you realize that they add synthetic substances, and the body doesn’t necessarily use them in the same way as it does naturally occurring vitamins and minerals.

Grains in their whole state have fewer nutrients, pound for pound, than almost any whole food. Sure they have calories, but few of us have difficulties getting enough calories.

Our bodies need micronutrients like minerals and vitamins; we need fibre and proteins and healthy fats. Grains are not the best sources of any of these nutrients.

The next ingredient is vegetable oil (on some labels), soybean oil and cottonseed oils (on other labels). Soybean and cottonseed oils are most likely genetically modified, as 90% of North A

merican fields of these crops are GMO. GMOs have not been proven safe for human consumption and have been associated with severe environmental issues, including an increase in chemical usage, the creation of super weeds and super insects resistant to pesticides, destruction of soil ecology, and loss of biodiversity.

Ritz crackers info

In addition, the oil in a Ritz has been hydrogenated (adding hydrogen to convert liquid to solid) to give the food the right texture and mouth-feel and a significantly longer shelf life. Hydrogenation converts oil into a poison, as our bodies don’t know what to do with the resulting strange substance: trans fats.

Sugar is the next ingredient. Sugar is another poison in our food supply, contributing to over a hundred conditions and diseases. If it comes from sugar beet (as opposed to sugar cane) it is likely GMO and again, not proven safe for human consumption.

Then there’s baking powder and salt, and then more sugar, in the form of high fructose corn syrup, a sugar known to contribute to obesity and food addictions and usually GMO too. Food manufacturers often use several types of sugar so that they can list them separately and keep sugar from showing up first on all the labels. It’s a trick to keep us from realizing we are overdoing sugar.

About the only food value in a Ritz cracker is in the calories, which have been stripped of what little nutrients were in the grain and combined with unhealthy fat, sugar and salt.

What is really scary is that according to government-sponsored surveys, Ritz Crackers are the #1 perceived snack food in America.

If Ritz crackers are a staple in your diet, I suspect your body is starving. In North America we consume copious amounts of food but we are always hungry.

It’s because real food is so much more than calories or carbs, fat and protein. Real food is about the micronutrients that we can’t get from a processed food product like Ritz crackers.

After examining the evidence, what do you think?

Is a Ritz cracker a grain?

Is it even food?

Does it belong in your kid’s lunch?

My philosophy: Eat the Food, the Whole Food and Nothing but the Food.

Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/19/ritz-crackers-fine_n_4303073.html

http://www.snackworks.ca/en/products/Ritz.aspx

Posted on

The Dirty Dozen 2013 Edition

DirtyDozenHave you heard of the Dirty Dozen? It’s the 1967 movie starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Charles Bronson, where a World War II US Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead into a mass assassination mission of German officers.

The modern mass assassination is even more insidious than in that old film, largely because the target is the most innocent among us: people who eat whole, real food in the form of fruits and vegetables. We know they’re good for us. Our grandmothers told us they were and the produce our grandmothers fed us WAS good for us. Usually it was grown in soils teeming with life and vital nutrients and bereft of toxic substances.

Modern agriculture has changed all that and rendered many of our most nutritious foods into enemies, largely through the application of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Unfortunately not all the pesticides used to kill bugs, grubs, or fungus on the factory farm wash off under the tap at home. Government tests show that many fruits and vegetables have a pesticide residue, even after washing.

Some pesticides are bred into the plant. An example is the insecticide Bt, which works by irritating insects’ stomachs. Bt is now bred into corn and there is evidence that humans may suffer from stomach ailments after eating Bt corn. A study of pigs fed GMO corn found they all suffered excess inflammation in their stomachs.

One alternative is to seek and eat organic foods but they are often appreciably more expensive than conventional produce. A good solution is to avoid the worst offenders or select organic and then buy regular versions of other produce.

Exposure to pesticides can be reduced by as much as 80% by avoiding the most contaminated foods in the grocery store, the modern Dirty Dozen, as revealed by the Environmental Working Group. Since 1995, the organization has identified which produce items have the most chemicals.

The EWG couldn’t pick just 12 so the Dirty “Dozen” is 14 for 2013.

1. Apples: In 2013, apples take the number one spot. In Michael Pollan’s book, The Botany of Desire, he explains that because we’ve lost much of the genetic diversity of apples they are disease and pest prone so the use of chemicals on them is deemed necessary. Up to 42 different chemicals are found in apples.

2. Celery: with up to 64 chemicals. Organic celery is often no more expensive than conventionally grown celery and in my experience it is far more flavourful. When I can get it on sale, I buy extra, chop it up and store it in bags in the freezer and use it in recipes where I would cook it anyway, like soups and casseroles.

3. Cherry Tomatoes: these are new on the list. It’s so unnecessary to spray tomatoes. They are among the easiest crops to grow in most climates.

4. Cucumbers: also new on the list. Also easy to grow without chemicals.

5. Grapes: 
Imported grapes (grown outside USA and Canada) make the 2013 Dirty Dozen list. Vineyards can be sprayed with pesticides during different growth periods and no amount of washing or peeling will eliminate contamination. Remember, wine is made from grapes, which testing shows can harbor as many as 34 different pesticides.

6. Hot peppers: Peppers have thin skins that don’t offer much of a barrier to pesticides.

7. Nectarines (imported): Up to 33 different chemicals are found on soft-skinned nectarines, making them among the dirtiest tree fruit.

8. Peaches: up to 62 chemicals. Their soft skins make them susceptible to chemical penetration.

9. Potatoes: The Botany of Desire exposes the growing methods of potatoes and reveals that our demand for the perfectly elongated French fry is largely responsible for the monoculture that leads to the poisonous growing condition of potatoes.  Potatoes can easily be grown in your home garden without chemicals.

10. Spinach: Spinach can be laced with as many as 48 different pesticides, making it one of the most contaminated green leafy vegetables.

11. Strawberries: up to 59 chemicals, especially out of season, when they’re most likely imported from countries that have less-stringent regulations for pesticide use. When organic strawberries are in season, they are often as cheap as the chemical-laden ones and their flavour is far superior.

12: Sweet Bell Peppers: May contain up to 49 different chemicals. Also thin-skinned and susceptible to absorbing chemicals.

+ Kale /collard Greens: Traditionally, kale is known as a hardier vegetable that rarely suffers from pests and disease, but it was found to have residues of organophosphates and other risky pesticides. That’s why they are on the Plus list for 2013.

+ Summer squash, domestically grown: tests found that some domestically-grown summer squash – zucchini and yellow crookneck squash — contained residues of harmful organochlorine pesticides that were phased out of agriculture in the 1970s and 1980s but that linger on some farm fields.

Incidentally, the Clean 15TM, according to the Environmental Working Group, the least contaminated produce items are Asparagus, Avocado, Cabbage, Cantaloupe, Sweet Corn, eggplant, grapefruit, Kiwi Fruit, Mango, Mushrooms, Onions, Papaya, Pineapples, Sweet Peas (Frozen), sweet potatoes.

 

Sources for this article include:

Environmental Working Group: http://www.ewg.org

Dirty Dozen Methodology: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/methodology.php

http://www.NaturalNews.com

http://www.Organic.org

The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan