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Consequences of food additives
Sat, 03/13/2010 - 14:50 — Eve
John sent this link to let us know about Jamie Oliver's project to counter the obesity epidemic. Fast food and processed food with all its hidden additives is causing an epidemic of obesity in our country. Jamie Oliver has a plan to do something about that by educating children about food. For details, search for: http://on.ted.com/886k
Growth enhancers and tranquilizers
Joe says:
There's SO much righteous chatter about the deleterious effects of "fast
food" with its alleged relation to our epidemic of obesity, but while the
Triple Whammer Quadruple Beef with Supplemental Cheese gut bombs in fast food
joints are awful, there just aren't enough people eating enough of them to
begin to explain all that morbid fat jiggling down our aisles. There has to
be a more fundamental cause.
We know that our industrial food production system is efficiency-oriented;
make the most product from the least investment. So our food supply is
scientifically enhanced, from hybridizing to cloning to chemical and enzyme
supplements, with the purpose of bulking up as fast as possible, with the
least possible capital input. I'm no farmer, but I know it begins at least
with grain and vegetable production, and continues through animals to be
slaughtered. The idea is to bulk everything up with minimum input, and I
recall back there somewhere that farm animals' feed even had "tranquilizers"
to keep the herd or flock calm, unruly, manageable.
For most of us, the meat part is irrelevant, but the implications for the
greater population may be one of the greatest scandals of modern times. The
American public is the top of the food chain, and all those growth-enhancers
(and possible tranquilizers) are concentrated in us. I believe that comes
much closer to explaining the docile, mindless, waddling population we have
become.
This is food, so to speak, for thought, and even vegans may not be totally
immune although obviously they're in a safer position than steak and chicken
people.
I think it is a ghastly, frightening proposition and hope someone will prove
me wrong.
Altering the digestive flora
Eve says: I recently attended a gluten-free tour at New Seasons Market and learned that the incidence of celiac disease has quadrupled in 50 years. One prime suspect: antibiotics in meat and dairy have wreaked havoc with the normal human digestive flora.
Animal agriculture and flu pandemics
Denis found this thought-provoking article. "Measles, small pox, and many other diseases were born in the barnyard about 10,000 years ago" and jumped the species barrier to become human diseases. The article tells how this happens and points out that current factory farming conditions are accelerating the process, causing the rapid evolution of new and lethal viruses now poised for transmission worldwide.
http://www.truthout.org/topstories/10910vh3