We Are What We Eat, But What Are We Eating?

Image courtesy of agricultured.org

by Dennis Townsend, Contributing Writer

How many times have you heard, “don’t eat this, cut back on that, drink plenty of water”, etc, and your plate should look like a rainbow. Then you’re suppose to portion it just right and chew a certain number of times before swallowing. You could go crazy just trying to eat right. There are numerous diets out there that say that they can get you down to the ideal weight, but at what cost? You are bound to lose a vitamin here or a chemical there that will require you to supplement a particular diet with a multi-vitamin. There are hundreds of multi-vitamins on the market and each say they have the ideal formula to bring your body back to life. Pushing multi-vitamins is a billion dollar a year business, what else would they say?

Americans have always had a long standing relationship with pure cane sugar that goes so far back, there are those who actually go into withdrawals from not having their daily supply,  But adding pure sugar to certain products for consumer ingestion got to be expensive and we all know that businesses thrive on their bottom  line profits so chemist went to work on a cheaper sugar replacement  In 1970 the solution was born, “high fructose corn syrup.” The biggest contributor to the increase in diabetes diagnosis in the last 25 years, and what’s worse, we are hooked on the stuff. Today, there is a big push to steer us away from this addictive chemical. Trouble is, they have no substitute sweeteners that can even come close to the same taste of our beloved sugar. We consume one half billion Twinkies a year, and chase down whatever we eat with fifteen billion gallons of soft drinks flavored with high fructose corn syrup. Krispy Kreme doughnuts produces 7.5 billion doughnuts a year; that’s a doughnut fried every 22 seconds.

I don’t know about a lot of you, but my mother fried everything in lard which in the late 50’s and early 60’s was the ultimate frying grease. She didn’t learn about vegetable oil or olive oil until the 70’s, and as a child growing up in the south, she learned from her mother who also used lard. Yet, my mother lived until she was 76 years old and was never concerned about high cholesterol. Every year the Food and Drug Administration approves a new chemical for human consumption, and did you know that some of these chemicals are dual use chemicals. One such chemical compound that is well known is “shellac”, which was originally  made for woodwork, and is now responsible for putting the shine on those jelly beans  eaten during Easter. Next time you see a shine on that juicy apple, thank the Kerria Iacca insects who gave up their lives so you could see yourself in the shine on that old wooden cabinet. They always talk about reading the labels on what we are about to consume, but in order to understand a lot of what these compounds do one would have to be a chemist.

It is true that we are becoming overweight at an alarming rate in this country and millions are being made on America’s desire to lose pounds. And everyday they come up with something that’s bad to eat and every other day they change their minds so what’s a body to do? The choice is naturally yours as to what you chose to eat, but as for me, I’m going to eat what’s yummy and if I got to go, I will go with a smile on my face and pure sugar on my lips.

DLTPONCH33

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