FOOD HEALTH

CONTROVERSIAL FOOD

I've been relatively health conscious for the better part of my life. I eat healthy,  never boozed, neither smoked (not even green) and I exercise often, but it seems I'm rowing against the tide. The turbulence of the waters has been permanently stirred up against me. In fact, I am not alone, you may be in the same boat as me. The cards are stacked against us. We lost the fight against the powers that be before it began. If I've lost you with the metaphors, let me expound. All processed foods may not be, what they are said to be. Implying, even tough we eat healthy, the organic foods we get to buy is often, if not always suspect.

Remember the story with the "Limeys" in the 1700's who contracted scurvy by eating processed meats (picked pork in brine), well... not much has changed since then. The only difference today is modern food processing. If it wasn't for the lemons that cured their scurvy, they may have been a lost chapter in history. However, do you remember mad cow disease? Its the result of humans, turning cow's into omnivores or cannibals, by feeding them sheep or cows proteins as an 'additive' to their daily feed. Restated, dried animal waste was ground into a powder form and mixed with the cows feed. Who could ever have imaged that a 'food additive' would result in BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) or the human form TSE  (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies) with all its repercussions and consequences. Now, they doing the same to pigs.

Anyway, fairly recently I had a conversation with a girl friend about free-range eggs that she bought from the local supermarket. Her thoughts were to return the eggs because the egg yolks were all pale yellow, (presentation is everything) thus assuming that the eggs doesn't posses the expected nutritional value or may not have been free-range eggs in the first place, even if the label so professed. So I explained, to her that:-

 "That the colour of a yolk is little indication as to its nutritional value or that they are even free-range, because we are at the mercy of the certain farmers, who adds chemicals to the chicken feed which gives emphasis the colour of the yolks. Beside the farmer, we are also at the mercy of the poultry co-op and the other powers that be, etc..." 

Having said this, she says to me "Oh, then I suppose its still OK to eat it." Well..., I did say yes but in all honesty it should have been a a big decisive NO. To clarify, apparently we have all been led to believe that the additives we are often presented in food is good for us or has little effect on our physiology -think of the mad cows). So, lets looks at what the farmer mixes with the whole grain feed, that is supposed to be good for us. A dye, a chemical substance (Quinoline yellow aka E104 / Tartrazine aka E102 / Sunset Yellow aka E110 / etc..) in order to achieve a deeper golden-yellow, sunrise looking yolk. The objective...., it always has to look better than it tastes.

However, these 'chemical dye additives' do have the capacity to induce allergic reactions in humans, especially those showing intolerance to aspirin. Lets take E110 for instance, it is an extract of petroleum tar, or E104 is essentially a paint additive, but as a food additive, it may cause hyperactivity in children. Contact dermatitis is a well know reaction caused by these dyes. Why would anyone want to add foreign substances into food? Short answer, when you make food look good and appetizing, the fools will buy it. Just yesterday I drank a glass of pineapple flavoured soda, but when I read the label on the bottle, the letters E104 were flashing at me, so the kitchen sink drank the rest. Call me a pessimist, but Einstein did say, that after the last bee dies, mankind will only live for four years thereafter. Implying, that without fertilization of plants by the bees, there will be no produce proliferation. Poor little creatures, they are all getting 'high' of the pesticides spayed over the orchids when they sip nectar from the blossoms.

Sadly, farmers are killing off bees with their pesticides, or shall I rather say by Governments with their pesticide spraying policies. It seems organic has become old-hat and consuming pesticides are in vogue. Even the earthworms that are essential to soil-health, often 'overdose' on fertilizers and are virtually extinct on most farms, thus the fruits and vegetables we eat all contain poisonous pesticide even if only in minute quantities. Recently a UK Government report recommended that its citrus fruit should carry a warning label due to pesticide residue found in virtually every orange tested by its Pesticides Residues Committee.

Be that as it may, lets look at why the chicken can't lay a golden yolk. Short answer... the poor chicken is too stressed out from lack of sleep. Whilst living under artificial light (fluorescent light) the chicken makes 'hay whilst the sun shines' and pops out eggs like a virtual tennis ball machine, and just before it is due to suffer heart failure due lack of sleep, it is slaughtered and we get to eat it. Remember, 'you are what you eat'. Is this any less frightening than eating an toffee apple crawling with live ants? Call it fear factor food if you like, but that's what our diets has become.

Enter cochineal, the red dye used by lipstick manufacturers and as a red dye for food. Officially it replaces the banned dye called FD&C Red No2 which had carcinogenic effects on female rats. So what! you say! Cochineal is in fact an insect (beetle) native to South America and when finely ground, is used as an additive to many red foods like jams, alcoholic drinks and sweets etc... but it gets worse. Have you ever found a hair in your meal at a restaurant? If your answer was yes, you probable sent it back or rather, you definitely sent it back. So let me tell you about the food additive amino acid  L-cysteine. In its cheapest form, it is hydrolyzed from human hair. Currently it is debated whether or not its consumption constitutes cannibalism, - remember the cow!

Just think of how many toxins  we consume daily, or annually or during our willfully decreased lifespan? Can we blame it on the powers that be, who sell us pharmaceutical drugs to alleviate the health problems caused by these poisonous foods that they recommend fit for human consumption? Certainly, we have lost the battle and the war and pharmaceutical giants are certainly making a "killing" by selling us drugs with side effects worse than the conditions they are purporting to cure us from. We never had a chance in the first place. So why do they add these poisons to our food? The short answer..... PROFIT! If it looks good, the fools will buy it, even if its tastes like crap. Other 'e-food additives' provide anti fungal properties to food giving it a longer shelf-life, even long life milk takes forever to turn sour, but all at the expense of of our health. Other 'e-food additives' emulsify, others stabilize. In a nut shell, 'food additives' embalm the food with poisonous substances to give them good looks and longevity by putting profits first and the quality of our lives second.