I keep hearing how we are eating foods that are not only making us unhealthy but also fatter. Some are saying fat people should take responsibility for what they put into their body and make healthier choices for themselves.
I do not believe it is as simple as that. With fast food being so cheap and available we have changed a whole generation of American eaters.
When the economy was booming...no one was looking back. Just eat and run. No time to shop and prepare meals for ourselves or our families. No time to SEE where our food really comes from. We are completely disconnected from THE SOURCE and I do mean that in any and all terms you would like to apply to that.
Do you know what is in a Chicken Nugget? According to http://www.michaelpollan.com/ it is made up of thirty-eight ingredients. Thirteen of those are derived from corn, starting with the corn-fed chicken itself.
The Nuggets also contain a few synthetic ingredients that come not from the corn field but from refineries or chemical plants. YIKES! If that is not alarming enough how about an ingredient called TBHQ? Also called butylhydroquinone, an antioxidant derived from petroleum. In layman's terms it is simply called butane AKA lighter fluid.
It is either sprayed directly onto the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in "to help preserve freshness."
"According to A Consumer's Digest of Food Additives, TBHQ (lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use it sparingly". Which is a good idea because ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, a sense of suffocation and collapse. Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can cause death.
I find that alarming because many people will continue to eat products at fast food outlets, simply because that is what is offered to them.
I am fortunate enough to not have to eat fast food. I have the time to shop and prepare my own food at home....that is another story on my journey to find and prepare healthful foods...not always an easy task.
At least give the public an easier path to eating food that is not adulterated with ingredients that we can not pronounce the names of. Also, can we please help the people who do not have the where with all to make those choices. Yeah, they are out there. I hear a lot of noise in my ears about it being their own fault and to take responsibility for themselves. Easy to say and I could not disagree more.
We have let industrialized food consume the consumer. What ever we may have to say is drowned out by mega corporations not willing to let us even see how our food is processed.
America's food corporations, few that they are, have huge political power. Politicians who are bought by this industry, safeguard the CAFOs. You may ask, "What is a CAFO?" It stands for: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. They would prefer we did not know they exist. Thanks to journalists like Michael Pollan and others trying to do investigative reporting, we are hearing more about how our food supply has become industrialized to the point of no return.
The next step for these giant corporations is to find cheaper and further away places to supply us with food. Be it plant or animal they will find a way to make more profit of that. I personally do not think Mother Nature intended our bodies to live that way.