Manufacturing Sickness Through The Food Supply

Have you ever considered just how much our diets have changes over the last 50 to 100 years, or how much our health is connected to the types of food we consume. With the majority of us eating on the run and looking for a quick way to produce a meal for our families, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the modern diet. Without doing a lot of research to substantiate the exact date of introduction into the food supply, lets take a look at the approximate time frame of some of our most common food items.

If my memory serves me right, most neighborhoods started seeing an influx of McDonalds and other fast food restaurants somewhere around the mid nineteen seventies. Sure there were some McDonalds and other fast food joints before this time, but we’re talking about when this industry started to become mainstream. Early to mid seventies just about hits it right!

Soda drinking falls along the same lines as the fast food industry. There is no doubt that sodas were created much earlier, but when did it become commonplace to consume this sugary beverage on a daily basis? It was around 1965 that soda’s “previously thought of as occasional treats” were dispensed in cans from vending machines. Today, sodas account for at least a third of the liquid consumed in the US. On average a 12 oz can of soda, is equivalent to 10 teaspoons of sugar. When you consider that many people drink them non-stop throughout the day, that’s a lot of sugar.

In the early 20th Century sugar consumption averaged about 5 pounds a year. Today according to the Department of Agriculture, that number is estimated at anywhere between 140 to 170 lbs a year. That’s alarming! Refined sugar contains no vitamins or minerals. It has zero nutritional value. Since the body is self regulating, it will call upon its own stores of micro-nutrients in order to assist the body in metabolizing sugar into the system. Sugar also suppresses the immune system, and contributes to just about every illness known to man.

Monosodium Glutamate has been used with increasing regularity since it’s introduction into the food supply some 50 years ago. You’d be hard pressed not to find this additive in most processed/boxed foods and many canned products as well. Fast food restaurants have also notoriously been a source of this chemical additive. MSG's only value to the food industry is that it makes food taste appealing, causing folks to eat more. Evidence has shown that animals fed MSG become obese and prone to type 2 diabetes.

The artificial sweetener Aspartame entered into the food supply in the early 1980’s. Its use in diet soda’s and other diet products accounts for 75% of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Products that contain aspartame can include anything from instant breakfasts drinks and other beverages, cereals, desserts, candies, supplements, pharmaceutical drugs, sugar free products and much more.

Both MSG and Aspartame are excitotoxins. They over stimulates neuron receptors in the brain that allow brain cells to communicate with one another. This over stimulation causes them to die, and can result in brain damage. Science has shown that exposing the brain to these substances can produce symptoms of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Use of these products have also been linked to cancer.

Antibiotics came into wide spread use in the 1950’s. In the 1960’s they were introduced in livestock production. Today 3 million lbs of antibiotics are utilized for humans per year, while approximately 25 million lbs are used on livestock There is evidence that this over consumption of antibiotics in animals (as well as humans) is contributing to bacterial resistance. Taking antibiotics also decreases your “good bacterial army” which accounts for 75% of your immune system. This assault can leave you open to additional infections and yeast overgrowth which can result in ever declining health. Yeast overgrowth is often called the great mimicker because it can imitate many diseases.

But lets say you eat a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and only the best of meat, poultry and fish. Evidence has shown the our soils are depleted in trace minerals.This mineral depletion existed in the early part of the last century, as evidenced by the US Senate Document 264, 74th Congress in 1936 Second Session.

Here is a partial quote from that document:

“It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives.”

A recent article on ABC News by Megan Carpenter validated this continuing trend when the article revealed that “recently grown crops have shown decreases of up to 38 percent in protein, calcium, vitamin C, phosphorus, iron and riboflavin when compared with produce from past decades.”

When you consider other food additives, radiation, pesticides, nitrates, trans fat and hydrogenated fats along with the changes in agriculture, food processing and lifestyle there is no wonder why people are dealing with the explosion of health conditions that we are today. Are we manufacturing sickness! You bet we are!