Sunday, March 3, 2013

Food Games...Not Kids Play...

Plants soak up pesticides and cannot be washed off! "90% of lettuce tests positive for 47 different pesticides and 57 different chemical residues."
What kind of future are we giving to our children?

"Only 5–10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90–95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/
Plants aren't just coated with pesticides.
"90% of lettuce tests positive for 47 different pesticides and 57 different chemical residues." http://www.pesticideinfo.org/DS.jsp?sk=13045

Plants soak up pesticides.

And no amount of washing is going to remove substances that are embedded in their tissues. http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/systemic-pesticides-zm0z10zrog.aspx

****
A common reaction when people "see" what they normally can't see is anger and frustration:
"Well, what CAN I eat? EVERYTHING is poisoned!"
Here's the answer:
Yes, it's bad - and a terrible betrayal.

That's what happens when we allow a handful of multinational chemical companies to control our food system.

And a handful of multinational food companies to "process" factory farmed plants, animals and grains into "foodlike substances"

Making more profits overrides all other considerations, like the health and well being of consumers.

In fact, the goal of these companies is to ADDICT consumers to their chemcal laden products.


"From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic.

Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.

Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate ...in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day).

We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food.

It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese.

It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year.

In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here.

Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century—including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, NestlĂ©, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more—Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research.

Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure.

He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products:

Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.”

He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality.
Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat.

Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them.
You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again."
http://michaelmossbooks.com/books/salt-sugar-fat/
http://healthyeatingco.smugmug.com/FoodAddiction/Why-Cant-We-Stop-Eating-Junk/27468998_ZgXrPp#!i=2374885497&k=3DW5JrJ&lb=1&s=A

And then sell worried consumers chemical laden vitamins and supplements:
http://www.supplementexposed.com/

And then sell sick consumers pharmaceuticals to treat their symptoms, but not heal them.

At an OUTRAGEOUS profit:
Profitability of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Compared to all Fortune 500 Firms:

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2009/08/how_to_think_constructively_ab.html

"Pharma profits must be protected, it is often suggested, to encourage innovation.
... But the pharma industry is less innovative than patent proponents suggest.

I crunched numbers from the 10 biggest pharma players and, on average, R&D expenditure is less than half of marketing expenditure.

And the gap hasn't been closing — the difference between R&D expenditure and marketing expenditure has grown by ~40% in the last five years alone.

Marketing expenditure in pharma is "strategic", designed to gain control of the value chain — by influencing doctors, HMOs, hospitals, and universities — and that is what pharma players invest more than two dollars in for every dollar invested in innovation.

In fact, there's relatively little innovation pressure in healthcare: consistent margins of ~20% suggest that competition to innovate exerts little pressure on pharma players.

If it did, they would willingly forego profits for greater R&D investment.
**
Healthcare in America is a textbook example of thin value.

The healthcare industry maintains significantly supernormal profitability — yet, those profits are divorced from people being relatively better off.

An American healthcare industry that "creates value" by limiting how much better off people are is simply transferring value from society to shareholders."


TY Healthy Eating http://healthyeatingco.smugmug.com

No comments:

Post a Comment