The food industry has a deep hold on you and is purposefully tricking you out of your health. You’ve battle the parking lot, got a good spot, and remembered to bring your bags from home. The true challenge lies inside the store, the big food companies have legions of employees and mountains of research to influence your choices to get your money. It’s not simple anymore at all, food such as apples or oranges have been altered genetically (GMO), injected with artificial colors, or treated with chemicals. It is rare now-a-days to get pure food from a supermarket. Sadly, if you don’t do research or educate yourself you will be purchasing for convenience today and paying for it tomorrow with your health, and 7-10x the cost in medical bills. If you’re not prepared with the tips in this article you will fall victim to their deceitful marketing and buy poisoned foods or worse “FOOD PRODUCT.”
Food Industry Additives, who are the worst offenders?
Have you ever wondered why food can last on the shelf such a long time? Brought to you by the courtesy of cocktails of chemical preservatives and additives. The food makers’ job is to maximize profits. Profits are maximized by keeping product on the shelf longer and by making it attractive looking. Unfortunately food producers don’t spend nearly as much money on the nutritional value, it all goes to the glitz and glam of their product, not your health. It is important as an educated consumer to limit ingesting processed foods, this is CRITICAL for your health. If you do choose to gamble with your health and eat, read up!
*Health notice many of these are banned in Europe due to health risks*
Chemical / Ingredient | Food Products | Health Danger |
Arsenic | Poultry | Carcinogenic |
Potassium bromate (aka brominated flour) | Rolls, bagel chips, bread crumbs | Autoimmune disease, cancer, hypothyroidism |
Yellow #5 & #6, Blue #1 & #2 | Candy, soda, medicine, cheese, pet food | Most made from coal tar, carcinogenic |
rBGH & rBST (Synthetic hormones) | Dairy / Milk | Colon, prostate, breast cancers |
Dying for dyes
This may shock you but the food industry often dye oranges orange. You might be thinking to yourself, what the ….? It is due to selling more oranges, some might not be pretty enough to be purchased so, why not spray citrus red #2? Here is why you might want to check your oranges. Citrus red #2 has been shown to cause tumors in the bladders of rodents at only modest exposure and to top it off it is not intended for consumption in humans. Read your bag to know for sure.
Dyes-galore?
It’s not just oranges that may be dyed with artificial colors. Deli meats and wheat bread are dyed? Yep, they just might have a caramel color spliced into the mix and pickles often get yellow dyes, this is all to make food sell more by increasing its appeal. A study done by the chemical dye producers known as “Food Dyes: a Rainbow of Risks,” proves just how deadly they are. Blue #2 has been linked to brain tumors, it’s found in candies, beverages, and even pet food. Yellow #5 found in cereals, candy and baked goods, has several carcinogenic chemicals, and is linked to child hypersensitivity, hyperactivity and more behavioral effects, particularly in children. The notorious Red #40 is known to trigger hyperactivity in children. It didn’t take my mother very long to figure this one out. What mom didn’t know is that it may accelerate tumor development in the immune system of mice.
Salmon?
When you buy salmon you are thinking of the wild Alaskan rivers and Ocean where they live and breed. In reality what you are most likely eating is farm raised. Let’s examine the difference in nutritional and health value.
Wild salmon are doing exactly you would think a salmon does. It’s swimming around, avoiding predators, making more salmon, eating lots of the food it is supposed to eat. This means that it has a balanced and good nutritional composition packed with fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and micro-nutrients. All of these nutrients make wild salmon healthy to eat.
Farm salmon are not doing exactly what you think a salmon does. They live in a giant net or inland pond/lake only designed to farm them. They don’t have much room to move, no predators to motivate them, and they receive all the artificial corn, soy (95+% is GMO), artificial colors, and chicken. Not having a proper diet these salmon lack the omega 3’s that make fish great for health. What do you think of a salmon eating, because these farm raised ones certainly are not eating what you expect. What are salmon supposed to eat, plankton. Plankton contain micro-nutrients that color the salmon pink, but since the farm ones eat a diet designed to grow them fast and fat, they are not colored pink. No one wants to eat brown salmon, therefore farm salmon are fed dyes to color their innards. Make sense? Seems pretty backwards to me, and no wonder why these fish don’t have good nutritional balance, empty calories is what they are. So it should be painfully obvious, look at your salmon label and make sure and get wild caught salmon.
Food industry and drug dealers
How are these two related? They both split and “water-down” their product to make extra money. Food Fraud is its common name, and olive oil is a common mark. When buying seemingly full-proof products as “extra virgin” it is often diluted with less expensive oils, such as: sunflower, palm, corn, soybean, hazelnut, and grape seed. Here is the trick, THEY ARE NOT LISTED on the container. Most people are not able to discern the differences in concentrations. Best cast scenario is if you live near a farm that produces it because it is most likely to be whole and not spliced. Shopping tip: if your oil taste rancid return it!
What does Europe know that the US doesn’t?
In the US it is allowed to apply a “bath” to poultry products. This “bath” contains chlorine and many other chemicals to kill off pathogens. This is on top of any anti-biotics used in rearing the chickens to harvest. Both of these process favor producing super-bug “outbreaks.” It is no surprise that the workers in these food plants have chronic, and recurring illnesses. The most common one for the plant workers are asthma leading to more complicated respiratory diseases. We’re unsure of how many chlorine residue remains on the chicken skin, muscles, and fat. Europe has a more progressive stance and doesn’t allow US poultry treated with these processes. Germans were notorious about their stance and made global news about US chicken.
Europe is more forward thinking about food than the United States. For example the eggs are not refrigerated. I know that shocked me as well. European governments do a much better job at protecting their citizens from harm. One of the most well-known is the rejection of any GMO crops, and if any are allowed they MUST be labeled as such. Ractopamine is a drug that is banned in a total of 160 countries, and commonly used in the US. Ractopamine is used to “beef up” pigs, cattle, chicken before they are harvested by increasing muscle synthesis. An astounding 15-20% remains in the meat you get at the store. The drug is known to cause serious disability. Fun note (sarcasm) this drug has killed more pigs than any other animal approved drug.
How to Game the Food Game and win (your health)!
When buying food a great way to reduce the risks of chemicals, poisons, and processing is to see how many times the food is “touched” by someone or machine. Getting local food is the best way to circumvent this problem. Replace processed foods with whole foods. This is essential for your health to achieve your goals and avoid cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and much more. Diet plays a critical role and cannot be ignored or suffer the consequences. Don’t rely on processed inexpensive foods because in reality you’re actually spending more because WHEN you develop disease the medical bills are easily 7-10 times more.