When someone says the word food, by association most people would probably picture a nurturing and kind mother figure hard at work in a warm kitchen putting together wholesome versions of our favorite comfort foods. However, when it comes to the standard American diet, this is just not the case.
Americans are a part of a corporately hijacked food system, compromised of unethical food giants, ingredients that endanger health and a misguided food pyramid. First and foremost, the food system is made up of companies that seek to make a profit from our addiction for convenient, cheap and tasteful foods. Food companies keep up on financial status, along with what kind of tastes and experiences consumers want from food. As a result, they have food scientists that specialize in the task of making food that is unnaturally desirable in the cheapest way possible. Take sugar for example, instead of using real sugar in the companies’ products, they patent a cheaper replacement, usually a substance called High Fructose Corn Syrup. This mock sugar can be found in products like sodas and syrups, to hidden, unexpected items like salad dressings and burger buns. High Fructose Corn Syrup is derived from corn. Which makes it cheaper to mass produce and process than real sugar, courtesy of the late Secretary of the USDA, Earl Butz. Butz instructed farmers to plant massive amounts of corn and soy in the 1970’s. “In order to profitably mass-produce convenience for a growing middle class, the food industry needed unchecked access to cheap inputs.” (Tom Philpot, grist.org, 2) In addition, Butz had in mind an “economical” way of manipulating the food system by increasing the amount of corn and soy grown in the Midwest; thus cheaply and profitably “feeding the world.”
Continuing, ingredients are what determine the quality, nutrition and bioavailability of the foods people eat. As previously mentioned, High Fructose Corn Syrup is a low-quality sweetener which during the chlor-alkali refining process is mixed with hazardous chemicals, such as Caustic Soda (Lye) causing a residual coating of mercury. “A pilot study was conducted to determine if high fructose corn syrup contains mercury, a toxic metal historically used as an anti-microbial. High fructose corn syrup samples were collected from three different manufacturers and analyzed for total mercury. The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup. Average daily consumption of high fructose corn syrup is about 50 grams per person in the United States. With respect to total mercury exposure, it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury in the diet of children and sensitive populations.” (Renee Dufault, Biomedcentral.com) These hazards also apply to Saccharin, and Aspartame, a “low calorie” sweetener made by processing the waste from a genetically modified strain of e. coli long with other chemicals such as methanol. Several of these products are commonly used in sweetener items such as Splenda.
Aside from the no-calorie sweeteners, the main issue with processed sugar is that being absent of fiber, it gets digested almost immediately giving a sharp rise to blood sugar and insulin levels. This is in stark contrast from when people would normally find sugar in nature. In fruit, much smaller in amounts where fiber slows the digestion and provides satiety. When processed sugar and other mock additives are consumed excessively, several health problems may arise, like inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Even yogurts that advertise as “low in fat” contain High Fructose Corn Syrup more often than not. In addition, these fake sugars play a big role in the growing obesity problem. “National surveys of childhood obesity weren’t recorded before 1963; however, the rate of childhood obesity in the U.S. began to rise in the 1980’s.” (Sara Police, livestrong.com) This is information is interesting regarding the dates, considering that mass-produced corn came around in the 1970’s. According to FDA, there are a staggering 3,000 food additives, flavoring and colors to the processed foods in the US alone. The top official at Pillsbury, James Behnke relatedly stated: “Look, were not going to screw around with the company jewel’s here and change formulation because a bunch of guys in white coats are worried about obesity.” (Michael Moss, Salt Sugar Fat, xxi)
Perhaps the most interesting part of this corrupted food system is the familiar and famous food pyramid. The food pyramid was established by the USDA and The Department of Health and Human Serviced. The pyramid instructs people to eat 6 to 11 servings of grains, bread, rice and other starches and carbohydrates each day. “At the base of the Food Guide Pyramid are breads, cereals, rice and pasta – all foods from grains. You need the most servings of these foods each day.” (cnpp.usda.gov, 4) However, more legitimate science is slowly revealing itself. It seems the sugar industry paid off scientists to cherry-pick data in favor of showing a correlation between fat intake and heart disease, letting sugar off the hook. The most common example of this is Ancel Keys “Seven Countries Study” where Keys seems to have chosen countries that have both high fat intake and incidence of heart disease, and conveniently leave out countries that do not fit into the hypothesized link. Excess grain intake has recently shown to cause high insulin levels and consequently a crash. When insulin levels crash, people get hungry and the cycle starts all over again. This has caused a dramatic increase in childhood obesity and diabetes. This cycle of soaring and plummeting hormone levels can lead to increased inflammation resulting in any number of diseases and symptoms such as crohns disease. Freelance writer with a focused on women’s health, Catharine Guthrie writes: “Indeed, grains in general are a relatively new addition to the human diet. Our ancestors began eating them, at earliest, 15,000 years ago, which is a blink of an eye in our 2-million-year history.” (Gluten: The Whole Story)
In all, the American diet is corrupted in ways that are not obvious to most people. Will Americans continue to be coddled by a corporate swayed diet, or start listening more closely to their own bodies?