Processed Foods and Healthy Eating

The Effect on Kids

It’s our children who stand to lose the most from eating habits that include an unhealthy dose of packaged foods. Brought up on a diet of sugary cereals for breakfast and crisps for snacks, they have their dietary patterns set for life. And we wonder why the new generation is obese and increasingly diabetic. Processed foods manufacturers who form a powerful$500 billion industry in the US have been quick to pepper their advertising with placating words like “healthy” and “fortified.” But the fact of the matter is that anything that’s not natural can’t possibly be healthy, at least not in the real sense of the word.

But the fact of the matter is that anything that’s not natural can’t possibly be healthy, at least not in the real sense of the word. You can’t possible duplicate nature’s health giving properties and stuff it into a bag. Even cereals that are supposedly unsweetened still include artificial sweeteners to imitate the taste of real cereal, thus taking consumers for an even merrier ride. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that anything g with the word “artificial” in it can’t possibly be good for your body. In any case, manufacturers add extra carbs to the cereal in order to compensate for the loss of sugar and to ensure the texture of the cereal doesn’t suffer. Ultimately, calorie counts don’t budge making the whole exercise futile.
 

The Effect on You

Processed foods always include more amounts of sugar, salt and fats as is necessary delivering a powerful triple whammy that can send your blood pressure and cholesterol levels rocketing. According to the American Medical Association, the recommended salt intake for adults is barely 2,300 milligrams while the actual average intake is a whopping 4000 milligrams. No prizes for guessing where all that extra salt is coming from. Packaged foods also contain way lower nutrients than real wholesome foods. Most vitamins and minerals are lost during the time it takes for a bowl of strawberries to make it from the orchard to the bottle of syrup in your refrigerator. Additional vitamins are added, but these are synthetic at best, and can in no way match the goodness found in natural fruits and vegetables. By the time, a package of meat makes it to your grill, it’s been processed and cooked beyond any legitimate nutritional value, and so what you’re eating is in reality, dead food. If you thought all this unhealthy eating was less expensive, think again. Canned and bottled foods always cost more, and frozen veggies are always more expensive than fresh veggies.

Luring by Deceiving

The processed foods industry uses imaginative methods to deceive. Carbon monoxide is added to packaged meat so meat will turn a fetching pink thereby luring customers. This practice depicts the extent to the industry stoops to make sure its products fly off shelves. So the next tine you see a pink juicy steak in your supermarket freezer, you know where all the fresh looking pinkness comes from.


Exploitation of farmers

Many manufacturers outsource their packaged foods production to developing countries. Deception is used extensively here too. So that tin of grapes with a postcard pretty picture of a vineyard on the outside actually contains fruit from the Philippines or China. Most developing countries don’t have the same stringent checks on foods that the West has. Moreover, exploitation of cheap farm labor is widespread in the Third World. Of every dollar that a consumer spends on packaged food, only a tiny fraction makes its way to the farmer. The rest is used to launch advertising and marketing blitzkriegs to convert ever more consumers to unhealthy eating habits. So you’re essentially paying to keep a farmer and his family poor and dependant on middlemen for the rest of their lives.

The consumption of processed foods eats away at all levels of society. It leads to a decay in dietary patterns that begins early in childhood, and doesn’t let go. It exposes a person’s system to all kinds of mysterious unknown ingredients that only the manufacturers are aware of. (Try asking them to explain what exactly Preservative #14 is.) Processed goods make it through a whole line of very questionable production processes before they make it to your supermarket aisle. They are also unnecessarily expensive. If you’re used to eating out of cans and don’t remember the last time you actually cooked a meal from scratch using fresh produce and meats, chances are you’re’ spending more than double the amount on food every month as compared to someone who cooks most of his meals using fresh produce. When something comes in a can or a bottle or wrapped in glitzy packaging, you have no guarantee of where some of the ingredients came from. All you can do is take the manufacturer at his word, cross your fingers and pray it’s not anything that you wouldn’t allow into your kitchen in its natural form. Finally, the processed foods industry is not well known for its fair treatment of the farming sector, wherever these farmers may be based. When you buy a packaged food, you feed a vicious cycle that preys on the one who tills the land and condemns him to a life of penury.

So, the next time you’re at the supermarket, give the canned foods aisle a miss and look for the brown rice shelves instead. It’ll be the best decision you ever make.




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