YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT-PROCESSED FOODS

[Guest guest]

Hi Frank,

I have been over at the alternative message boards, reading all

of the great articles there, and thought it would be a good idea to

post this over here for everyone to read. It's a great educational

article and I just read that we get about 100 new members here a

month:) Lynn

 

 

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You Are What You Eat - Processed Foods

 

Paul Chek

[This article is an excerpt from the newly released nine-hour

CD/Workbook program " You Are What You Eat! " by Paul Chek.]

 

Do me a favor before you read the next paragraph - go to your

cupboards and refrigerator, and take a look at how many packaged

food items you have in your kitchen.

 

While you are there pull out a desert item (i.e. ice cream), a boxed

item (i.e.

breakfast cereal)and any other item you have that is flavored (i.e.

salad

dressing) and take a look at the labels. After reading the

ingredients list,ask

yourself:

How many words am I unable to pronounce?

 

Which of these ingredients have I never heard of and/or have no idea

what it is?

 

Go take a look at those labels and, when you come back to finish

this article, I will tell you why you may be having such a hard time

flattening your abs, and why, even if they are flat, you may feel so

dull every day!

 

If you did this little exercise, you may be surprised at the number

of multi-syllable words that look more like they should be the

ingredients of super glue than of something you're eating.

 

It is time to enlighten you with regard to what some of these

ingredients are and what they can do to you.

 

The gigantic and often strange words listed as ingredients (where

food items are

supposed to be!) are various concoctions used to color, stabilize,

emulsify,

bleach, texturize, soften, preserve, sweeten, add or cover smells,

and flavor!

 

In case you were wondering just how many of these little chemicals

were sneaking into your mouth each year, current statistics say that

the FDA lists approximately 2800 international food additives and

about 3,000 chemicals, which are deliberately added to our food

supply.

 

When considering the number of chemicals used in the process

of growing and processing food, by the food to the time it reaches

our stomach we have consumed between 10,000 and 15,000 chemicals a

day! (1)

 

While some of you may be thinking, " I don't eat that many food

additives, " I have news for you.

The FDA doesn't require food additives considered to be Generally

Regarded as

Safe (GRAS) to be put on an ingredients label. Instead, all that is

required are

the words " artificial flavor "

or " artificial coloring " or " natural " .

 

The fact is, the average American eats approximately his/her body

weight in food

additives

each year, or approximately 150 pounds; this statistic is roughly

the same for most English speaking countries.

 

Of this amount, 15 pounds or more will be used as flavoring agents,

preservatives and dyes, many of which are considered GRAS by the

FDA.

 

Before you get comfortable with chemicals considered to be

GRAS, you should realize that to save time and money, the FDA allows

the food and additive manufacturers to notify them of the GRAS

status of their additives and they are allowed to provide their own

evidence to support their claim!

 

Think about that for a moment.

 

Having the chemical manufacturers provide their own research showing

a given chemical is safe is like asking a cigarette manufacturer do

their own research showing cigarettes are safe!

 

It's no wonder that this takes place when billions of dollars are at

stake and

the

health of the average person is unimportant.

 

 

The fact of the matter is food and additive manufacturers, like drug

manufacturers, are running the largest study ever run in history -

and you are the guinea pigs! That's right.

 

It is only when they get enough reports about the damaging effects

of a given additive that they remove it from the GRAS list. With

that in mind, what are the chances of some doctor reporting to the

FDA that their patient suffered adverse reactions to acetaldehyde,

acetic acid, or agar-agar when they were merely on the label

as " food additives " and not listed individually because they are on

the GRAS list? Consider the side effects of these chemicals:

 

 

Acetaldehyde is known to be an irritant to mucous membranes, which

line your entire digestive tract, is a central nervous system

depressant and large doses may cause death.

 

 

Acetic acid may cause gastrointestinal distress, skin rashes and eye

irritation.

 

 

Agar-agar may cause flatulence, bloating (good bye abs!) and may

have a laxative effect (2).

 

Please realize, I just pulled these GRAS food additives out of a

book entitled " Food Additives, A Shopper's Guide To What's Safe &

What's Not " by Christine Hoza Farlow, D.C., and there are hundreds

more GRAS additives whose side-effects look more like something

Saddam Hussein would be interested in purchasing to use against

Americans than it does something to be put in food.

 

Yet millions of people are eating these chemicals every day!

 

 

By the way, don't be fooled by the use of the term " natural " .

Insects, insect larvae, monkey guts, and even mercury are

all " natural " and are just a few of the natural items that end up in

your food! Eric Schlosser, in his book " Fast Food Nation " , sums it

up nicely by quoting Terry Acree, a professor of food science

technology at Cornell University who says, " A natural flavor is a

flavor that's been derived with an out-of-date technology " .

 

Food manufacturers play with your perception of what given words

mean and they know that if they can label an additive as " natural " ,

the health conscious label reading consumer is much more likely to

purchase it, yet just because something is natural, doesn't mean

it's better for you. After all, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and

cocaine are all natural, but none of them are good for you!

 

 

To show what is being hidden from us and is right under our nose

(literally!), consider these ingredients used in a Burger King

strawberry milk shake, but are not disclosed because they are GRAS:

 

 

Amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate,

benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl

isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl,

dipropyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate,

ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl Nitrate, ethyl

propionate, ethyl valerbate, heliotropin, hydroxyphrenyl-2butanone

(10% solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl

butrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl

anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine

carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential

oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter,

phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and

solvent (3)!

 

 

To make this even more alarming, the ingredients listed here are

only for the " strawberry flavoring " in a Burger King milk shake,

this doesn't include the ice cream or anything else in the shake!

 

Can you imagine what the ingredient list for Neapolitan ice cream

would look?

 

Our liver must process all of this (Figure 1A & 1B), and when our

liver becomes overworked, these chemicals can end up in our blood

stream, with almost unlimited access to the cells of our bodies, as

well as placing strain on our detoxification systems!

 

 

" Can't Just Eat One " Syndrome

 

 

Have you ever reached for a bag of chips while thinking, " I really

don't need these, but I'll just eat a few, " only to end up reaching

back in the bag over and over until you reach the bottom?

 

Or how about a tub of ice cream - ever started out nibbling away

thinking " I'll just have a few bites, " and next thing you know

you're scraping the bottom of the carton?

 

Don't feel bad if you do because, unless you were eating 100%

certified organic chips or ice cream, you most likely fell prey to

the chemical tricks food manufacturers are playing on your body and

your wallet!

 

 

It turns out that food scientists have determined how to manipulate

the part of your brain that controls food cravings called the

appestat.

 

The appestat constantly monitors the nutrient content of you blood

and only when fifty-one specific nutrients are present at their

proper levels will an individual feel entirely full and satisfied.

 

Food scientists have found that by adding or subtracting some of

these nutrients, they can manipulate your sense of hunger and

satiety.

 

While the research is still incomplete, it's believed that that

adding excess fat, sugar and salt to a food tends to make people

over eat (4).

 

This is why both sugar and salt show up in some of the strangest

places.

 

For example, would you have expected to find sugar in sandwich

meats? Have a look at the ingredients on the package in your

refrigerator and look for words ending with " ose " .

 

Anything ending with this suffix is a sugar. While you're at it,

look at your catsup bottle, your canned soups, medicines and even

cigarettes! How sweet of them to play such tricks on your appetite

centers. If you are overweight, you are more than likely one of

millions of victims of chemical manipulation!

 

 

So how effective have the food manufacturers been with their

chemical games? Currently, approximately 90% of the money that

Americans spend on food is used to buy processed foods (3).

 

When you follow the advances in food science, there is loose

parallel in how much fast food Americans are purchasing and the

amount of chemical-trickery scientists do to our food.

 

Consider that in 1970, when the food sciences were comparatively

undeveloped, Americans spent approximately $6 billion a year on fast

foods.

 

By the year 2000, scientists had added thousands of new chemical

tricks to their arsenal and, with more attractive packaging and

advertising campaigns, fast food sales soured to $110 billion! This

combination of advertising and chemistry used by fast food

manufacturers is so successful that American fast food business

tycoons can't resist the opportunity to make billions by poisoning

almost every corner of the globe.

 

As of the middle of 2000, McDonald's planed on opening 650

restaurants in Asia, 550 in Europe, 350 in Latin America, 200 in the

US and another 250 in the rest of the world - a total of 1,500 new

restaurants in Asia were planned by 2002! (5).

 

Their strategic combination of marketing and scientific trickery

has been so successful that half of Australian children ages 9 and

10 thought that Ronald McDonald knew what kids should be eating;

McDonald's has become the favorite food eaten by children in China!

(6)

 

 

 

Table 1

America ranks among the lowest of all the major industrial nations

in terms of life expectancy, yet spends significantly more money on

health care than any country in the world.

 

Human beings, armed with some 10,000 taste buds, are thought to have

a fairly comprehensive sense of taste (7).

 

While you would think that we would be capable of using this

arsenal of taste buds to sniff-out foods of superior nutritional

quality to eat, it would appear that chemical science has put up an

effective smoke screen.

 

Approximately 50% of the American population have eaten themselves

into some degree of obesity and semi-starvation by consuming

nutritionally inadequate foods!

 

If that's not enough, the US spends more money on health care than

any other nation with each person averaging over $4,000 per year in

medical expenses.

 

Yet the US ranks last for life expectancy among all industrialized

nations, is far from being the healthiest nation (Table 1).

 

This is not hard to believe when you consider that in the year

2000, retail pharmacies in the US filled 3 billion prescriptions -

that's hardly what I would consider a healthy nation (!

 

Then when you take into account that there were 281 million people

living in the US in 2000, with 3 billion prescriptions being filled,

that's almost 11 prescriptions per person.

 

This means, for every person who doesn't buy a prescription, there

is someone else getting 22 filled each year!

 

 

With prescription drug sales amounting to $145 billion in the year

2000 alone (9), and an additional $20.8 billion coming from over the

counter retail sales (10), it would appear that the chemicals used

in commercial farming, fast food restaurants and processed food are

contributing a great deal of money to the medical and drug industry -

all one big happy family of multi-billionaires!

 

 

Is Processed Food Really Food?

 

 

Have you ever wondered how it is that today that, in spite of the

most advanced medical technology in history, in spite of the fact

that we have more doctors, therapists, nutritionists, diet experts

(per capita) and diet books than ever in history, we are more sick

than ever in history?

 

Could it be what we are eating? Were we always this sickly? I don't

think so, or we would never have withstood the selective pressures

of evolution! Something has gone wrong - VERY WRONG!

 

 

In 1936, a highly respected scientist, dentist and expert in human

nutrition named Weston A. Price, traveled the globe studying

indigenous populations and correlating their dietary habits with

their incidence of disease and dental carries (11).

 

Price found that in tribes and cultures consuming a whole-food diet

had virtually no dental carries (cavities) or disease!

 

 

Price also noted that diseases such as cancer were relatively

unheard of in many cultures. Look at the photos in Figure 2A and 2B

and ask yourself which Figure shows people who were eating " white

man's food " (processed food) and which were eating food native to

their culture!

 

(Used with kind permission from the Price-Pottenger Foundation.)

 

Figure 2A

Figure 2B

 

 

In Price's study of primitive cultures, he consistently noted that

they engaged in minimal food processing. Primitive peoples mostly

used fire to cook meats, but not all, as the Eskimos and others

commonly ate many portions of animals and fish raw.

 

Salting, lacto-fermentation and pickling were among the very few

methods of processing foods for storage and not surprisingly, these

methods have been found to increase the nutritional value of many

foods (12)!

 

 

Dr. Price's research was consistent with the research of famous

medical doctor, Francis Marrion Pottenger, who wrote the

book, " Pottenger's Cats " . Pottenger clearly demonstrate using

extensive studies of cats that exposure to pasteurized milk and/or

cooked meats resulted in rapid onset of disease and bodily

malformation; his clinical observations suggested that similar

results occur in humans.

Because of the findings in his studies, Dr. Pottenger stated, " …

nutrition becomes one of the most important elements in preventive

medicine. " Regardless of which disease process is studied, the link

between poor nutrition and disease, including cancer, clearly exists

in studies and clinical observations of animals and man. In fact, I

know of no study showing that a diet of processed foods provides

health-giving benefits when compared to a whole-food diet!

 

 

What you see in most shopping carts today are what I call " non-

foods " . My definition of a non-food is, " Any food that costs more in

nutrition to digest, absorb and eliminate than it delivers to your

body. "

 

Most people forget that there is a cost to metabolize anything you

put in your mouth. Literally every cell in the body needs proper

nutrition or it will die. There are billions of cells involved in

the processes of digestion, absorption and elimination of foods, not

including the nutritional demands of human movement. Yet as

indicated above, 90% of all the money spent on food in the US is

spent on FAST FOODS! So where does that leave you?

 

 

We don't need to be a doctor, nutritionist or research scientist to

figure out what's going on. We can use a simple accounting analogy

to get a clear image of the blunder we have purchased our way into.

 

Consider your body as a business. It costs money to run a business -

you must purchase goods and services such as supplies, electricity,

water, waste disposal and you must pay your workers.

If your business doesn't bring in enough money to pay your

expenses, including adequate money for you to make a living, the

business will go bankrupt! Your body is just like any business. You

have about 100 trillion cells, all of which are like little

employees working for you around the clock.

To keep your body running, it too needs water, air, energy and

supplies in the form of nutrition.

The business of running a body is also a little tricky because while

you may have an unproductive employee now and then in a business,

you can always lay them off or fire them.

 

In your body, you can't lay your cells off, you can't fire them,

and if you don't supply them with adequate nutrition to repair

themselves, they get sick and start to die. If this goes on long

enough, you too will go bankrupt and you will die!

 

 

Now, just look at the statistics for disease and drug-use in this

country and you will get a very good picture of what happens when

you consume a diet of " non-foods " -

foods that take more out of your bodily bank account than you have

in the account to spend.

 

Literally every time you eat candy, cookies, soda pop, processed

sandwich meats, white bread, white flower or pasteurized, processed

anything, you are deviating away from the dietary plan the human

body was designed for.

 

You are also spending more money/nutrition to process garbage

disguised as foods than the foods themselves bring in.

 

This leaves the body no choice but to draw upon your own tissues for

the nutrients it needs to try and survive. To prove my point, one

need only look at the skyrocketing rates of degenerative diseases,

which are highest - you guessed it - in those countries consuming

the highest percentage of processed foods.

 

 

CHEK POINTS:

 

 

If you can't pronounce a word on the label, don't eat it! If you

can't pronounce a word on a food label, chances are very good it is

a chemical that your liver will have to work to detoxify, and most

likely, your liver won't like it!

 

Dr. Price found in his research of healthy people that they ate

mostly unprocessed whole-foods and some minimally processed foods.

They lived in accordance with nature and if you want to have a

beautiful, healthy body, you should too!

 

 

If it's a non-food, don't eat it! The more non-foods you eat, the

more likely your body is to go bankrupt!

 

Remember, food manufacturers are NOT required to prove that their

products sustain life.

 

Pretty much every research dollar they spend is to determine how to

make foods cheaper, increase shelf life and how to trick you into

buying them. Just remember this Paul Chek rule - " The more money

they spend to market any food, the worse it is likely to be for

you " !

 

Good healthy food requires little marketing because people know it's

good for you. They need to convince you to eat their garbage, so

they need to spend a lot in marketing to ensure you do.

 

 

The longer it lasts on the shelf, the worse it is for you! Most

things in nature will not last more than a few days once picked or

killed for consumption.

 

Increasing a product's shelf life means stripping it of anything

that can eventually go bad or rancid out of it, such as enzymes,

vitamins, minerals and ultimately it's life force!

 

Many of the foods you eat today are so full of chemicals and

pesticide residues you can leave them sitting on the kitchen counter

for days on end and the ants won't even touch them! The bugs are

smarter than we are!

 

 

Never eat anything with " hydrogenated " or " partially hydrogenated

oils/fats " in it! These are cooked fats that have been altered in a

way that make them very hard to digest, as well as being damaging to

the body.

 

This form of fat does not occur naturally in nature and in fact,

chemists say the molecular structure of hydrogenated fats more

closely resembles plastic than food! Read your food labels and you

will likely be surprised at how much hydrogenate fats and oils you

are eating!

 

 

Never eat any food product that has been " enriched " ! The only reason

food manufacturers " enrich " foods is because they have completely

killed and stripped them in processing, leaving the foods so void of

nutrition and life-force that they must add things back to them so

they don't kill off all their customers!

 

If you read " Beating The Food Giants " by food scientist Paul A.

Stitt, he tells you that the food manufacturers purchase the

cheapest possible synthetic vitamins possible and they often apply

them to foods (i.e. cereals) on the way in the oven!

 

Any nutrition expert will tell you that most vitamins can't

withstand high heat and most of the rigors of processing. There is

also plenty of literature suggesting that some synthetic vitamins

may be toxic to the body!

 

 

Avoid eating anything that has been genetically modified or

genetically engineered! Currently, almost ALL processed foods

contain genetically modified organisms. This is an entire topic unto

itself, but eating any genetically modified food is a risk that you

may want to seriously consider if you value your health.

 

References

 

Dworkin, A. and Kella, W. " Thriving in a Toxic World. " Olivenhain,

CA: Professional Preference, 1996.

Farlow, C.H. " Food Additives: A Shopper's Guide to What's Safe and

What's Not " . KISS For Health Publishing, 2001.

Schiosser E. " Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American

Meal " . New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Stitt, P. " Beating the Food Giants " . Natural Press; 1993.

The Ecologist, July/August 2000. News In Brief p.10

The Ecologist June 2001. " Pulling A Fast One " , by Ian Elliott p.36

Chek, P. " Under the Veil of Deception " . Encinitas, CA: A C.H.E.K

Institute Publication, 2002.

 

Prescription Drug Sales Increased By Nearly 20% Last Year in US.

http://www.mercola.com/2001/may/19/prescription_drugs.htm

US Drug Sales Up 15% Last Year. Reuters June 2, 2001.

Prescription Drugs and Mass Media Advertising 1999-2000. National

Institute for Health Care Management Foundation

 

http://www.chekinstitute.com/articles.cfm?select=42

_________________

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes