Sweet Lies: How the Food Industry is Brainwashing the PublicFalse and misleading nutrition information is being sold to the unsuspecting public through convincing TV, radio, magazine and newspaper ads and brilliantly designed marketing campaigns. Chemical concoctions are being advertised as the latest and greatest new "healthy" foods. Synthetic food additives are being promoted as safe and "made from food." Because consumers are becoming more conscious of healthier choices, manufacturers are telling you that these fake foods with their artificial ingredients are good for you. Stop and think. Don't be fooled. Consider where your health and nutrition information is coming from. When you get your nutrition information from the media, you're getting it from the food industry and companies that stand to benefit from you purchasing their products. If you believe what you read from food industry ads, especially for processed foods, and from organizations that receive money from the food industry, you may be on your way to cancer, heart disease, diabetes or obesity ... if you're not already there. Take for instance, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The food industry is advertising how HFCS is made from corn, doesn't have artificial ingredients, has the same calories as sugar and is fine when used in moderation. Take a look at what they have to say here:
Ad
for HFCS
The food industry is feeding you propaganda. They're brainwashing you into believing that highly processed, high fructose corn syrup is just like sugar, is okay to eat and is not going to adversely affect your health. Here's a quote from The Corn Refiners Association website, HFCSfacts.com: "Research confirms that high fructose corn syrup is safe and no different from other common sweeteners like table sugar and honey. All three sweeteners are nutritionally the same" Research done by the USDA has found otherwise. The refined white substance we know as sugar is sucrose. It's composed of glucose and fructose. In the USDA study, when rats were fed sugar, i.e. sucrose, they developed numerous health conditions. If the rats were nutritionally deficient, they suffered greater health problems than those that were not nutritionally deficient. To determine if the adverse effects were from the glucose or the fructose, the study was repeated with two groups of rats. One group received glucose and the other fructose in high doses. The group that received the fructose suffered major health issues, while the group receiving the glucose did not. It's important to note that nutritional deficiencies are very common in people due to the highly processed foods that are consumed. HFCS is not the same as the fructose in fruit. It contains no nutrients and does not nourish the body. HFCS does cause the body to lose minerals, thus causing nutritional deficiencies. In addition, it's associated with various adverse health conditions. Honey, on the other hand, especially raw honey, contains vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and antimicrobial properties. Honey is sweeter than sugar, so you can use less. It's also metabolized differently than sugar and HFCS. Raw honey has healing properties. That cannot be said of sugar or HFCS. High fructose corn syrup may be derived from corn, but that doesn't make it fine in moderation, nor the least bit healthy. This synthetic food additive is made by subjecting corn starch to a complex chemical process with genetically engineered enzymes. The corn used is most likely genetically engineered as well. The resulting HFCS is far from natural and does not act like sugar in your body. Corn grown for use in the processed foods industry, made into food additives like HFCS, is not the same fresh sweet corn you can buy in the grocery store. There's an oversupply of the corn used in HFCS. The corn industry is subsidized with your tax dollars to grow even more so that it's really cheap for manufacturers to buy at less than what it costs the farmer to grow and harvest. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity are at an all time high. In fact, type 2 diabetes also known as "adult-onset diabetes" is being found even in children. Obesity has skyrocketed in this country since the introduction of HFCS. All these diseases have been increasing since the addition of HFCS into processed foods. It's in virtually all processed foods, from beverages, to cereals, to snacks, to canned and bottled foods. If you're eating these kinds of foods, you're probably getting an overdose of HFCS and headed down the road to a life of disease. As the food in this country has become more and more processed, with more and more toxic food additives, genetically engineered and irradiated ingredients, the health of the population has been deteriorating. To get true information about what's healthy for you to eat and what's not, make sure you get it from a reputable source, and not from the food industry or any of the many non-profit and pseudo health-related organizations that receive financial support from the food and drug industries.
References:
The
Double Danger of High Fructose Corn Syrup
Cornfed
America: Politics, Economics and Your Health
NOTE: This article was originally published in Natural News, Friday, October 17, 2008. Shortly after its publication, Dr. Farlow received a packet from The Corn Refiners Association attempting to convince her that HFCS is highly researched and has been shown to be safe. On January 26, 2009, an article was published in Environmental Health, "Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar," about a pilot study that found mercury in HFCS. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, also in January 2009, published the article, "Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup," on mercury found in HFCS and listed products and amounts of mercury detected. |