Yummy Chemicals

December 4, 2011

Be aware my friends, you are what you eat. A well-known saying, and a fact. With the rising concern today for health and wellness, physical fitness, and nutritional cleansing, we truly are more aware of the benefits of eating, fresh, clean and green.

On the CBS news show, 60 Minutes, that aired last Sunday, they featured a story titled “The Flavorists: Tweaking Tastes and Creating Cravings”.  In the information society we live in today, we demand the facts.  And when it comes to food and nutrition, the Food and Drug Administration is the U.S. agency charged with protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, dietary supplements, other consumables and carcinogenic products.  In 1906 President Roosevelt signed the Act that created the FDA.  It has grown into a Federal Agency with 9,300 employees and an annual budget of nearly 2.5 billion.

FOOD is big business!  Not only to each of us individually, but globally.  The news show explained how food and its labeling is not always what we think.  In an interview with a California company, they admitted to building foods to taste sooooo good with chemicals, that we become truly addicted to them.  A flavoring industry serving as the proverbial carrot of the food processing business – which depends on it to create a craving for almost any product you can imagine.  That is scary.  They find a flavor, extract its molecules, then back in a laboratory they mimic Mother Nature’s perfect design and then pump it into us with chemicals.  The holy Grail of flavoring, a flavor so good you can’t resist it.  And with less calories, salts, or true food value we fill ourselves with chemicals to the point we cannot stop.  The intentional design of these products, food that doesn’t linger long enough to satisfy us so we keep chasing the flavor and completely overeat!  Obesity made by chemicals, unfair. Does the industry do this deliberately?  No, it learned what stimulates, what people want… and satisfied those needs.  We are living in a food carnival!  Ground zero for the food and flavor industry is the supermarket, and we as the consumer have our pick of everything, everyday, everywhere!  And, they have us hook, line, and sinker.  Repeat customers, who have been turned into food addicts.

Most of the ‘wrong’ stuff we eat comes in a bottle, a can, or a box – food that has been processed, and much of that food has been artificially flavored.  Many of these chemical foods are very affordable. On my desk right at work I have two snacks.  One is rather boring, a bag of almonds. Green bag, no frills.  It was $2.99 for a little over 4 oz., or 128grams.  The other snack, Pub Mix, a savory blend of crunchy snacks, net wt. 1lb 4 oz., or 567.9 grams also at a cost of $2.99.  And a list of ingredients and warnings over 200 words (very fine print). Wonder why?

We often over eat, but even worse we are over eating the wrong stuff.  Stick to what Mother Nature provides, fresh, clean and green. During this holiday season, remember the law of thermodynamics, ‘calories in = calories out’. If you eat more, exercise more!

In good health,

Bob