How Our Food Has Changed and the Impact of Those Changes Essays

How Our Food Has Changed and the Impact of Those Changes Essays How Our Food Has Changed and the Impact of Those Changes Essay How Our Food Has Changed and the Impact of Those Changes Essay How Our Food Has Changed and the Impact of those Changes What do we eat? Food. Sounds simple enough, but is it? It used to be that food was all you could eat, but today there is a plethora of â€Å"edible food like substances† in our grocery store (Pollan). In today’s world, the fact that it is sold in a grocery store doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s nutritious or healthful. I’m going to step back into the past and show how food has changed in the last 50 years and the impact that it‘s having on us. It’s not just what we eat or how we eat, but how it affects us in everything from our physical health to our mental health to our pocket books. Food that was available 50 years ago was vastly different from what is available today. There was more â€Å"real† food available. There was certainly the beginning of junk food back then, but it was different. The fast food places were almost non-existent. We had a limited amount of junk that we could buy. Homemakers were actually homemakers back then. They cooked from scratch a lot of the time and dinner was meat and potatoes, and a vegetable or two. Dessert was homemade. Only certain fruits and vegetables were available at any given time. It depended on what was in season at the time. Then came the era of â€Å"fast. † Everything was fast, including food. Fast food places were popping up on every corner. We were in such a time crunch all of the time that we starting rushing through not only the eating, but also the preparation of our meals. Housewives thought that all the convenience foods were a great idea. It now took half the time to prepare a meal compared to making it from scratch. Surely the food was good and nutritious. Ah, the time it saved. It was thought to be wonderful; but at what price? Food today is not as nutritious as it used to be. This is a contributing factor and, quite possibly, a major cause of the rapid rise in degenerative diseases. The fresh fruits and vegetables that are eaten now contain up to 50% less minerals than they did in the 1930’s. This, along with the widespread use of pesticides, is slowly poisoning the human population. Due to the fact that our bodies aren’t getting the optimum nutrition that they should, they are less able to detoxify effectively. Pesticides are poisons that the body has to deal with, even though the doses are minute. Their use has also increased and this is likely to have toxic effects on the system. Even the water we drink contains additives from farming and pharmaceuticals that puts a strain on our systems (Draper). People now have less energy but also have less to do physically. People are so tired all the time. Energy drinks are consumed in massive amounts. Even children as young as 10 years old seem to need the boost that stimulants give people to keep them going. That in itself is a problem. As a result of ingesting the high fructose corn syrup present in many, if not most, of these drinks, sugar consumption is way up. In the past 50 years there has been a 19% reduction in calorie intake for boys, and 29% reduction for girls, but increased sugar consumption! As a result, children are getting fatter and fatter. Computers, diet, TV and less exercise are some of the causes. These are big changes from 50 years ago (Draper). In elementary schools in the 1960s, the lunch ladies actually cooked lunch every day. Food such as meatloaf, macaroni and cheese (not from a box! , or soup and sandwiches were served, always with a vegetable, milk, and small dessert (Dolson). In 1989, it was shown that school meals had major deficiencies. Today, many school lunch menus are more similar to fast food restaurants, making healthy choices more difficult. In many schools, Middle/Jr. High students can also buy sports drinks, and high school students are allowed carbonated beverages (Dolson). Phy sical exercise is no longer as important as it used to be. It has been reduced by a full 50%! Potential major problems are being created in our children just by the lack of activity alone (Draper). Add that to the fact that our food is not as nutritious and filled with chemicals, and to our high sugar intake, and we have a real problem on our hands. Fully 2/3 of Americans is overweight or obese and suffers from diet related diseases, like diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Medicine is learning how to keep alive the very people for whom the western diet is making sick (Pollan). According to Dr. Mark Draper, there has been a 30% reduction in the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. And those we do eat are less nutritious, due to the processing. To increase shelf life, chemicals that are termed ‘additives’ are added. As Dr. Draper states, â€Å"At worst these are mild poisons, and at best they are chemicals the body does not see as food. † Nutrition is no longer considered important. Shelf life is now more important. It is estimated that somewhere between 70 to 80% of all food eaten is processed in some way. There are over 3000 substances that may legally be added to our food. How can we tell what and how much is safe to eat? Some, like salt, have been around for thousands of years. It is used to preserve food and enhance the flavor of foods (Dolson, Food Additives Whats Safe? ). It is one of the most widely used additives, but still not totally healthful. New food additives need to go through a very long process to get approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Most of the studies, especially the preliminary ones, are done on animals. There are many additives and chemicals that are said to be safe in any amount; and there are some that are said to be safe in small amounts, but in large amounts, they can cause cancer. That is worrisome, because we don’t know how much is really in our food. As if that wasn’t bad enough, America is having a love affair with sugar. But that is not a very sweet deal. Sixteen ounces of a sugar sweetened soft drink contains the equivalent of 12 teaspoons of sugar (TLC Cooking). Most are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, which is as bad, if not worse, than regular white sugar. If you read the ingredients on the packages of food sold in grocery stores, plenty of them have added sugar as an ingredient; some in more than one form. And this is even in foods that don’t typically taste sweet on the tongue, especially foods like low fat salad dressings, cream substitutes, and many seasonings. In the case of low fat products, a lot of the time when fat is taken out, sugar is added in. We now know without a doubt that sugar in your food, is taking a devastating toll on the health of the United States (Mercola). In Lick the Sugar Habit, author Dr. Nancy Appleton lists 76 ways sugar can ruin your health. Among them are: * Suppression of your immune system * Can cause a significant rise in total cholesterol and triglycerides * Feeds cancer cells * Contributes to obesity * Can cause gallstones, appendicitis, hemorrhoids and varicose veins * Can cause headaches and depression Can cause an increase in blood pressure Dr. Joseph Mercola goes into these in more detail at his website – http://articles. mercola. com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/20/sugar-dangers. as px, or you can read Dr. Appleton’s book for the whole story. So, what does this mean for the human population? First of all, evidence is suggesting that life expectancy is being reduced; not increasing, as i s commonly reported. One of the more frightening aspects of this is the fact that young people are included. In fact, this generation of children is the first that are not expected to live as long a lifespan as their parents. Degenerative diseases are on the rise, represented by an increase in the body’s inability to cope with modern environmental challenges. Heart disease, cancers, arthritis, obesity, and diabetes are increasing significantly (Draper). Veterinarians know that grass or feed fed to animals needs to have sufficient nutrients or the animals will get sick. Many people are adamant about not giving their pets things that are bad for them, and yet popular opinion is that it’s okay to give our children a â€Å"treat† once in awhile. It would not be a problem if it truly was only â€Å"once in a while. The trouble is that children eat these things on a daily basis. What is the solution? Is there a solution? Of course there is. It will take awhile for things to turn around, but it can be done. We need to start by fortifying our processed food with additional nutrients in a form that is as close to food-state as possible. Processed foods make up approx 70% of the diet, and so w ould be the most effective way to get good nutrition to people at the present time. We would also need to: * Increase consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits (5-7 pieces per day). Gather more information on mineral contents of soil. *Create a sound nutritional base for well-being, regardless of current state of health. * Reduce consumption of processed foods. * Reduce stimulants: i. e. coffee, tea, colas, sugar drinks, energy drinks, etc. * Drink more water. Try to filter if possible. * Take a good multivitamin and mineral supplement, along with Omega 3 oils. * Many people would also benefit from extra Selenium and Vitamin C on a regular basis. *Get more physical activity on a daily basis (Draper). * Choose organic if you can afford it less pesticides and better tasting. Eat less sugar. * Forego fast food. For the long term, we need to improve our soil, so that it is possible to grow high nutritional status food. This could take up to 30 years, including research to identify the best way to accomplish this (Draper). In my opinion, one of the biggest changes we n eed to make is to greatly reduce the amount of sugar in our diet. If you could only do one thing, that would be the thing to do. Pesticides and lack of physical activity is most definitely not a good way to build health, but our systems are on sugar overload due to the saturation of sugar in our processed food. We could be taking care of two problems at once just by eating processed food less often. It all boils down to what we want out of life. When we are still young and healthy, it’s easy to think that this kind of thing will never touch us. But, do you really want to subtract years from your life in addition to spending your golden years in ill health? The way I see it, it doesn’t take much to live and eat healthier. One or two changes at a time can and will make a big difference. Your life may depend on it. Association, Organic Consumers. Mental Health Linked to Changes in Diet. 16 January 2006. Web. 6 March 2010. Center for Science in the Public Interest. 2009. Web. 18 April 2010. Claridge, CL, et al. Slow Movement. com. 2010. Web. 6 March 2010. Dolson, Laura. Are the Schools Feeding Kids Too Much Junk? 22 September 2004. Web. 13 April 2010 Food Additives Whats Safe? 14 February 2005. Web. 18 April 2010. Draper, Dr. Mark. How the Diet Has Changed Over 70 Years. June 2001. Web. 30 March 2010 Hicks, Betsy. Developmental Delay Resources. 23 February 2009. Web. 6 March 2010 Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. Print. TLC Cooking. 2009. Web. 18 April 2010.