Eating Ourselves Into Extinction

No, I'm not talking about the overweight problem in America. Although that is part of the picture. Modern dietary habits started about 400 years ago, when sugar was made available to the average person, not just the rich. A few decades later and white flour, again, normally only affordable by the rich at that time, came into common usage. Much later, in the 20th Century, animal fats were replaced by highly processed vegetable oils. Pasteurization, which, at the time of its discovery, was useful in stopping the spread of TB, was becoming the norm by the early part of the 20th Century. We have since found out that pasteurization causes milk, an excellent natural food when ingested raw, to become a health problem for many. And, of course, with modern veterinarian practices, cows--and therefore their milk--can be certified disease free. Then came trans-fats, artificial flavorings, dyes, and preservatives by the carload. And don't forget that modern meat production uses hormones and antibiotics that end up in us, none of which are necessary when cows, chickens, and pigs are raised in natural "free range" conditions.

Today there are serious health problems related to our low-fat, highly processed food stuffs. They are killing us slowly. And then there is soy. It is not the wonderful food that it has been made out to be . . . except for the farmers and food processors who make money off of it.

In the years before our modern diet became entrenched, before the unproven theory that saturated fats and cholesterol levels over 200 caused heart disease, there was low rates of heart disease and cancer and almost no autism and ADA. Yet, our great-grandparents and all those who came before them ate red meat, butter, and cream; cooked in lard and tallow or coconut oil. They also prepared their whole grains by soaking, sprouting, or fermenting them. Think of sourdough bread, or how mama or grandma used to soak the beans overnight before cooking them. Five hundred years ago, that included rice in Asia and oats in Europe, among other grains that were not eaten without some sort of process that made them easier to digest and healthier overall.

Saturated fats and cholesterol are necessary for proper brain development in babies and growing children, right up into and through their adolescent years. Studies have shown that people with low cholesterol--160 and below--have a higher rate of death for all causes (including suicide!) than people with cholesterol rates of 200 to 240. Saturated fats are also needed for various immune functions in our bodies. Other studies have shown that people with low cholesterol contract and die from infectious diseases at a higher rate than those who eat more saturated fat and have high cholesterol numbers.

Some of the problems with soy is that it could be lowering the age of puberty in girls, raising the age of puberty in boys, lowering testosterone levels in men, and enhancing cancer-causing agents that are always in our bodies. And no, soy or soya is not an ancient, respected oriental food. It has only been used on a regular basis since about 1100 A.D., and then only in fermented forms, and further, in small quantities infrequently. Soy, as well as all grains, nuts, and seeds contain phytic acid which inhibit vitamin and mineral uptake by the body. They also contain other chemicals that are harmful to us unless deactivated by soaking, sprouting, or fermenting. Doing so, it has been discovered, also increases the availability of the nutrients contained in those grains.

Modern food processing, besides stripping away much of the good parts of the grains, uses high temperature and high pressure techniques that twist and distorts fragile protein molecules, turning them into toxic molecules and producing high levels of free radicals. And, if that wasn't bad enough, excitotoxins, like MSG (in various forms and under various names) are produced or added to our modern processed foods. Those chemicals have been proven to be extremely deleterious to our health.

All of this unnatural food processing is slowly killing us and reducing our fertility and the viability of the human race. If the whole world were to eat like the average American, then I would say don't worry about global warming or possible asteroid impact or any other natural disaster. The human race would decimate itself within five to six generations, to the point that the few million survivors would have to go back to the ancient, but healthy ways of food gathering and cooking.

You might want to visit the Weston A. Price Foundation site and look around. There are several excellent articles, written by qualified professionals, and backed up by scientific studies. Most of those studies have been around for years, but they have been ignored by those trying to prove the "lipid theory" (that all saturated fats, not just the trans-fats, are bad for you). Those studies have also been ignored because they show that highly processed foods are dangerous to our health, and golly gee-whiz, the multi-billion dollar a year food processing industry just doesn't want that information to become common knowledge.

The only reason the average life-span of Americans is longer today is because of medical intervention, not because we have better food choices. If you don't have your health, all the money in the world is pointless. So, since it is your health, and that of your children, go to the Weston A. Price site (above) and get yourself educated about what constitutes good food choices.