As a kid growing up in Illinois, we had a big garden. We had fresh veggies all summer and we canned quarts and quarts of tomatoes, beans, peas and corn for the winter. I remember sitting around the table with my siblings popping lima beans and peas or cutting green beans and corn. It was hard, but we shared the work and we shared the harvest.
We have a garden here on the High Planes, no canning, we freeze it but gardening is still hard. It’s a lot of work and there always seems to be dirt under my fingernails. I love it though and I can’t imagine not having a garden. Not just growing it, I love eating it. Real food, with some dirt still on it. Wiping off a fresh tomato on my shirt and eating it right there in the garden, like an apple.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” ― Hippocrates
Go Big or Get Out
Something else very important happened, back when I was a kid. POTUS – Richard Nixon appointed Earl “Rusty” Butz as Secretary of Agriculture. It was a pivotal point in the history of farming in this country and it dramatically changed what food has become – Processed. Industrial farming and meat production has turned our food supply into toxic poison.
In an attempt to decrease food prices and control fluctuating commodities, Nixon and Butz created a monster; Industrial Farming. “Go Big or Get Out,” was Earl’s War Cry. It was the beginning of genetically modified, monocultural, chemical farming. Nitrogen runoff from this monster has destroyed our environment and the antibiotic laced, genetically modified grain that’s fed to livestock, decimates their natural bacteria. And then we eat that big T-bone, giant chicken breast or double stack hamburger and it destroys our natural gut biome too. Chronic disease was built into the standard Western diet back in the 70’s and the pharmaceutical companies loved it.
“The greatest wealth is health.” ―Virgil
A Couple of Problems
One problem is the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical companies don’t let on that the drugs they create are not intended to treat chronic disease. They only treat the symptom. There are no treatments for Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia and fatty liver disease. All are chronic and there are no solutions. There is symptomatic relief only. We can alleviate the symptoms with drugs but the disease rages on, like taking an aspirin for a brain tumor.
The other major problem is that the standard Western diet includes far too much, processed food. While the foodies battle on social media about whether eating meat is destroying the planet or plant eaters don’t get enough protein. The food industry just keeps processing all of the fiber and nutrition out of both. They never let on that virtually all foods are good for you until they are processed. The more processing, pasteurizing and refining that takes place, the more toxic they become.
Food is medicine, but processed food is poison, and there’s no medicine that can undo the damage of processed food. ―Dr. Robert Lustig
Perfect Storm
Nixon didn’t just lay waste to our food supply. He almost single handedly destroyed the financial system. Until 1971, the dollar and world currencies were tied to gold. Then with the snarling jaws of inflation on the loose, Nixon and his team of crony capitalists enacted a plan to destroy the world. They probably weren’t actually trying to destroy the world. I’m sure they thought they were saving it. Like some economic superhero in blue leotards. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry though.
Nixon disconnected the dollar from gold and implemented wage and price controls; the beginning of the end for the Bretton Woods System. By 1973, Bretton Woods was replaced by a floating exchange rate and has been floating the wrong direction for 50 years. Before Nixon destroyed the world, people worked, saved money, created businesses and built things. Then with a single pen stroke, Nixon shifted the paradigm.
A half dozen years later Nixon and Butz were both gone, due to various indiscretions but their legacy lived on. In full bloom, like a zucchini blossom, (Just a metaphor folks, I’m talking about inflation again – check out the link in the previous paragraph). So, by the time I made it to High School my Mom had to go to work. The mid seventies and it already took two incomes for many families to survive. With both parents working to meet financial obligations – The convenience and fast food era, shifted into high gear.
Shit on a Shingle
McDonald’s, Steak & Shake and Hardee’s, popped up all over town. There was no time for canning, everyone had to get out and earn a living. We went from eating wholesome, garden fresh, real food, to highly processed, shelf stable, poison. Like chipped beef (gas packed lunch meat) and gravy on toasted Wonder bread – Better known as “Shit on a Shingle.” If we were good boys and girls, Kraft Mac & Cheese, RC Cola and Moon Pies. How convenient it all was, sealed in plastic and cardboard containers to maintain freshness.
High Fructose Corn Syrup was all the rage. Pepsi merges with Frito-Lay, buys Mountain Dew and becomes one of the largest processed food companies in the world. “The Choice of a New Generation” – their slogan. That new generation quickly became the sickest and fattest generation in the history of mankind. The prevalence of obesity skyrocketing at an alarming rate, that has not slowed in 40 years. It has currently reached epidemic proportions, with the obesity rate exceeding 40%.
Fiber Makes it Real
Real food has something processed food doesn’t have – fiber. The food industry removes the fiber to stabilize the food, so it won’t go rancid. Fiber reduces the shelf life and that’s unacceptable to the big industrial food companies, so their answer is to remove it. The problem is that, it’s not food anymore. It might look like food and taste like food but it is a very poor substitute for real food. Unless chronic disease and obesity are desired, instead of health.
I don’t believe the individuals that drive Big Ag and the corporate food companies are intentionally selling us down the river. They’ve just lost focus as they steer their companies towards the highest possible profits. They don’t believe they are packaging toxic poison and calling it food but they are and we’re buying it up. We’ve lost focus too, valuing convenience over health and one thing leads to another and it becomes difficult to unwind.
Agricultural subsides make processed food cheap and real food expensive. Anytime government gets involved, it complicates matters and government has been involved in Big Ag for a long time. 338 out of 535 congressmen take money from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and agriculture is their fourth largest contributor after petroleum, tobacco and pharma.”
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” ― Jim Rohn
One Simple Rule
“Health is Wealth” and “Food is Medicine.” Eating, growing and shopping for real food is difficult. But chronic disease and obesity have reached epidemic proportions. It’s time for all of us to take a hard look at what we have done to our food supply and our health. The consumer drives the market. Don’t believe the propaganda and the bullshit about the choice of a new generation. If we choose to grow, buy and eat real food, instead of processed food with all of the fiber and nutrition removed, food companies will have to follow the trend. There is but one simple rule; If it has an ingredient label, don’t buy it. “Real Food Doesn’t Wear a Label.”
If you find the topic as interesting and important as I do, check out the Mercola link. Two Shining Stars of the Health and Nutrition Galaxy, Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Robert Lustig, discuss Lustig’s new book on Mercola’s Podcast.