57.
A New Era
Of Convenience And Calamity
Civilization has entered a new era, an era of convenience and expediency, in which virtually every aspect of our lives contains
a seemingly unavoidable association with unhealthy foods of one kind or another.
For years, we have been subjected to every conceivable form of marketing and advertising, designed to convince us that the incredible array of manufactured, processed, tinned, packaged and bottled foods are superior to the fresh, natural foods of our forefathers. The processing removes most of the natural goodness and flavor of the food and it is turned into an almost indigestible form due to the complete absence of natural enzymes – destroyed through processing and cooking. Regular ingestion of these foods over a period of years, places an extreme load on the pancreas, liver and digestive system, as a whole, causing the body to wear out much sooner than it should.
a seemingly unavoidable association with unhealthy foods of one kind or another.
For years, we have been subjected to every conceivable form of marketing and advertising, designed to convince us that the incredible array of manufactured, processed, tinned, packaged and bottled foods are superior to the fresh, natural foods of our forefathers. The processing removes most of the natural goodness and flavor of the food and it is turned into an almost indigestible form due to the complete absence of natural enzymes – destroyed through processing and cooking. Regular ingestion of these foods over a period of years, places an extreme load on the pancreas, liver and digestive system, as a whole, causing the body to wear out much sooner than it should.
“That eating should be foremost about bodily health is a relatively new and, I think, destructive idea-destructive not just the pleasure of eating, which would be bad enough, but paradoxically of our health as well. Indeed, no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans-and no people suffer from as many diet-related problems. We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.”
~Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
As if this is not bad enough, further strain is placed on the body by the assortment of chemicals needed to preserve color, dry, flavor and tenderize processed food, in order to get people to eat it. By this stage, it is not really food but more a composition of reconstituted, chemical-laden organic matter. A recent study has shown that the average person now consumes about three kilograms of chemicals per year, in the form of food additives. The human body was never designed to be so constantly abused. It becomes overloaded and develops allergies to all the unnatural rubbish with which it has been constantly fed.
It is again a matter of degree. A little processed food, now and again, may not be a big problem for a healthy body. But, when it is eaten on a daily basis, year after year, as the main ingredients of the diet, the body will lose its capacity to cope, and an insidious form of ill health will result.
In this section, we will examine these killer ‘foods’ of the modern industrial era.
It is again a matter of degree. A little processed food, now and again, may not be a big problem for a healthy body. But, when it is eaten on a daily basis, year after year, as the main ingredients of the diet, the body will lose its capacity to cope, and an insidious form of ill health will result.
In this section, we will examine these killer ‘foods’ of the modern industrial era.