Industrial Food

An interesting perspective! However, as far as I know, the health effects of food preservatives are established using government guidelines established by the FDA. Therefore, the preserved food is probably as safe (or safer) than the unregulated “organic” or other “health” food.

Economies of scale and its benefits for the average consumer can only be obtained through industrialization!

I personally believe that diseases like cancer have always been around. However, in the past they were not diagnosed enough because we lacked the medical knowledge and tools. Also, many of these cancers show up later in life and with increasing life expectancy, the incidence of cancer therefore must go up. The bum rap slapped on industrial food is therefore perhaps undeserved.

Also, the environment in which we live and our life styles have become different over the last generation or so, which is probably also part responsible for increasing disease rates.

When everything is said and done – eating food is better than its alternative.

Considerations of what is “moral” in a profit-making environment simply do not belong, especially in view of the great divergence of opinions on what constitutes its definition.

Dear thanks for your brief your report, it remembered me one of the Lousy Hinter quote
``If you put glasses walls in the Slaughterhouse no one ganna eat the meat`` so as the Industrial food.
Because of globalization and Industrial Food Today I have multiples choice for my dinner either I go for Chinese Mantou with Mongolian rice, Thai Noodles, Italian pizza, Mexican Chalupa, French or Californian wine, Hyderabadi Biryani, Lebanese Shawarma, Afghan Kabab and Japanese Sushi, Moroccan couscous, English Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and of course the Pakistani Nihari within the limit of my neighborhood. Thanks to the industrial and global Food industry!

Just last night while I was ordering a spicy Brain Masala, I read a newspapers headline that a doctor died in India biggest medical institute because of dirty food and flu. On the other hand, I remember European Union and Japan enlightenment about US Mad cow, if you read little about mad cow one will not touch American beef. Anyway I did not changed my order.

You are right the Prices of Organic food in Europe, North America are going up like a Gas prices, I regret the life in Africa (Madagascar) eating 200% Organic food at the price of peanuts; where farmers never heard the word ``Toxic`` in there entire life.

As world is moving toward globalization people don’t have time to look, read, investigate the industrial foods and it`s ingredient, but the are inspired by the Sweet Advertisements.
Can someone believes to sales millions of hamburgers in single day in the country like India 20 years before?
Think Green! Think Positive! Think Global !
Ahad

#2 Ahadaustin

[Think Green! Think Positive! Think Global ! ]

Isn`t that what the Jihadis have been saying all along?!!!

I have two issues with Genetically Modified Foods:

1. The crops are sterile i.e. you cannot sow the seeds obtained from these crops and you HAVE to buy seeds from the GMF seed corporations e.g. Monsanto for your next crop.

2. The only pesticides and fertilizers that work on a particular GMF crop are the ones that are produced by that particular corporation that provided the seeds. The pesticides used for GMF crops kill pests and weeds very effectively but they also create a generation of survivor bugs and weeds that become superbugs and superweeds. These superbugs wreak havoc on organic crops and organic crops have no defence from these superbugs.

These two aspects of GMF production give the seed corporations god-like monoply over means of human sustenance. Which means that rogue and lawless nations like US and Britian can actually commit a genocide of a whole nation by implementing ``food/seed embargo`` on less unfortunate nations. Or they can simply decide to act god in the name of population control to keep their rivers clean and air breathable.

So if these objections are removed i.e. seeds are made re-growable, use of pesticides, and fertilizers is controlled by a world body where none of the member has a veto powers and organic food is produced in designated protected cordoned areas then GMF is not a bad idea. I wouldn`t mind growing a third eye if everybody else have them too.

Dear Saima, The average life expectancy is increasing the world over (twice as fast in the industrialized world), so all the ‘industrial’ food can’t be that bad. Japan has more centenarians per capita every year.

You mentioned that the organic food mostly consumed by the ‘upper middle class’. The one organic store in my neighborhood only attracts hippies and bums and some spaced out moms wearing Birkenstocks.

saima
where are the statistics, about american cancer deaths and early deaths, as far as i know american life expectancy is about same as europeans, give or take year or two.

Reply to responses:

This article emphasized North American regulations over any other country. Japan and Europe have stronger legislations on chemical usage than US. US food supply relies on 60% GMO grains--the highest compared to anywhere else in the world. In fact last week, the media reported that some unapproved GMO strains of long rice grains have become mixed up with the regular rice supply. Many countries have returned the grain delivery. Mad cow is an on-going problem, cows with the disease keep surfacing in Alberta, Canada. It doesn`t make sense that none have been found in USA.

The irony is profound, that the developed went to the less developed to teach them how to grow food, yet, it turned out that the less developed were doing the right thing all along.

The Food and Drug Administration permits the use of more than 300 synthetic food additives in conventional foods. (People Do NOT need these additives). U. S. certified organic foods contain none of these additives. Children especially are more vulnerable because their systems cannot deal with pesticides.

Life expectancy has increased, but other super diseases are emerging. E.g., the over reliance on antibiotics is spawning a generation of super microbes, so this happy state of affairs cannot continue, in fact we see super diseases already. Cancer is a bigger threat every year--to think that perceptions of higher cancer prevelance are because of it being under-reported before is wrong, because cancer rates have been steadily increasing over the last few decades.

Some scientists are very concerned about the interaction and accumulation of toxins in the environment and the body. Personal care and household cleaning products are another side to the persistence of chemicals in the environment. For this article, the personal care products were not dealt with.

The EPA only tests 25% of products for environmental effects. Getting a chemical banned in the US is a nightmarish and lengthy process lasting decades despite repeated studies confirming the impact. The US does NOT adopt a cautionary approach to phasing out potentially harmful chemicals. It is belligerent and uses delaying tactics when it comes to ratifying international agreements on the environment. This tendency is severe when it comes to the current government.

Below is an extract from: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3492 to give you an idea of what people in US are up against:

The United States has failed to adopt two key treaties: the Stockholm Convention on eliminating chemicals the international community has agreed are extremely dangerous to human health and the environment, and the Rotterdam Convention, which controls the international trade of highly toxic chemicals.

• Washington`s inability to adopt these treaties—now ratified by 127 and 110 countries, respectively—constitutes a failure not only of U.S. leadership but of responsible participation in global efforts to protect human health.

• Between 2001 and 2003, the United States exported 28 million pounds of pesticides that are banned domestically.

I would argue that Greenies and Lefties should be happy with genetically engineered agricultural practices, since it reduces use of pesticides and herbicides which in turn reduces the green house gases. From agronomic points of view, the benefits far exceed the disadvantages. Food over the centuries has always been naturally genetically modified, only now it is done in the labs.

Here is a useful link on Monsanto:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

GMO`s are not proven to be without consequences. It is irrational to start using them without due process of testing. GMO`s lead to resistant bugs and weeds and impact the environment wherever they are used.

``Life expectancy has increased, but other super diseases are emerging. E.g., the over reliance on antibiotics is spawning a generation of super microbes, so this happy state of affairs cannot continue, in fact we see super diseases already. Cancer is a bigger threat every year--to think that perceptions of higher cancer prevelance are because of it being under-reported before is wrong, because cancer rates have been steadily increasing over the last few decades. ``

this is misleading...cancer diagnosis is up..doesn`t mean the disease is increasing. Take colon cancer for example. A highly prevalent cancer. the peolpe afffected with colon cancer has increased 10 fold in the last decade, not because the disease has become an epidemic but because it is caught earlier at stage 1 and II through better diagnostics. By the time colon cancer in in stage IV it has already metasisized and is spread ot other organs. Historically lack of diagnostics chalked deaths related to colon cancer to other diseases i.e. organ failure due to diabetes or pulmonary dissease etc.

antibiotics are mutations, so generation of super microbes will be dealt with the same way as their predecessors were. Immunotherapy is based on such a premise.

It is disingenuine to suggest that the food additives are the cause. No amount of scientific data supports that. Whatis clear is that american are living longer adn healthier than ever before. to not point that out is disingenuine as well.

Re: # 9

Saima,

Europe has set high standards for GM foods and require ``Labelling`` of all procesed foods prepared from GM crops, in the opposite camp US or the Americas have a much more liberal stance.

Scientific research to prove either theory is still inadequate, thus consumers beware strategy should work for the immediate future.

Cancer is a political issue between the environmentalists, chemical/pharma industry. The American cancer association is funded by the chemical and pharma industries. Back in the 1970s when studies linking chemicals to cancer appeared (US makes 2000 to 3000 new chemicals in a year, and there are 75000 known chemicals -stats from Organic Housekeeping). In the US, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty.

Cancer rates are calculated in various ways and they too are a sensitive issue. The chances of someone getting cancer in a lifetime are for men 44%, and women 38%. Mortality rates are 1 out of 4 from cancer. These stats are from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society (funded by donations from ordinary people).

The American Cancer society approaches statistics in a different way (people say it is funded by the very agencies who churn out chemicals). The American cancer agency draws a strong case between obesity, lack of exercise, age and cancer, whereas the Canadian society does not. Obesity is a far smaller problem in Canada and Cancer research does not focus on obesity as a cause for cancer because cancer is still highly prevalent. Cancer rates in children is also rising. I personally find the links between excercise, weight and cancer spurious causes. The underlying problems include processed foods and chemicals in the environment.

Re: # 6

American Cancer Society statistics are as follows:

Based on cancer deaths during 1999-2001, the probability of people developing any kind of cancer during their lifetimes is:
Male: 45.59%(1 in 2)
Female:38.18%(1 in 3)

This data is from published stats on American Cancer Society, Surveillance Research and available on their pages.

Re: # 4
A very good post. Urstruly - precise, and really brings to home the arguments for and against GMF foods.

Re: # 12
i`ve been looking at statistics of average life expectancy in switzerland it`s 81 in us it`s 78 so there is a gap of 3 years, we don`t know whether it`s due to cancer or other extraneous variables.

{``...In industrialized countries teenagers have bellies that rival the middle aged...It is truly appalling that despite the continued interrelationship between cancer and synthetic chemicals, instead of banning more chemicals, industry and government groups in North America are stressing on earlier cancer screenings, more drugs and more bio tech. Just when will we reckon with reality? ``}

Saima,
Thank you for a very well-written and thoroughly-researched article. I was really losing a lot of sleep over the questions raised by you concerning health, cancer, processed food, chemicals, and bloated bellies of teenagers. The last one can also be attributed to sexual promiscuity.

Come on, let`s get real. With all that is going on, how dare you occupy prime Chowk real estate with such ``chicken little`` nonsense? I mean with terrorism running rampant, UBL nowhere to be found, Dubya running amuck, little boys in danger on Capitol Hill, and Mullahs infesting FATA, do you really want to take up precious bandwidth for this trivial transgression of MNCs? Do I really need to know whether the bull that fornicated with the cow that gave birth to the calf that was part of my Veal Parmigiana was really on steroids? Please, let`s practice some safe journalism and restore a sense of proportionality on Chowk. Thanks.