We’re all food guinea pigs

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Sir Issacs Newton) Well, in my opinion, the same is true of every so called “healthy diet” ever promoted. For every diet guru, medical professional, youtube influencer, or manufacturer who promotes their diet idea the same number of them will promote the opposite. I’m tired of being a human guinea pig for corporate greed. Eat this, eat that. Don’t eat this, don’t eat that. This is healthy. No that’s not healthy but this is. Those so called experts are using our desire for healthy eating against us.

Behind every scientific study done about what we should eat for health there is a food company and/or medication supplier paying for that study to come out in their favor and using us as the guinea pig for their products. They test on us to see how long we will live and continue to buy which increases their profits. When it’s no longer profitable the tests are changed to “new improved” foods or medications.

Have you ever heard of P-mining or P-hacking? It’s the manipulation of research data or analysis to artificially get significant P-values. Hmm… I wonder if that “P” stands for profitability? P hacking is also called data dredging by Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging

Why the heck can’t the food and drug companies just settle on what is honestly a simple healthy diet and stick with it? Because there is no profit in healthy people that’s why. The more medicines that are handed out the sicker, lazier, and fatter people are becoming. When I was young we didn’t hear about all the chronic diseases we hear about today. I sometimes wonder if those diseases were here all along and we just didn’t know about them. My guess is the diseases become more prevalent as our foods changed into highly processed.

I believe just about everyone has heard it said that eating more fruits and vegetables is the way to eat healthy. BUT, what if the fruits and vegetables available in stores have lost most of their nutritional values? Due to hybridization the fruits and vegetables we buy in the grocery today contain way, way less of their vitamins and minerals than those that people ate 60, 90, or 100 years ago. That means we must eat more food to get the same amount of nutrition. How can that be healthy?

Medicines prescribed to people these days are made to manage disease symptoms only while keeping the people dependent on those drugs. Each medication needs another medication to treat the side effects of that drug. Then more medications to treat those side effects. We are not a preventative medicine country. We are a for profit pharmacy and insurance driven country. 

At my last medical office visit the NP got upset at me for refusing a new prescription for a third diabetes drug. I don’t want more drugs, I want less. Over half the people in the USA and possibly even more are being treated for some type of disease with medications. Anyone who doesn’t take charge of their own health will be given more and more drugs until they’ve outlived their human monetary value and they die. It’s not uncommon for a senior person to take 10, 15, or more pills and/or shots daily.  

The food industry is also to blame for our nation’s declining health. The low income people die many years sooner than the people with a higher income because the diet of the poor includes mostly cheap, over processed, misleading, and fake foods. Would you know if the ground beef you bought actually contained old meat dyed red? You couldn’t tell by looking. Would you know if the frozen macaroni and cheese dinner you’re eating contains fake cheese? You can’t tell by looking. Would you know if the bread you eat contains wood pulp? You can’t tell by looking. 

Check any low priced food item and most likely you’ll find these three things in some proportion: 1) ultra processed grains, 2) sugar called by many different names, and 3) seed oils. There is no such thing as vegetable oil because vegetables don’t have oil in them. The American diet has gone from 100% natural a couple generations ago up to 80% ultra processed of today. Low income children being born today won’t know how a real natural grown vegetable or fruit should taste. We’ve let ourselves become fatter, sicker, lazier, and more depressed.  We are becoming like the obese characters in the Wall-E movie.

Think about this. Diabetes is not caused by a metformin deficiency in our body. Obesity is not caused by a deficiency of Ozempic. Heart disease is not caused by a statin deficiency. We must take control of our own health. Natural food in it’s original form is the best reversal. Eating as close to natural is my #1 goal for 2024 and I’m doing my best to stick with it.

I depend on the drive through foodbank that gives us store donated foods. I keep the fruits and veggies but give away the ultra processed items. I’ll do my best to grow food in my own back yard or buy from local farmers the things I can’t grow myself. There is a place not far away that has plots of land for growing food but there is a long waiting list. However, some of those people growing food there also sell at the Shively farmer’s market and I do buy produce from them. 

Stay safe, stay well,

Anita