CNN Documentary Takes a Peek Behind
the Food Industry Curtain
February 13, 2016
Story at-a-glance
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The food system has changed dramatically in recent
decades, and this has created many problems for food
safety and human health; 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from
eating contaminated food each year
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Children can easily consume 100 mg of artificial food
dye per day, and studies have found food colors can have
a significant effect of on behavior and cognition
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Seafood harvested in the U.S. is shipped to Asia for
processing before then being shipped back again,
allowing multiple opportunities for contamination and
spoilage along the way
By Dr. Mercola
In the featured documentary, CNN Money reporter Cristina Alesci
goes behind the scenes to investigate “the vast system behind every
meal,” looking at how our food system has changed in recent decades,
and what it has done to food safety and human health.
Divided into four segments, the video reviews the back-story of
how your cereal, salad, fish, and meat is grown, shipped, processed,
and adulterated, before it finally reaches your plate.
What’s Really in Your Kid’s Breakfast Cereal?
Cereal has been a breakfast staple for decades, but today’s
processed rainbow-colored assortment is a far cry from its more
wholesome origin. In recent years, sales have started slipping as
parents are getting savvier about the hazards of added sugars and
artificial ingredients.
According to some researchers, children can easily consume 100 mg
of
artificial color in a day, and as noted in the video, a number
of studies have found “small but significant” effects of artificial
food dyes on children’s behavior and cognition.
In 1994, researchers found that 73 percent of children with ADHD
responded favorably to an elimination diet that included removing
artificial colors.1
More than a decade later, a carefully designed, randomized,
double-blind, placebo-controlled study2
published in The Lancet concluded that a variety of common
food dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate cause some children
to become measurably more hyperactive and distractible.
In a 58-page report, "Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks,”3
the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reveals that
several of the food dyes approved4
for use in the U.S. are in fact linked to health issues ranging from
hyperactivity and allergy-like reactions to cancer.
And these results were from studies conducted by the chemical
industry itself! For example:
- Red #No. 40, which is the most widely used dye, may
accelerate the appearance of immune system tumors in mice, while
also triggering hyperactivity in children.
- Blue #No. 2, used in candies, beverages, pet foods, and
more, was linked to brain tumors.
- Yellow #No. 5, used in baked goods, candies, cereal, and
more, may not only be contaminated with several cancer-causing
chemicals, but it's also linked to hyperactivity,
hypersensitivity and other behavioral effects in children.
EU Requires Warning Labels for Many Synthetic Dyes; The U.S. Does
Not
While the U.S. has more or less ignored such findings, the
European Union (EU) decided to take action. As of July 2010, most
foods in the EU containing artificial food dyes are required to
carry a warning label stating the food "may have an adverse effect
on activity and attention in children."
This labeling requirement prompted many food manufacturers to
voluntarily remove the dyes from their products sold in the EU. This
is why if you eat a Nutri-Grain strawberry cereal bar in the U.S.,
it will contain artificial color, including Red 40, while that same
bar in the U.K. contains only natural colors.
At the end of March 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) did hold a session to discuss the science on food dyes and
hyperactivity. In the end, they decided that warning labels would
not be necessary, as a causal relationship had not been established
in the general population.
Breakfast Cereal — A Not So Great Way to Start Your Day
Acquiescing to consumer demand, some cereal makers are starting
to cut sugar and replace artificial ingredients with more natural
flavors and colors, but that doesn’t necessarily make them any
healthier or less processed.
As noted in the video, even though the color may come from
carrots or blueberries, it’s still created in the lab — it’s not the
whole food that’s being added.
Moreover, it doesn’t change the fact that processed grains
promote chronic inflammation in your body, elevate low-density LDL
cholesterol, and ultimately lead to insulin and
leptin resistance.
Insulin and leptin resistance, in turn, are at the heart of
obesity and most chronic disease, including diabetes, heart disease,
cancer, and Alzheimer's — all the top killers in the U.S.
Fresh Produce Accounts for About Half of All Foodborne Disease
Americans eat five times more leafy greens today compared to a
couple of decades ago. While this is a good thing, the way this
fresh produce is grown leaves much to be desired.
Foodborne disease is a significant problem, with 1 in 6
Americans, about 48 million people, getting sick from eating
contaminated food each year. An estimated 3,000 of them die.
While most of these cases can be traced back to contaminated and
undercooked meat and seafood, fresh produce also has its share of
problems. In fact, nearly half of all foodborne illness is due to
contaminated produce.
It may not occur to you that fresh produce also undergoes a
number of different processing steps, including an antibacterial
wash before it’s cut or shredded and packaged.
So just how do contaminants like E.coli get into your vegetables?
Typically via contaminated manure, which is used to fertilize crop
fields. Contamination can then spread like wildfire in the
processing plant.
Manure is a great fertilizer. The problem is that most
of the manure now comes from animals raised in concentrated animal
feeding operations (CAFOs) — animals that, due to their abnormal
living arrangements and unnatural diet are more prone to disease,
including
antibiotic-resistant disease.
For example, one study5
that looked at the link between CAFOs and MRSA in Pennsylvania
concluded that:
"Proximity to swine manure application to crop fields and
livestock operations each was associated with MRSA ... These
findings contribute to the growing concern about the potential
public health impacts of high-density livestock production."
The Fishy Reality Behind Most Seafood
The U.S. imports 90 percent of its seafood — about 50 million
pounds a day. Inspecting all this seafood is an impossible task. Of
the billions of pounds of seafood entering the country each year,
only about 4 percent is sampled for inspection, and as noted in the
film, the U.S. cannot enforce its safety standards on producers
overseas.
Much of the seafood sold in the U.S. comes from China, where it’s
grown in aquafarms. The FDA recently issued an import alert6
warning that residues of unapproved animal drugs and/or unsafe food
additives have been found in catfish, Basa, shrimp, dace and eel
imported from China.
Mansour Samadpour, Ph.D., president of IEH Laboratories, has done
a lot of food testing, and some of the worst results, in terms of
harmful pathogens, have been in imported seafood. There are two
basic problems with seafood:
- Wild seafood may be contaminated with heavy metals, PCBs and
other contaminants now found in virtually all waterways
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Farmed fish, which accounts for about half of all the
seafood harvested in the world today, uses drugs, unnatural
diets, and confinement — just like their landlocked CAFO
counterparts.
As a result, diseases are prevalent and can spread quickly. The
nutritional content of the fish is also compromised, but in terms of
health hazards, the drugs and feed additives pose the greatest risk
Crazy enough, much of the seafood harvested in the U.S. is also
shipped to Asia for processing. So even if the fish was caught right
off the U.S. coast, by the time the fillets or cans reach an
American grocery store, they may have traveled across the world and
back, with countless opportunities for contamination and spoilage
along the way.
Although there are serious concerns with most fish supplies there
are still high quality vendors out there, like Vital Choice, which
is where I purchase most of my fish from. They only sell sustainably
certified fish that are regularly tested to be free of heavy metals
and radiation.
Factory Farmed Meats — A Major Source of Ill Health
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Americans eat about 126 pounds of poultry, beef, and pork per
capita each year. What many don’t realize is that growing 1 pound of
meat may require anywhere from 2 to 6 pounds of feed, and as noted
in the film, “what some of our livestock are eating are things you’d
never put in your mouth.”
Alesci visits a hog finishing farm in Iowa. In a matter of five
to six months, they grow from 13 pounds to 270 pounds. To fatten
them up that fast, the animals are fed an unnatural diet consisting
largely of corn and a secret formula of a dozen or so ingredients,
including proteins (often sourced from animal byproducts) and pig
fat.
As mentioned in the film, livestock are essentially
“corn-conversion machines,” without which the corn industry would
not survive. Nearly 40 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is used
for animal feed. (Another 40 percent goes to making ethanol.)
Renderings, i.e. animal byproducts like meat, bone, blood, and
feather meal are also used in the animal feed, along with a variety
of drugs, including antibiotics — a practice that has been
definitively linked to the
rise in antibiotic-resistant disease in both animals and humans.
A 2013 investigation by Keeve Nachman, Ph.D. of Johns Hopkins
University discovered arsenic in chicken meat, the origin of which
was a growth promoting drug called Roxarsone. The drug has since
been suspended by the FDA.
In another study, he found that chicken feather meal, which is
used in animal feed, contained the active ingredients of the drugs
Tylenol, Benadryl, and Prozac. It’s unclear how the drugs got there.
Chicken litter, i.e. poultry poop, is also used in animal feed
as a low cost high protein source. Despite being linked to the
spread of Mad Cow disease, the FDA decided against banning the
practice.
Industrialized Agriculture Externalizes the Costs of Their Cheap
Food
While the industrialization of agriculture has lowered production
costs, and to some extent made processed foods less expensive, the
system has completely failed to secure food for all, which was and
continues to be its stated mission.
Today, we have a higher percentage of people who are food
insecure or go hungry in the U.S. than we had in the 1960s, before
widespread industrialization started. About 15 percent of Americans
are now classified as being food insecure. More than 20 percent of
American children live in food insecure homes.
At the same time, the system is harmful to the
environment, to animals (both wild and captive), to farmers, the
soil, and ultimately, it’s harmful to consumers. Indeed,
processed food may be inexpensive, but we’re all paying for it
way down the line in the form of higher health care costs.
Sustainable agriculture is the answer to these and many other
related problems. While it may not be the quickest or easiest
solution, implementation wise, it's the best and most logical
solution in the long term. Sustainable agriculture balances the need
to produce food to be economically viable and efficient with a need
to take care of the land, and support rural communities and society
as a whole. Most importantly, it supports good health.
Some people question whether sustainable or organic agriculture
would be economically viable, or whether that might make food
insecurity even worse by raising food prices too high. According to
John Ikerd, who has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and whom I’ve
interviewed about this topic, transitioning to a more sustainable
food system may result in farm cost increases of 8 to 12 percent,
but the actual price you pay for the food would only rise
about 2 percent.
The reason for this is because only about 20 percent of the
foods’ retail price relates to the costs incurred at the farm level.
As explained by Ikerd:
“In other words, you can have a significant increase in
the cost of production at the farm level without
having a major impact on the consumer level. For
example, it would cost you 10 percent more to produce
[sustainable food] at the farm level, and the farm level is only
20 percent of the total value. That’s only a 2 percent increase
in [retail] food cost.”
The Secret to Better Health: Eat Real Food
The solution to improving your health and losing weight is often
as simple as swapping processed foods for real food. People have
thrived on organically grown fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats,
pastured chicken eggs and other whole foods for centuries, while
industrialized, chemical-dependent agriculture and processed foods
were only recently invented.
Ditching processed foods requires that you plan your meals in
advance, but if you take it step-by-step as described in my
nutrition plan, it's quite possible, and manageable, to
painlessly remove processed foods from your diet.
You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, making sure you
have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work
you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you're
short on time in the evenings (and you can use leftovers for lunches
the next day).
As for finding high-quality ingredients, your best bet is to
connect with a local farmer that raises crops and animals according
to organic standards. In the U.S., the following organizations can
help you locate farm-fresh foods:
Weston Price Foundation has local
chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with
buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods,
including grass fed raw dairy products like milk and butter.
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Local Harvest — This website will help
you find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources
of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy
produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. |
Farmers' Markets — A national listing
of farmers' markets. |
Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals
— The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of
sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from
farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online
outlets in the United States and Canada. |
Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture
(CISA) — CISA is dedicated to sustaining
agriculture and promoting the products of small farms. |
FoodRoutes — The FoodRoutes "Find Good
Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find
the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive
map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSAs, and
markets near you. |
The Cornucopia Institute
maintains web-based tools rating all certified
organic brands of eggs, dairy products, and other
commodities, based on their ethical sourcing and authentic
farming practices separating CAFO "organic" production from
authentic organic practices. |
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