AMERICA’S FOOD AND EVERYDAY CHEMICAL EXPOSURE
Of all the risk factors for chronic disease facing America today the most serious is the severe shortage of natural, nutritious, chemical free food. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has for years now been passing laws giving the American food industry and various chemical companies almost unregulated permission to manipulate the American food supply through the use of synthetic chemicals and genetic modification. And because the FDA is one of the few U.S. government agencies where it’s legal to pass laws without congressional approval, this permission was given without the American public’s knowledge or consent.

Everyday chemical exposure is being found to be among the most serious risk factors for chronic disease in America. Today synthetic chemicals and their residues can be found in almost all of today’s conventional, non-organic food making the American food supply the most direct source for everyday exposure to chemicals..

An estimated 14,000 chemical additives are now used by the American food industry in nearly every phase of conventional food processing. These chemicals come in the form of such things as artificial flavor enhancers, colors, dyes, ripening agents, sweeteners, and preservative as well as plastic pollutants (phthalates) found in the lining of canned foods and plastic beverage containers. Not included in this figure are chemical residues found in nearly all conventionally grown food crops from the over 800 million pounds of synthetic pesticides and herbicides used annually in modern domestic agriculture alone.

Most of the chemicals added into today’s food are used only to make inferior food look and taste better. This is especially true when it comes to the cheaper, less expensive foods found in conventional grocery stores and such as those served at most of America’s fast food restaurants.

America’s meat and dairy industry also relies heavily on the use of chemicals during food production by way of growth hormones and anabolic steroids that are injected into poultry and livestock in order to produce meat, eggs, and milk as fast as possible and at the lowest possible cost. Excessive use of antibiotics is also necessary due to disease being a critical problem because of the unsanitary conditions created when the unnaturally large numbers of animals are confined so close together as is the case at the facilities that house the nation’s largest producers of meat and dairy products.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS
No discussion about unnatural synthetic food and America’s risk factors for chronic disease would be complete without mentioning what potentially could become the poisoning of the entire population with genetically modified foods.

Again, the FDA went behind America’s back and approved these foods for use in the early 1990′s despite warnings from even some of their own scientists about future health consequences. Today, 70 percent of the American food supply contains genetically modified foods and because the FDA dosen’t require these foods to be labeled as being genetically modified, we Americans have been eating them for years without knowing it.

These man made foods are produced through a process called recombinant DNA technology (rDNA) which unnaturally alters the genetic make-up of an organism by a series of procedures used to join (recombine) DNA segments. This technology makes it possible to take a gene from any species and place it into almost any other species.

In the case of genetically modified foods, it is the process of altering the genetic make-up of food crops by inserting genetic information from other plants and animals into the DNA of the seeds used to produce these foods in order to obtain specific characteristics that otherwise would not occur naturally. Today Monsanto, the chemical company that produces the herbicide Round-up, holds the patent on 90 percent of the world’s genetically modified food crop seeds.

The danger with recombinant DNA technology is that it is not a precise process and all to often the results are both unintended and unexpected. While it’s application in some areas of industry may be appropriate, a great many scientists say it should have never been allowed to be used to produce food for human or livestock consumption. The unnatural and permanent alteration of our food supply’s genetic blueprints will almost certainly have devastating effects on human health both now and forever, contributing greatly to existing chronic disease while leading to the creation of new and unique diseases.

OBESITY AND POOR DIET
For so long, the same U.S. government that choose to genetically alter America’s food supply and load it with toxic levels of synthetic chemicals has pointed the finger at the American people’s poor choices of lifestyle for two major risk factors for chronic disease, obesity and poor diet. According to the government, these two risk factors could be prevented only if Americans would choose to eat healthier. But now, the truth is being exposed about what really contributes the most to these two risk factors.

In the United States, obesity has reached such a level that it is now thought to be our greatest risk factor for chronic disease and recent studies has uncovered that the chemicals in our food are a primary cause. Pesticides, growth hormones, and other various chemicals found commonly in America’s non-organic, conventionally raised meats, fruits, and vegetables contain chemical substances called obesogens. It has been discovered that these substances disrupts the natural function of the body’s hormonal system and causes people to gain weight.

This is most evident among America’s poor where numerous studies show that low-income and obesity are linked together. Lower income households can only afford to buy cheaper foods and these foods are the ones that contain the most chemicals, making these families more vulnerable to weight gain, obesity, and chronic disease.

Making matters even worse, today’s conventional food has significantly lower nutritional content than the natural, organically grown foods of the past. So much that in fact 96 percent of registered dietitians are now recommending daily dietary supplements to their clients in order to maintain health.

Genetic modification of food, chemical food toxins, and malnourishment in the United States may be concepts difficult for most Americans to accept and rightfully so. Most of us have been living with the assumption that our food is safe and is constantly being subjected to rigorous government safety tests. However this is not been nor never has been the case at all.

Instead America’s synthetic and man-made food supply, and the chemicals they contain, have never been “government tested” but instead rely on tests conducted by the food and chemical companies that manufacture these products which should raise reasons of concern among the general public as to whether the tests are accurate. This reason alone has caused our conventional food supply to become one of our nations most dangerous risk factors for chronic disease and if allowed to continue, may soon become irreversible.

Post Updated June 28, 2011