Let me explain....I was watching a couple really good documentaries on the food industry, and it was very alarming to learn how much our food industry has changed, and mostly in part do to the fast food industry. 50 years ago, thousands of different manufacturers and farmers supplied the food to our local markets and the food was fresh, and not "engineered." Do to the heavy demand of production by the fast food industry, those thousands of suppliers have widdled down to just a few in each food sector. A few poultry, a few beef, a few potato, and so on. The reason is that these few suppliers have been able to, number one, use science to create or grow a product bigger and faster, secondly, our government provides subsidies to certain crops to help grow more at a lower cost. This has allowed the supplier to produce more, sell it cheaper, and make more profit. As an example, our "chicken farmers" now cram thousands of more chickens into the same size as before, feed them corn and antibiotics and instead of these chickens which use to fully mature in 9 weeks, now are able to grow to full size in 4 weeks. Then sell them off to fast food joints, grocery stores, and the like for a bigger profit than before. Take cattle: before they fed off the land and ate healthy. Again, our "cattle farmers" feed them corn, steroids, antibiotics, and blow them up faster than a balloon. So to cut to the chase, our food industry can produce a product faster, create it cheaper,create it ten fold, and repeat the cycle over and over. The end product, us, as a consumer, has created such a high demand for the convenience and cheapness of fast food, so we keep on encouraging the whole system day in and day out. Fast food industries account for almost 90% of the beef, poultry, potato purchases.
So how are we the cattle? Well, just like farmers feed the cattle the corn(which they were never designed to eat) so they become fat and meaty, our society pumps among other things, high fructose corn syrup into our diets. Why? Because since the government subsidizes corn, it is cheaper for food manufacturers to use HFCS than using sugar. And since our bodies are not able to metabolize high fructose corn syrup as easily as sugar, we get fatter and fatter. Not to mention, HFCS does not spike insulin levels so we do not create a sense of "fullness" from ingesting it. This allows us to eat more calories at a sitting, since that soda really didn't fill us up. So we fast forward the picture, our society continues to eat fast food, products enriched with HFCS, meat that is not as healthy since our cattle are fed the corn, and what happens to us? We desire more food, we get type 2 diabetes, we get other cardiovascular diseases, and now we have to take hundreds of dollars a month on medication so we can keep eating the crap and still stay alive. Who is winning in this picture? Not YOU! Its the cattle industry, the fast food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, its the healthcare industry and they so want you to keep killing yourself so they can keep you alive. The pharmaceutical industry is a trillion dollar a year business, and the money that the lobbyist pump back into government and big business keeps this vicious cycle spinning. So yes, just like cattle, our financial industry is going to keep fattening us up, because that is how they stay in business!! So say it with me...."MOOOOO"
So Rome wasn't built in a day, and you don't have to go "cold turkey" but one thing you can do to help stop this cycle, is stop buying products that use high fructose corn syrup. We can promote the products that don't and one by one, we can start to change the food industry. Also maybe put some money back into the pockets of americans that can now go off of some prescription medications. I've said my peace. Health and Happiness!
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