How Processed Food Took Over The American Diet
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-02-28/how-processed-food-took-over-american-diet
Processed foods account for roughly 70 percent of our nation's calories. Despite the growth of farmer's markets and availability of organic produce, food additives are nearly impossible to avoid. Diane and her guests talk about what goes into our food and how it affects our eating habits.
Guests
Melanie Warner
author of "Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Changed the American Meal."
Michael Moss
investigative reporter for The New York Times and author of "Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us."
J. Justin Wilson
senior research analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Related Items
Read An Excerpt
Excerpted from "Pandora's Lunchbox" by Melanie Warner. Copyright © 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Comments
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We are all suspicious of the various warnings from the media about all kinds of things ..... food is one such topic. But we also know that there is a mountain of money involved in the food and dining industries. So it is reasonable to think that suppliers might tweak the products to encourage more consumption. e.g. High fructose corn syrup et al. The media also loves to pump up all kinds of diet fads and miracle foods - jicama, edamame etc. But a stroll through a new grocery chain store will be enlightening - displays of special packaged items at the "deli", sushi, wines, designer beer, all kinds of frozen snacks and baked novelties, specialized "gourmet" stuff, even specialized offerings in meats and seafood - e.g. "Laura's Lean Angus".
And the national shows push odd new foods that typically are unavailable except at specialized markets and health food stores - all very expensive.
We poor folks have a hard time getting by and keeping the fat off. Generic pasta and so forth are a big obstacle.
I understand that the President is about to advocate for nw trade agreements with the EU.
Will one result of this being that the stringent (a good thing as far as I am concerned) labeling requirements for GM food etc be dropped?
When my oldest child was in first grade, the teacher wanted to do an experiment as part of a lesson about mold. She spritzed bread with water and asked the kids to hypothesize about what would happen. Mold was supposed to grow but because of the preservatives it never did. My son's hypothesis that the bread would get wet wound up as the correct one.
Salt consumption by healthy people will not adversely effect their health. Beyond that, a low salt diet appears to have deleterious impact on health. "evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely".
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/we-only-think-we-know-t...
Having Mr. Wilson from the Center for Consumer Freedom cannot possibly add anything useful or objective to the conversation today. Keep in mind that, according to Wikipedia, the Center for Consumer Freedom was originally started with seed money from Phillip Morris and was initially called the Guest Choice Network , in order to fight the prohibition of smoking in restaurants. It would be better to have panelists who have specific knowledge of the subject, without an agenda supported by a special interest that has a financial stake in the issues being discussed.
The arguement for processed food is always that it must be "cheap, fast, and last a long time" to meet the needs of the current American lifestyle. People are quick to discuss food additives as necessary to make these foods. But, fermented foods are rarely mentioned. They are the original fast food- cheap, healthy, fast (once prepared) and they last a long time!
It's not that they are "trying to make food taste good." It's that they substitute (cheap) salt and fat and sugar for real food with real food value. I don't salt things I cook, usually, because when they are cooked appropriately, most fresh foods taste good without added salt (or sugar or fat).
I moved to the US from the South Pacific/New Zealand about three years ago and was really surprised to see how much sugar is added to things that im not used to having sugar in - for example bread. Bread in America is incredibly sweet. I told the people in my office that i found the sweetness of the bread really surprising and they said - "really i haven't noticed that its sweet" - which indicates that its an creeping menace that people have gotten used to. And is bad for us.
Does the time of the year have an effect on the amount of processed food is consumed? I know for me, when the spring and summer comes my desire for processed for greatly decreases.
Is it even true that processed foods offer a way to eat more cheaply than non processed foods. Seems to me the best value, more food per dollar can be found in the fruit and vegetable department. I am often amazed and delighted by what can be found in the fruit and vegetable department year round, corporate farming is serving the people beyond the wildest dreams of people only a generation ago.
Here's a tip on reducing your salt intake in restaurants, don't order soup, it's loaded with salt. Another tip on saving money, go to family diners, most are half the price of chain restaurants and way less greasy and by my account need the business badly. They seem to be mostly run by Greeks, I bring this up because I always wondered why the Greeks gravitated to restaurants an American cuisine?
So your guest suggests that we should practice personal responsibility to avoid obesity.
What about children? When their breakfast cereals, school lunches, vending machines, and convenience stores are full of junk, how are they supposed to practice an adult level of responsibility?
I am appalled when a health food store in order to save money buys dressings loaded with salt and sugar. All kinds of so called natural products are used to add weight and adhesion to dressings to increase the weight of salads sold by the pound. When the salad dressing manufacturer was asked to reduce the sugar they said they couldn't, it would make the salads taste too salty. I'm not a that concerned with organic, but I have to watch my sugar and salt. There is a continued effort to undermine what real health food should be by large corporations.
Prefer my name not be used.
Thank-you
Justin, do you think the national goals of reducing consumption of salt, sugar, and fat are misguided?
How much money is spent lobbying legislatures to stop them from reaching these goals?
Would you argue that offering "food stamps" for only unprocessed food is unfair for your industry?
This is federal money used to promote federal goals.
(How can you fight against national goals and take massive amounts of federal money. Do you think federally sponsored consumers should have the same freedoms as people paying with cash?)
Hello
Can your current on air guests discussing processed food addiction please recommend book(s) which may guide me to making a transition from processed foods & non organic foods to all healthier, natural, foods etc... I was just diagnosed with gastrointestinal stromal tumor aka GIST cancer aka GIST sarcoma, a rare cancer. I plan to change my entire diet for the better. Looking for am easy guide I.e., A book with recipes, how to shop for the food, what to look for?
Thank you
Kimberly
I have remiting/relapsing MS. During one of my MS's active periods I lost my sense of accurate "taste". Because of this I truly only ate when I was hungry. I lost 10 pounds in 4 months. I was fasinated by the fact that once you can't taste the "bliss" products, I didn't want it.
Please don't conflate frozen vegetables--with no added ingredients--with processed foods. While they are minimally processed, they are nutritionally equal or superior to the so-called fresh vegetables in the supermarket cases. The frozen vegetables go from field to freezer in a matter of hours, whereas supermarket vegetables (except when locally sourced in season) are days or weeks from nutritional peak.
Please don't conflate frozen vegetables--with no added ingredients--with processed foods. While they are minimally processed, they are nutritionally equal or superior to the so-called fresh vegetables in the supermarket cases. The frozen vegetables go from field to freezer in a matter of hours, whereas supermarket vegetables (except when locally sourced in season) are days or weeks from nutritional peak.
I'm married to someone who is obese and diabetic, so it's a constant battle to reduce the amount(s) of processed foods in our diet. I like what a friend(who is a devout vegan) says, as a rule of thumb,"if you have to read a label, don't eat it."
Please, it's "healthful" not "healthy".
A live goldfish swallowed whole is "healthy" food. Greens and whole grains are "healthful."
I find it ironic that the scientist supporting the food industry works for the organization called something like Consumer Freedom.....when the food industry actually removes freedom as it includes things in the foods we eat that we either don't know about...or would not choose, if we had the freedom to choose!
I am absolutely incensed at Justin Wilson's assertion that by simply taking a multivitamin you can still eat empty calories and still be healthy. As Melanie Warner mentioned, unprocessed or minimally processed foods contain a multitude of other nutrients you will not get from a vitamin, such as fiber.
Calling it "Consumer Freedom" is just another way to fool the public.
I used to crave salt all the time prior to eating primally (marksdailyapple.com). Now I have no cravings for any type of food whatsoever. I believe it's because I'm getting the right kind of nutrients from whole natural foods.
Clearly the chemicals that are put in our food, put in the ground, injected into our meat and forcing animals to eat corn until they burst is causing the obesity in the U.S. With all of the food and agricultural lobbyists, the stopping of these practices will be just about impossible.
On a good note, I was pleased to see how quickly the food industry responded in developing gluten-free varieties.
If you haven't looked into it yet, please check out paleo and primal programs.
I just heard that the small precut carrots are dipped in chlorine to keep them fresh. Is this true? Even the organize versions? No where on the ingredients list does it say chlorine. Thanks.
I think we should be careful about demonizing fat. We cannot strip all fat out of our diet and survive as a person or a population. Furthermore, if one looks to the past humans have always survived on fat in some form or another. On the other hand, the large amount of Sugar and high glycemic foods in our diet are new within the past 100 years and I believe could be stripped away. Sugar, in my opinion, is the primary problem not healthy fat.
You can keep bread fresh longer by freezing it immediately, most of the time the slices can be separated without problems. Ten minutes at room temperature is enough to thaw it, or hit it with the microwave for 8 seconds. Also bananas can last a week if refrigerated, they don't yellow the same but they do ripen. You can regulate ripening by removing them from the frig the day before depending on how green they were when you bought them.
Processed food with its high sodium content, high fat content and other high concentrations of compounds that have negative health effects are, as todays discussion has identified "addictive" and as such are just as dangerous as NICOTINE. Processed foods (and the fast food industry) need the same scrutiny as the Tobacco industry. High rate of child obesity is a direct result of the addictive properties of processed and fast foods.
The contribution of processed foods that have high glycemic index loads to our health problems are of equal or greater concern than addiction because this encourages binge eating and weight gain.
It's actually a myth that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you. They are both essential for proper organ function. It's sugar that is the problem with our modern diets. We need to take responsibility and do our own research. We can't rely on the medical establishment since they are not experts in nutrition and the effect of foods on our biological processes.