I recently saw an online post that emphasized toxic problems with the Industrial Agricultural system and the need to go more into permaculture. What struck me was the series of comments that emphasized how many people were locked into the myth of the ‘Green Revolution’ as the only way to feed the world efficiently. The absence of any awareness of the realities of corporatized industrial agriculture was quite disconcerting to me. Seventy-five years of propaganda has been quite effective it seems in convincing people that our toxic global food system is somehow a boon to humankind.
Mega-farms using copious amounts of artificial (many toxic) chemicals that supply factory food processing with even more artificial chemicals for taste-enhancement and shelf-life preservation also contain unhealthy levels of salt and simple sugars. I suppose this weeks post is my justification for why some form of a permaculture future is the only one for us all if we intend to be healthy. (Previous example posts about food from this blog, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.) I’ll start with the doom-and-gloom blunt reality overview about the problems of the toxic global food system, before getting to what we need for a food system that boosts health (next post).
Heidi Godman, Executive Editor, Harvard Health Letter: “Need more reasons to stop eating ultra-processed food? How about 32 of them? That’s the number of health problems noted in the largest-ever review of studies about the dangers of diets high in ultra-processed foods. The findings, published online Feb. 28, 2024, by The BMJ, come from a review of 45 analyses published in the last three years, involving about 10 million people in total. When scientists graded the evidence, they found the most convincing or highly suggestive evidence linked diets rich in ultra-processed foods with increased risks for premature death, cardiovascular disease, mental health disorders, diabetes, obesity, and sleep problems. Associations between ultra-processed foods and asthma, gastrointestinal disease, some cancers, and other health issues were limited, the authors say, and need further investigation. What, exactly, are ultra-processed foods? They’re ready-to-eat products such as deli meat, microwaveable dinners, or chips. They typically have long ingredients lists, with lots of additives such as preservatives, oil, sugar, salt, coloring, and flavoring. You’ll do yourself a favor if you can cut them out of your diet as much as possible and replace them with less-processed options or (best of all) whole foods.” Who would have thought that human ingenuity for profit-making would weaponize food.
That was one argument for real food – that is organic and little or no processed. It’s not the occasional processed food that creates the problems but the day-in day-out consumption of these kind of chemical concoctions that do the harm. The sad aspect is that as much as 50% of people on a processed food diet can expect health problems to begin by the time they are in their 30s and that get steadily more chronic health problems as they age, unless they change to a real food diet. Otherwise they become part of the corporate sick-care system.
So, if you eat food from a Supermarket, then following sustainable food guru Bill McKibben’s advice will help ensure you get a better diet. “Check the label. The longer the ingredient list, the more processed a food is. If most of the ingredients are hard-to-pronounce chemicals instead of actual food, it’s a safe bet that food is heavily processed. Shop the outside aisles at the grocery store. The center aisles of most grocery stores are full of packaged items and ready-made foods that are heavily processed. Aim to buy more foods from the produce and dairy aisles. Opt for minimally processed meats. Choose meats that have been minimally processed (e.g., seafood, chicken breast) while avoiding heavily processed meats (e.g., sausage, cured meats like bacon). Start slowly. It’s okay to slowly replace processed foods in your diet with more fresh foods. In fact, it may make you more likely to stick to these changes long-term. Cook more meals at home. You might not always be in control of your diet while traveling, but you are at home. Make your own frozen meals by cooking a larger batch and freezing the leftovers, or whip up your own salad dressing. While many aspects of our health can be complicated, eating less processed food doesn’t have to be. When in doubt, just start with real food.”
One of the greatest problems with changing to a better diet is cost. I’m sure people everywhere have noticed that the cost of food has been increasing. A consequence of this is that many people have to choose the cheaper chemically processed foods out of financial necessity just to ensure that they can eat at all. It is an amazing fact that even in the western countries, food insecurity is rampant in poor and impoverished areas. In the USA, over 12.5% of the population suffers from food insecurity (the condition of not having access to sufficient food, or food of an adequate quality, to meet one’s basic needs).
Let’s not forget that the global industrial agricultural system exists to make a profit. Feeding people is just a side-effect of meeting that need for profit. And then that exists only where it is profitable to ship the food. If one lives in an impoverished developing country, then you know that getting industrially grown food is not common. That would explain why over 309 million people are estimated to face acute levels of food insecurity in over 71 countries involved with World Food Programme (note: there are only 195 countries in the world). Then add to that nearly 1 billion people that are starving or in extreme malnourishment (that includes many in developed countries) and you can see that corporate food using the ‘Green Revolution’ mentality has failed miserably.
And if you live in an area where the stores get restocked every day, and even have large organic sections, and you can afford food costs, don’t get too complacent. If the food trucks don’t arrive for four days, then you will have been quickly dumped into the food insecurity category very quickly. It’s easy to forget just how important good nutrition really is when food is not a central part of your lifestyle – if you eat out when hungry or when entertaining and never consider the origins of your diet, then it’s time to wake up.
Let me wrap up this doom-and -gloom section and reiterate that good health begins with good food. You do not get it through the global Industrial Agriculture system with its toxic pesticides and inexorable destruction of soil quality wherever it occurs. Those pesticides that get rid of plant, blight, and insect problems and even make harvesting easier also soak into the soil killing the soil organisms that maintain healthy, viable soils. It’s why the addition of industrial level growth chemicals like nitrogen and phosphorus is necessary and why most industrial food is now missing essential nutrients to support our optimal health.
If you can afford organic food, support the local farmers that make the effort to grow organic – they’re not making big profits and do it because most believe itis the right thing to do and they rely on knowledgeable customers. Many of the big-grocery chains stores provide large organic sections, but may have this produce shipped from other countries – confirm that the produce is truly organic using ‘Food Traceability Lot Codes’ if available. In most countries fresh food that is shipped is labelled with the PLU code and is a quick way to recognize GMO free and organic foods (see link).
When we eat real (GMO free and Organic) foods and avoid processed foods where possible we also help the land heal as well as ourselves. And isn’t that the base argument for a heathy planet and a start of a new ethic to help people everywhere have a good nutritious diet so we can all thrive. When people live in marginal agriculture areas, isn’t it up to us to share our knowledge and good food technology to make a difference.
To Be Continued ………….
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