Gack Yack

When you become a vegetarian, it’s easy to say you’re doing it for a particular cause, whether it be a healthier you, animals, or even the environment. But as I sat and watched Food, Inc. the other night, I realized that the driving factor should be the appalling behavior of our nation’s food industry.

If there’s any indication that the government has forgotten about regular people, it’s with the food industry. It’s obvious that in our rapid plunge from the top country in the world, we’ve created a lot of issues to pay for. We need to make money. But doing so at the expense of the American people is not the answer.

When I was a kid, I was always told in school that our government and all its’ regulatory agencies cared about us–that they were the watchdogs for our well-being, and I believed it. Maybe it was an antiquated notion, but that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Everything goes to the highest bidder now–it’s all about making money, above everything else.

To say that we consumers have been in the dark about the food in our supermarkets is a vast understatement: we’re basically clueless. We have absolutely no idea what our food goes through or how far it travels before it lands on our plates. And it’s our blind faith in the USDA and FDA that needs a rude awakening.

In Food Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner shows us just how much the food industry has been hiding from us in the last 20-30 years. As an industry that was once controlled by numerous companies, the food industry is now controlled by a handful of corporations (4 to be exact) that continuously put money ahead of consumer health and well-being. They destroy the livelihood of American farmers, expose employees to all kinds of antibiotics and contaminants, and damage the environment. They’ve remade our food in their image by making everything bigger: chickens, cows and pigs are all injected with hormones so they’ll grow faster. Corn is broken down and remade into thousands of different ingredients. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find one ingredient in the 47,000 products at a supermarket that doesn’t contain some variant of corn.

Food, Inc. gives viewers an appalling but true window into the mass production of our food. It makes insightful points about what we eat and how it’s produced. It’s also not afraid to put a spotlight on who’ve we become as a nation and where we’re going from here. I recommend this movie to anyone curious or that cares about where our food comes from. And trust me–we should care.

In Entertainment Weekly’s review of the film, Owen Gleiberman gave a striking last thought to sum up the film: “A big-picture vision of conglomerate duplicity and control, Food, Inc. is hard to shake, because days after you’ve seen it, you may find yourself eating something — a cookie, a piece of poultry, cereal out of the box, a perfectly round waxen tomato — and you’ll realize that you have virtually no idea what it actually is.”

Embedding for the Food, Inc. trailer has been disabled by request, but you can watch it here.

Reprinted from http://health.yahoo.com/experts/drmao/20029/how-technology-affects-your-food/

By Dr. Maoshing Ni – Posted on Tue, Oct 06, 2009, 5:13 pm PDT

When it comes to food, there is no shortage of questions about how to get the most nutrients out of the food we eat. In this modern world, even more questions arise as we contemplate the effect of brand new technology on the quality of our food. Read on to find out how processing and technology is affecting what you eat.

1. Microwave: Destroys nutrients
Microwaves use super-fast particles to radiate the water inside food to bring it to a boil. Convenient? Yes. A good way to heat up food? Studies say No.

In fact, one study by the Spanish scientific research council, CEBAS-CSIC published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, found that microwave cooking destroys some important nutrients in vegetables. Broccoli, when microwaved, lost 97 percent, 74 percent and 87 percent of three cancer-protecting antioxidants (flavonoids, sinapics and caffeoyl-quinic derivatives) compared to steamed broccoli, which lost 11 percent, 0 percent and 8 percent of these compounds respectively.

If you must, use the lowest setting just to heat the foods. Better yet, use a small toaster oven to warm your foods. It might take more time, but it is much healthier.

2. Freezing food may preserve nutrients
Water is the main element of fresh food, usually making up between 50 to 90% of the food’s weight. Freezing is a way of maintaining these water levels and temporarily stopping the growth of microorganisms and bacteria. In general, freezing food doesn’t lessen nutritional value if you freeze the food when it is at peak quality. For example, if berries are flash frozen right at picking, there’s very little loss of nutrients. In fact, nutrients are better retained in frozen fruits and vegetables than in those that are transported long distances to their destination. Produce actually begins to lose valuable vitamins and minerals soon after picking, especially at room temperature and above. Freezing for a few hours after harvesting can help prevent this. It is only when food is stored and sits for a long period of time that it starts to lose nutritional values of the vitamins, especially the B and C Vitamins.

3. Dried Fruit vs. fresh fruit
In general, when you dry a food, you are taking the water content out and dehydrating it. You don’t necessarily destroy the nutrients, although in fruits, certain vitamins can be easily destroyed. Vitamin C, for instance, is fragile, so it may be destroyed in the process. That is why fruits are generally better fresh. Dried foods are nearly as beneficial, though you end up eating a higher quantity of dried foods than you would the actual fresh food. For example, you might eat five to seven dried apricot pieces in one sitting, but you most likely wouldn’t be eating the same amount of fresh apricots.

4. Organic for nutrients and safety
One of the biggest complaints about organic foods is that it is so much more expensive than commercially grown produce. So why spend more? What you may be saving in money now on commercial produce you are surely losing in health later. Many scientific studies have shown that organic foods have a much higher percentage of antioxidants. And studies regularly emerge about the negative effects of pesticides and herbicides used on commercial crops: cancer risk, inflammation, and reproductive imbalance in humans and animals.

The primary reason for buying organic is that you get wholesome, nutrient-rich foods that aren’t covered in dangerous chemicals. Even the foods that are grown below ground or have peels are not always safe from pesticides.

If you have to make a choice between the two, make an informed decision.

• These fruits and vegetables tested the worst for chemicals, so buy organic: apples, bell peppers, carrots, celery, cherries, grapes (imported), kale, lettuce, nectarines, peaches, pears, and strawberries.

•  When tested, these have the least amount of chemicals: avocados, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, kiwi, mangos, onions, papaya, pineapples, sweet corn, sweet peas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and watermelon.