Impoverished, Hazardous, Industrially Processed Food

(Still reading that book, "EAT YOUR HEART OUT ' by Felicity Lawrence)

I find that many of us take breakfast cereals, pregnant women, children and sometimes ill people are advised to take it, as far as I know. But they do no good to you, they are expensive ways to get ill, actually.

Felicity Lawrence says that breakfast cereals are agricultural surplus that are turned into profitable export; they are a triumph of marketing, packaging and US economic and foreign policies.

Whether it is corn or oats or whatever, the process is the same. (HERE  is some information about how they are processed; and how they are not good for you). The cornflakes you take have the nutritious germ and essential fats and oils removed at the outset. Otherwise the product goes rancid. Low-shelf life is not good for business. 

Then there are starches. Raw starch gets broken down during the industrial processing: this means that they get absorbed into the body more quickly. This results in high Glycemic Index. Some of the breakfast cereals can even be worse than sugar itself.

("When carbohydrate in foods is quickly broken down and absorbed, blood sugar levels soar. The problem is, so does the insulin level. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas in response to rises in blood sugar, helps muscle cells to soak up and store blood sugar. In moderation, insulin is a good-guy. But insulin can become dangerous if its levels spike repeatedly, increasing risks of diabetes, heart disease and possibly even cancer. "- this is from Peak Performance  . This page discusses what is glycemic index and how they should be used to choose what you eat. Diabetics must know this detail, I feel.

This site has useful tables of "Factors affecting the Glycemic Index" and  "Examples of GI Values of Foods within Food Groups")

Flavourings, sugar, salt and vitamins are added in the manufacturing process, because they have been removed in the first place. The health benefits of breakfast cereals depend more on fortifications than on micro nutrients from raw ingredients, because, as we saw, they are destroyed in the first place.

These fortifications include Vitamin B, C, D, iron, calcium and water. A form of fibre from plants, Inulin too is added, especially because it retains water and mimics the mouth feel of fats, and also because it lowers the Glycemic Index. Omega-3 fatty acids too are added, but because they leave a fishy taste, they are masked with additives.

Acrylamide:

Foods with lot of carbohydrates that are cooked at very high temperatures produce Acrylamide, a carcinogen. According to WHO, the permissible limit of Acrylamide in water is one microgram per litre. But Crisps and Fries which are industrially produced at very high temperatures, have five hundred times as much as the permitted level. Breakfast cereals, industrial bread, potato products and chips are all high in Acrylamide. 

"The main offending food groups are below, listed roughly in descending order of acrylamide content:

• Potato Chips (Crisps)
  
• French Fries
  
• Crackers, Toast, Bread Crisps, Cookies
  
• Boxed Breakfast Cereal
  
• Corn Chips (Crisps)
  
• Bakery Products
  
• Coffee
  
• Cocoa
  
• Bread",
  

according to Grinning Planet  (It discusses Acrylamide in great detail, and tells you how you can reduce its intake- "boxed cereals really are junk food. Most have very high levels of sugar and they're cooked to a crisp. Now we find out they have acrylamide too. Try hot cereals instead!"

Health Canada discusses the same and provides useful links)

Those who eat 40 micrograms of acrylamide per day are twice as likely to get cancer of ovary or womb: you get that in half pack of biscuits, a portion of chips or a single pack of crisps.

Breakfast cereals are high on sugar, salt and saturated fats- you need sugar for taste and crispiness, and salt to balance the sugar or else the food tastes too sweet. They are just sugary junk with vitamin pills. In a congressional hearing, Senator Robert Chaote testified that breakfast cereals fatten, but do little to prevent malnutrition. He informed the congress, that rats fed on a diet of ground-up cereal boxes with sugar, milk and raisins were healthier than rats fed on cereals alone!

(If you have read so far, I am sure you will be aware that this post is short on numbers and names. I have put in whatever I found in Felicity Lawrence's book, with some additional links I found. I know this is not rigorous, the food industry today might have improved the standards. I am posting this only to share my shock at the short-value of the food we eat; if someone does a rigorous study of this, I will be too happy)

An edited extract from "Eat Your Heart Out: Why The Food Business Is Bad For The Planet And Your Health" as published by The Guardian can be found here 

The adverse effects of industrialisation of food are discussed by Felicity Lawrence in individual chapters titled- Cereals, Meat and Vegetables, Milk, Pigs, Sugar, Fish and Tomatoes, Fats, Soya. To do justice to her work, you have to get it and read it. 

But I want to close this post with this quote from Felicity Lawrence: 

"How then should we shop and eat? My efforts, not always successful, are still focused where they were focused four years ago- organically, more locally, more seasonally, more directly from producers and independent retailers, more fair trade, less meat and animal produce, more wholegrain, pulses, fresh fruits and vegetables, few highly processed foods, nothing with ingredients on a label you cannot recognise, nothing that claims to be a new or techno food nothing highly packaged. Follow these principles and by an large you will find you are buying less from production that damages the environment of threatens ecosystems and you are less likely to be eating the fruits of exploited labour."