The Food Industry and Obesity

PaleoPath4Lyfe

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-industry_b_1559920.html

The Last Diet You Will Ever Need

Why is it that we believe we can feed our bodies industrial, nutrient-depleted food-like substances empty of life and be healthy? How did we come to believe that food industry chemicals and processing could replace nature-made foods?

A hundred years ago all food was organic, local, seasonal, fresh or naturally-preserved by ancient methods. All food was food. Now less than 3 percent of our agricultural land is used to grow fruits and vegetables, which should make up 80 percent of our diet. Today there are not even enough fruits and vegetables in this country to allow all Americans to follow the government guidelines to eat five to nine servings a day.

What most of us are left with is industrial food. And who knows what lurks in the average boxed, packaged, or canned factory-made science project.

When a French fry has more than 20 ingredients and almost all of them are not potato, or when a fast food hamburger contains very little meat, or when the average teenager consumes 34 teaspoons of sugar a day, we are living in a food nightmare, a sci-fi horror show.

The very fact that we are having a national conversation about what we should eat, that we are struggling with the question about what the best diet is, is symptomatic of how far we have strayed from the natural conditions that gave rise to our species, from the simple act of eating real, whole, fresh food. When it becomes a revolutionary act to eat real food, we are in trouble.

The food industry, which is the second biggest employer in America after the federal government, heavily influences the media and government agencies that regulate it (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and Congress) and intentionally confuses and confounds us.

Low-fat is good -- so anything with a "low-fat" on the label must be healthy. But Coke is 100 percent fat-free and that doesn't make it a health food. Now we are told to eat more whole grains, so a few flecks of whole grains are sprinkled on sugary cereals. That doesn't make them a health food either.

The best advice is to avoid foods with health claims on the label, or better yet avoid foods with labels in the first place.

In the 21st century our tastes buds, our brain chemistry, our biochemistry, our hormones and our kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry. The food-like substances proffered by the industrial food system food trick our taste buds into momentary pleasure, but not our biology, which reacts, rejects and reviles the junk plied on our genes and our hormonal and biochemical pathways. We need to unjunk our biology.

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

MSG is used to create fat mice so researchers can study obesity. MSG is an excito-toxin that stimulates your brain to eat uncontrollably. When fed to mice, they pig out and get fat. It is in 80 percent of processed foods and mostly disguised as "natural flavorings."

And trans fat, for example, is derived from a real food -- vegetable oil -- chemically altered to resist degradation by bacteria, which is why modern cookies last on the shelf for years.

But the ancient energy system of your cells is descended from bacteria and those energy factories, or mitochondria, cannot process these trans fats either. Your metabolism is blocked and weight gain and Type 2 diabetes ensue.

Your tongue can be fooled and your brain can become addicted to the slick combinations of fat, sugar, and salt pumped into factory-made foods, but your biochemistry cannot, and the result is the disaster of obesity and chronic disease we have in America today.

No wonder 68 percent of Americans are overweight. No wonder that from 1960 to today obesity rates have risen from 13 percent to 36 percent and soon will reach 42 percent. Over the last decade the rate of pre-diabetes or diabetes in teenagers has risen from 9 percent to 23 percent.

Really? Almost one in four of our kids now has pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes? And 37 percent of normal weight kids have one or more cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar, because even though factory food doesn't make them fat, it makes them sick!

It is time to take our kitchens and our homes back. Transforming the food industry seems monumental, a gigantic undertaking. But it is not. It is a small problem. In the small places in our lives, our shopping carts, the fridge, the cupboard, the kitchen and on our dining room table is where all the power is.

It is the hundreds of little choices, the small actions you make every day, that will topple the monolithic food industry. This century is littered with the bodies and institutions of fallen despots and despotic regimes -- from the fall of the Berlin wall to the Arab spring. There is no force more powerful than a small group of individuals with a desire to end injustice and abuse.

A very simple idea can break through the confusion and plant the seeds of a revolution. Our bodies were designed to run on real food. Our natural default state is health. We need to simplify our way of eating.

Unjunk our diet, detoxify our bodies and our minds and we heal. Simply choose foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, healthy oils (olive oil, fish oil, avocado and coconut oil), small amounts of whole grains and beans and lean animal protein including small wild fish, grass fed meat, and farm eggs.

There are no diets, no calorie counting, and no measuring fats, carbs or protein grams. None of that matters if you choose real, whole, fresh, live foods. If you choose quality, the rest takes care of itself.

When you eat empty industrial food with addictive chemicals and sugar, your body craves more, looking for nutrients in a dead food where none are to be found. Yet after eating nutrient dense fresh food for a few days the biological addiction to industrial food is broken, and in a few more days your cells begin to rejuvenate and you heal from the inside out.

And the side effects are all good ones: effortless weight loss, reversal of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, clearing of brain fog, lifting of depression and fatigue and even better skin, hair and nails.

What is more important than what you take out of your diet is what you put in. Add in the good stuff and there won't be room for the bad. Mother Nature is the best pharmacist and food is the most powerful drug on the planet. It works faster, better and cheaper than any other pharmaceutical.

Whole, real food spiced up with a few super foods such as chia, hemp, parsley, cilantro, coconut and green juicing can beneficially affect thousands of genes, regulate dozens of hormones, and enhance the function of tens of thousands of protein networks.

Dinner is a date with the doctor. What you put at the end of your fork is more powerful than anything you will ever find at the bottom of a prescription bottle. The roadmap to health is simple: eat real food, practice self-love rather than self-loathing, imagine yourself well, get sufficient sleep, and incorporate movement into your life. The solution to our health crisis and obesity epidemic is not complicated.

Health and happiness are often just a few days away. Each of us has the capacity to make the small changes in our lives that will create big changes in our food landscape, our agriculture and even our government policies.

I hope you will use the power of your fork to be part of the start of a true food revolution.

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Have you changed your eating habits to include more real food?

What have you done to create a healthier diet for your family?

Have you eliminated MSG from your diet?

Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on YouTube, become a fan on Facebook, and subscribe to his newsletter.

Acg67

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

spngebobmyhero

good article, thanks for sharing! I have changed my diet to include these real foods and it makes me feel a lot better.

joeyplatypus92

lol @ this crap

DyanCB

Hyman can be controversial but, essentially, I do agree. Those who ask "What does eating clean mean?" THIS is your answer. I shop the periphery of the supermarket, including Whole Foods, to get as much unprocessed fuel for my body as possible.

gamerkiwi

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

Yeah, aspartame is harmless unless you're drinking a case of diet soda a day, there's conflicting evidence on MSG, and HFCS is as bad as any other sugar. Trans-fats are the only one that is shown to be very bad for you.

Sabine_Stroehm

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Jstewartdesigns

I've been eating clean now since the beginning of the week and I can already feel a difference and I like it!!

PaleoPath4Lyfe

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

What is garbage about it??? It is the truth.

Do you like just falling in line with the government and believe what they tell you?

LesterBlackstone

Goody! More tinfoil-hat "da gubmit is making me fat" nonsense.

Personal responsibility? PFFFFFT! Can't have that!

Acg67

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

What is garbage about it??? It is the truth.

Do you like just falling in line with the government and believe what they tell you?

Tell me how the listed compounds are fattening and in what dosages make them fattening? Metabolically how are MSG and naturally occurring glutamate different, same goes for HFCS and sucrose.

Do you like just listening to quacks and tin foil hat wearers and falling in line and believing what they tell you?

ericobrecht

Lots of hysteria (MSG is a simple non-toxic protein for G-d sakes!), mixed with some feel good, "Its not your fault you are fat, its Big - Agra/ Big- Pharma, Micky-Ds fault!" How about excercising self control over what we put in our mouths, getting excercise, and stop going all in on the next flag waving hysteria.

PaleoPath4Lyfe

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

What is garbage about it??? It is the truth.

Do you like just falling in line with the government and believe what they tell you?

Tell me how the listed compounds are fattening and in what dosages make them fattening? Metabolically how are MSG and naturally occurring glutamate different, same goes for HFCS and sucrose.

Do you like just listening to quacks and tin foil hat wearers and falling in line and believing what they tell you?

That is where you don't know anything about me. I question everything. I see the difference it has made for me and my husband and some of my family members.

Look around at Society. I see plenty of people that are exercising, eating the way the Dietician told them to eat, counting calories and not loosing weight until they switch their eating back to a simple approach...................fresh, whole foods.

NO ONE CAN DISPUTE THAT EATING WHOLE FOODS IS TRULY THE WAY TO GO.

You all are the ones making excuses for eating your crap junk.

PaleoPath4Lyfe

Lots of hysteria (MSG is a simple non-toxic protein for G-d sakes!), mixed with some feel good, "Its not your fault you are fat, its Big - Agra/ Big- Pharma, Micky-Ds fault!" How about excercising self control over what we put in our mouths, getting excercise, and stop going all in on the next flag waving hysteria.

Obviously you have never had any hormone issues or other endocrine or metabolic issues that despite eating a certain amount of calories that it was impossible to lose weight.

There are a MOUNTAIN of people like me and many others that have had issues due to health problems

neverstray

So, some of you are saying its ok to eat junk food?

Prahasaurus

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Winner.

Lock the thread.

--P

ctooch99

Lol Hyman, lol Huffpo

Industrial processing has given rise to an array of addictive, fattening, metabolism-jamming chemicals and compounds including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, to name the biggest offenders.

^ typical garbage spouted by Hyman

I don't know anything about Hyman - but why would anyone disagree with this statement? Monsanto has your best interest and health in mind?? You can put their GMO garbage in YOUR body - Thanks, I will pass in favor of my local farmers and small markets...

NeverGoinBack2012

I avoid any foods with MSG and additives after what I've learned about processed foods. When I re-introduced them, I experience lethargy, headache, and feel lousy. There is truth to this article. Those who are poo pooing it are those who have never detoxed from it. And they must LOVE their junk food and are reluctant to give it up. I say, go ahead and detox from the junk for a couple of months and then go back to eating it. Then tell me it doesn't matter. I've also taken note that the ones poo pooing it are men. Interesting.

emscat78

When you eat empty industrial food with addictive chemicals and sugar, your body craves more, looking for nutrients in a dead food where none are to be found. Yet after eating nutrient dense fresh food for a few days the biological addiction to industrial food is broken, and in a few more days your cells begin to rejuvenate and you heal from the inside out.

And the side effects are all good ones: effortless weight loss, reversal of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, clearing of brain fog, lifting of depression and fatigue and even better skin, hair and nails.

This is so true! Three weeks ago, I eliminated all sugars, wheat/gluten, processed foods, and cow dairy. I sparingly eat goat dairy and I have been a vegetarian for 23 years. I feel so much better-- both physically and mentally; I have more energy, I no longer crave foods or binge (daily occurrence before), my skin is clearing, and I can think more clearly. While I can say my mood is great, only time will tell if this will alleviate my 25 year battle with depression, I suspect it will help a lot. Not to mention, I have shed 12 lbs in the past 22 days. Everything I put into my body is prepared fresh. While it is difficult to find organic foods in the small town where I live, and it takes a lot more effort to prepare each meal from scratch, I wouldn't trade it for the processed foods. I am learning so much about food-- how food essentially is a drug (which can mend or harm a body).

ninerbuff

If MSG is the culprit that Hyman suggests, then practically all of Asia should be overweight/obese. MSG is a staple in the Asian diet. I eat it EVERYDAY. Along with my aspartame.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

ninerbuff

So, some of you are saying its ok to eat junk food?

80/20 rule for me. I eat junk food (not in large quantities) a couple of times a week.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition