I agree also but those movies which I also saw are pointing out two things Corporate greed, which is not just a buzz word and truly horrific marketing strategies. This whole "anything for a buck" attitude seems to run deeply in society. If they can say it with a smile on their faces we seem to buy it. You and I wouldn't buy beef if their advertisements had a scene from a feed lot on it. They will probably show up at my door soon with a big check to shut up or a gun to drag me away for messing with their way of life. :huh:

I agree with you I have watch both those shows as well as Fat Head, which is a really good one as well. It is kinda scary what is being hidden in foods. And even more scary how many people are suffering from diseases and illnesses based on the food that is being eaten. My son was signed up to the raw fruit and veggie program at school as well as the milk program. It wasn't to my knowledge that the teacher aid has decided to offer the children soy milk. for months my little guy was having skin trouble and strange rashes on and off. It wasn't until his body went into a full on reaction that landed him in the ER that I was able to find out from him that he had been ingesting soy milk at the school without my consent or knowledge. Now when I walk into a grocery store I feel like 90% of the items there are poison. Even the wax that they use to coat the fruit and veggies is often times a soy based waxed. I had been slowly working my family into the primal life, but now it is full on. Between the violent soy allergy (and soy is in almost everything!) and recently finding out about my celiac disease it is full primal/paleo in this home. And the grocery store has become enemy territory for me, since they have so many different names for soy. If we can not understand the label completely we no longer make the buy and eat it. The big corporations and so forth know that the foods that people eat are not safe, they are just after the all mighty dollar. There is no money in curing a disease, only in funding research into making pills in order to treat the effects of the disease.

ditto

Great post - scary topic. I haven't seen any of the movies mentioned, but I've read a few great books and blogs. I am definitely coming around to the fact that what I feed my body has a direct relationship to my health. I mean we all learn this in school, but of course it was based on the food pyramid. Environment and lifestyle is a little harder to control - I live where I live and I need my job. It would be difficult (not impossible) to uproot my family and move somewhere better for our health. I just don't see that happening in the near future. Maine is a beautiful rural state, so probably not as bad as some other places. I have recently switched to oil cleansing, so I can ditch all the harmful soaps and lotions. I need to figure out my next small move.

There are so many factors to consider. My husband is starting to understand I think, but he still scoffs a bit when he asks why we can't have something and I say "have you seen the ingredients list?" I've also learned a hard lesson about discussing diet choices with coworkers and friends. They tell me that I'm acting like I'm superior or somehting and belittling their choices. I really don't think I am, but it's how they interpret. It's hard not to share things I've read and want to help people understand. My friend's family is rampant with autoimmune disorders - lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, she has issues with her colon (not celiac). When I speak of gluten-free to her to see if that helps, she just refuses to listen. She loves all her "white" food, and I assume her family does too.

Anyway, I'm glad I have all of you here! It's nice to have somewhere to discuss this stuff. One step at a time, one person at a time.

Whatever. I find it offensive that thousands and thousands of hours of research, critical thinking, personal experience etc is just completely dismissed with ridicule. Especially here in the Paleo forum.

"Especially here in the Paleo forum"?

I'm not sure there is anything that makes this forum particularly noble, nor am I sure that there is anything that *should* make this topic particularly Paleo.

I'm sorry you were offended by what I'd intended to be simply a humorous response to what I thought was a way over the top position.

At the risk of offending somebody again, I will just state that I find conspiracy theories in general to be ripe for criticism (though I try to do so in a good-natured manner, and I'm sorry you didn't take it that way), because they blithely make the claim that other people are so evil that they are intentionally causing harm and/or death - and that thousands if not millions of others are equally evil in going along with it - while there are other explanations that are more believable and don't require me to label much of humanity as evil.

As far as you assuming that I am "familiar with what it's like to be ridiculed" because I'm a Paleo person, I think that's a poor assumption on two fronts. First, I've certainly heard criticism of my food choices and my food recommendations - but I choose not to take it as ridicule, but rather as constructive food for thought. Second, it's probably more accurate to say that I find Paleo to have some benefits to it, while I would hesitate to label myself as "Paleo" - in large part because so much of it is associated with conspiracy theories like this with which I'm not willing to associate myself.

Finally, if we want to play the "I'm offended" game, I can go ahead and be offended by all the false assumptions you made about what research I have and have not done, or what my level of knowledge is. As it turns out, somebody can actually do all the same research, think about what he/she has learned, and come to a different conclusion. Who knew?

(And for the record, while I'm sorry you were offended by the cat in the tinfoil hat picture - I still like it and find it both funny and apropos.)

One last thought - the OP started out by saying that he/she knew this topic might be contentious. That seems to be okay - as long as there's no actually contention?

Ok, we are not really here to ridicule. I took the cat in the hat (LOL - no pun intended) as the joke it was meant to be. While I understand Akima's position as well, I do think maybe a little research may help those who do not understand the side I was coming from to maybe understand a bit more why we are lead to believe that this is the way that things work.

I truthfully wouldn't call it a conspiracy, but I pose the question to those who may not agree. Are humans really as saintly as we make ourselves out to be? I sure as hell am not.

Money is the root of all evil. Yes I believe this to be true. We all know that in this day and age money also makes the world go round. What we have is usually never enough and at some point in our lives we have all fallen prey to this saying. I for one have. Money seems to work the same way. If these large corporations make profit, then they tend to want more. Yes people are eating the food they are making, but if they didn't produce it in the first place people wouldn't want it.

Now, if people want something, it should be a company's moral obligation to provide said consumer with the desired product in the healthiest way possible. But conglomerates whose companies have branches in food, medicine, pharmaceuticals and the like want profits all around. So if they feed you something that makes you sick, you need to go back to them to get more of your highly addictive food and the medicine you need to make you "well" again. It really is a vicious cycle.

But again, this is just my view on the situation. I do not expect everyone to agree and some people may even be offended by this view, but as a discussion I would like to keep it civil and open minded.

Money is not the root of all evil. People are the root of all evil. If money didn't exist, evil still would. We know this because money DIDN'T, in fact, exist for most of human history. Are we seriously supposed to believe that people didn't do evil things before money came around?

Also, manufacturers of products (should, in an actually free world) have no obligation to make things "safe". People who use things have an obligation to not hurt other people with those things, or just in general for that matter. And that's it. To demand that people do things they don't want to - or not do things they do want to - when those things do not harm others, boils down to shoving a gun in their face and threatening to pull the trigger if they don't comply. This is a nakedly immoral way to behave.

And I do suppose that no one has an obligation to make things safe, but people's conscience should really lead them to do better by one another. It's also fair to say that people who make things have an obligation not to hurt others with said things, which in this case is food.

People who simply make things, aren't hurting anybody. Therefore they are doing nothing wrong. They have the same obligation to not hurt others as anyone else does. But again, their mere manufacturing of something hasn't hurt anyone. If they came to your house and forced you to consume their unhealthy product, then that IS hurting someone. But of course, the bigger issue there isn't the unhealthy product they forced on you. The big issue is the FORCE they used upon you.

So, having said that, If I want to jack up with heroin, that is my business and the drug manufacturer and dealer are not responsible for my choices and actions. And Hostess or Jack Daniels is not responsible for my choice and action to use their unhealthy products either.

Paleo people get ridiculed a lot. I get touchy about it sometimes. I generally don't expect to encounter that here. So my bad for reacting a little too strongly. However, I didn't just draw my opinions out of a hat so it's insulting to just be considered stupid/crazy or whatever.

Just to be a touch pedantic.....

Money is not the root of all evil...We know this because money DIDN'T, in fact, exist for most of human history. Are we seriously supposed to believe that people didn't do evil things before money came around?

Wrong. The actual quote (which is from the Bible) is "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil". Money itself is just a medium of exchange - and THAT has been around for as long as one human had something that another human wanted. Which is forever.

People are the root of all evil. If money didn't exist, evil still would.

Also wrong. The concept of evil depends on an ethical or moral code; without such a code, one can neither define 'good' nor 'evil'. One can easily postulate primitives who had no mores - in such a society, evil would not exist.

Also, manufacturers of products (should, in an actually free world) have no obligation to make things "safe". People who use things have an obligation to not hurt other people with those things, or just in general for that matter.

I detect some hypocrisy here.

- If I have an obligation to not hurt others with an item - shouldn't the person who sold me that item also have an obligation to not hurt ME with it?

- If that is the case, then shouldn't the person/company who MADE the item also have the same obligation to not harm the person they sold it to?

The biggest difference there is that cars, as a technology, are inherently dangerous, and the car manufacturers have spent millions, if not billions, of dollars on research and development to make it safer (seat belts, air bags, backup cameras, and so on and so forth). Now, is that necessarily based out of altruism? No, not really. It's kind of bad for the business of high-dollar products to sell one that's unnecessarily dangerous.

The difference lies in the fact that food should be inherently safe. The problem with the food companies is that they lose sight of this in their effort to make more money, to the point that they introduce questionable ingredients and implement questionable practices in an effort to get people to buy more and/or cut costs, in order to make more money. While it's fine to find ways to make the food cost less or implement more efficient ways to produce it, the food ingredients should be more thoroughly tested to ensure their safety, and the farming methods should prove to be sustainable.

"Should be inherently safe"? Who are you to decide that for me? What if a food is insanely delicious, but also insanely bad for a persons health to eat? Maybe they value the flavor over their health. That is their business to decide.

Further, what if I don't give a damn how thoroughly, or not, a food ingredient is tested? Again, you making all these decisions for others (that is, implying someone - most likely a government - should allow or disallow the products availability) is tantamount to shoving a gun in someones face and threatening to the pull the trigger if they don't comply. If they don't want to buy the product because they don't know what's in it, then they won't. If they don't give a damn, then it's not within your rights to force them not to. End of story.

In a true free market, consumers would also have the correct information to be able to make an informed decisions, and there would be enough competition for people to actually vote with their wallets and it impact the company in question.

While I don't think the people coming up with the chemicals and combinations and whatnot for the processed foods are thinking "hey, what can we do to cause health problems in people?" Rather, I think they think more about whether it achieves the desired flavor, the addiction effect that drives a person to crave more, and the "disappearing calories" texture that also drives people to eat more (think cheese puffs - start out big and fluffy, dissolve away into nothingness, and leave you without feeling full and satisfied, despite eating a ton of calories).

Combine that, though, with the typical pressures from marketing, accounting, and the other powers-that-be to make more money, sell more, cut more costs, etc., though, and you end up with a bunch of "good enough" data from studies that are too narrowly-focused to really provide the answer to "Is it safe?" (see also: trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils)

Are the food companies in bed with pharmaceutical companies? I'm not sure, though I know there's a large number of executives in various food industry companies who are also key players in the government groups that make the rules for said safety standards, which handles both food and pharmaceuticals. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some crossover. That's not to say that "everyone in the food industry is evil," but that executive and political roles do attract a certain type of person (at least in the US) that is known to not really care about the well-being of others (see also: the Dark Triad). In such authoritative positions, it only takes a couple of people who lack scruples to cause harm in the entire chain.

And it's not like there's not precedent. The tobacco industry actively hid the fact that they knew their product caused cancer and a whole host of other issues, even though they publicly denied it for years until they were finally sued into telling the truth. All the while, they were advertising their product as "the cool thing." So, while I agree that a company can't be wholly responsible for something detrimental happening, I don't think they're wholly blameless, either, particularly when they know that what they're doing will harm their consumers.

tl:dr version - While I don't agree with the "everyone is evil and out to get the poor consumer," neither do I think it's tin foil hattish to think that food companies are that naive to not think that the products they sell are in some way detrimental to the consumers.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter which companies are "in bed" with each other. People are (or should be, absent a government preventing them) allowed to transact on a voluntary basis. If you question the motives and values of a person, group, or business, then you can choose not to associate with them. They have not (in a free society) put a gun to your head and made you buy anything. It is government and government alone (which may indeed be bought by any given organization at any given time), that uses force or the threat of force to get what it wants. It is different only in scale from the organized gangs and mafias of the world.

Then your hypocrisy detector needs repair. The person who sold you the item, presumably, gave it to you under voluntary exchange. He never forced you to use it in any given way. Obviously, if he sells you a vitamin supplement, you take it and it turns out to be cyanide, then he defrauded you, which is just another form of force. But if he sells you a gun, and you shoot a paper target, he is not responsible for the damage you caused to the paper. Nor is he responsible if you blow your own head off - or someone else's - with it, instead. You bought a product, and you chose to use it, one way or the other. The fact that someone else owned that product prior to you, is irrelevant.

No, but generally, the manufacturer is responsible if the firearm itself blows up in your hand when otherwise handled and cared for properly.

"Should be inherently safe"? Who are you to decide that for me? What if a food is insanely delicious, but also insanely bad for a persons health to eat? Maybe they value the flavor over their health. That is their business to decide.

Further, what if I don't give a damn how thoroughly, or not, a food ingredient is tested? Again, you making all these decisions for others (that is, implying someone - most likely a government - should allow or disallow the products availability) is tantamount to shoving a gun in someones face and threatening to the pull the trigger if they don't comply. If they don't want to buy the product because they don't know what's in it, then they won't. If they don't give a damn, then it's not within your rights to force them not to. End of story.

They should be inherently safe in that they shouldn't include ingredients that are known to cause massive health issues. For the more obvious example, you should be able to trust that your butcher isn't selling you meat made from cows that where known to have Mad Cow Disease. Likewise, food companies should, at the very least, hold themselves to high enough ethical standards that they properly test the ingredients that go into their foods for both short and long term ramifications. Law doesn't have to factor into the equation, here (though if the society in which the company is selling their product feels it necessary, then that's within their rights, as well).

Likewise, food companies should be morally, even if they aren't legally, compelled to list their ingredients in a more recognizable manner, and not partake in shady labeling practices (both listing out the individual spices instead of just listing "spices," but also not doing things like splitting their ingredient list in such a way that consumers miss the additives, such as what one Almond Milk company does).

Again, I'm not saying they should be forced to do it, per se, but rather that they should be holding themselves to those higher standards, so that government doesn't have to step in and force the matter. If they've at least listed their ingredients honestly, then if you choose to ignore the more questionable ingredients (or the list altogether), then that is your choice. However, the consumer should have the means to make informed choices, and in my opinion, that means shouldn't require spending all day on the internet to dig up the necessary information on every single item.

The problem, of course, is that companies aren't compelled to hold that higher standard, because they're compelled to make as much money as they can, and often, the standards get eroded away. Honest labeling would mean decreased sales if the ingredient list includes something that is considered by the public to be unsafe and is recognizable by the consumers.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter which companies are "in bed" with each other. People are (or should be, absent a government preventing them) allowed to transact on a voluntary basis. If you question the motives and values of a person, group, or business, then you can choose not to associate with them. They have not (in a free society) put a gun to your head and made you buy anything. It is government and government alone (which may indeed be bought by any given organization at any given time), that uses force or the threat of force to get what it wants. It is different only in scale from the organized gangs and mafias of the world.

You said yourself that defrauding the consumer is the same as forcing them. General Mills owns Lara Bar, Kraft owns Green & Black's, Dean Foods owns Horizon Organic, Cogate owns both Tom's of Maine and Burt's Bees. Yet, you wouldn't know it just from looking at the packaging of these organic products, and in some cases, that information isn't even listed on the brand's website. That, in my opinion, is equivalent to defrauding on a moral/ethical level (and yes, I understand how branding works, I'm not saying that when Colgate bought Burt's Bees, they should have changed the branding to Colgate, I'm saying that they should have something like "a product of Colgate" or some other indication of the parent company on the label, somewhere).

Additionally, when every single brand that isn't a local mom and pop (and hell, even some that are) is owned by one of four or five larger companies, and when those companies operate in pretty much, if not exactly, the same way, you are being forced to buy their products if you aren't lucky enough to have access to a local, non-affiliated supplier of a given item, and when they own everything down to the apple cider vinegar, it's pretty much results in you either buying it from them or you starve (yes, it's possible to "simply go without" a given food product, but that becomes less and less feasible as that list gets longer), and the ability to voluntarily choose whether or not to enter a transaction with a given company also goes out the window.

As Uncle Ben said, in what is probably the most cliched quote of all time, "with great power comes great responsibility." Regardless of legal forces, when you're one of less than half a dozen companies that controls pretty much the entire food supply, you should hold yourself to higher moral/ethical/quality standards.

So yeah, we all have ideals about how others should behave. But in the end, you only have a right to your life and to your property. Not to others lives or their property.

I started to jump in with a comment - but then realized that Strychnine's comment (only excerpted here) already covered anything I had to add.

So I'll just say... I agree with Strychnine7.

And..... the above discussion sums up why corporations aren't held accountable for harming health or misleading customers. Because we don't think they should be held accountable (speaking for some of us). Anything goes when it's to earn a buck. The right to earn profits trumps the responsibility of providing safe products, that are adequately labelled and do what it's supposed to do.

I'm very much Libertarian minded. I don't think it's the job of government to protect us and micromanage our lives. BUT corporations that harm people or misrepresent their products should also not be protected by the governments that WE ELECT and support with our tax dollars.

Remember the melamine poisoning of infant formula in China and how China dealt with the people responsible? Well, that's what should happen over here too. Instead you and me are expendible and corporate profits are protected.

You misunderstand me. I think it's a damn shame that people don't pay attention. But they only don't pay attention because they assume that government is getting their back. Well, government does not, has not, and will not ever, get anyones back except their own (and their benefactors). In a free society, that is to say one where there was no FDA, independent companies would exist to keep an eye out on things. Think Consumer Reports for food manufacturers. And people wouldn't just assume that since something is on the shelf then it must be ok. Now if something is on the shelf, people think it must be ok otherwise government would have straight up outlawed it. Rarely is that the case.

As for governments regulating corporations... Well, that's a ridiculous notion. As I pointed out earlier, there are 12,000 lobbyists in Washington. You can bet that the politicians know where their bread is buttered.