Quite simply, we’ve lost our health-obsessed minds! We’ve become so sensitized to the scientifically-vague claims of every micro-nutrient that when we even faintly hear the nutrient mentioned, we’re instantly drawn to it like we’ve just discovered the Fountain of Youth.
Processed food manufacturers have figured out that all you have to do is add a hint-smidge-dash of any “hot-at-the-moment” nutrient to anything, to increase sales. It’s been proven that if there’s even a rumor that a nutrient is even visiting your hometown contained in any unhealthy food, sales of the unhealthy food increase.
In the 90’s, when fat became the enemy, we switched to sugar as the replacement. Now sugar is the enemy and it may be OK to eat fat. Protein is supposed to be great for muscle growth, strength, and fat loss, so we supplement with powders and eat chicken until we run in circles. But animal protein is implicated in many different cancers (just read the first 2 chapters of The China Study). Dairy is bad…wait, no, dairy is good (if it’s low fat or non-fat). Omega-3 is critical but in what combination with Omega-6.
Juice. In computer terms, OMG! It’s good if it’s dark, but it’s not good because it doesn’t contain the whole fruit and the fiber. So we have to add the fiber. But the kids hate pulp, so now we have pulp removed and fiber added. Or, juice is just the same as a sugared soft drink and is unnecessary to our health…and may even be bad for our health (due to excess sugar consumption). But, a glass “counts” as a serving of fruit in all the major commercial diet programs.
Now that science is able to isolate every vitamin, mineral, substrate (fat, protein, carbohydrate), and fiber component in food, remove it, test it, and analyze it…we see the word “may” show up in every study. It is making us crazy! We hear that blueberries may prevent prostate cancer, walnuts may prevent heart disease, and walnuts mixed with blueberries may irritate your stomach if you do the 5-day walnut/blueberry cleanse. What are we to do? Supplement.
Take mega-vitamins…but you can’t buy them off the shelf. You have to get “pharmaceutical grade” vitamins, because you’re going to keel over and die 19 minutes sooner than you would have because your vitamins weren’t of the quality you should have paid 300% more to buy.
On Twitter, every development, every bit/bite/gram of news for every nutrient is broadcast like the fountain of youth has been discovered. I actually think that these micro-ingredients now have agents…repping them and promoting them. Have you seen “fiber” recently? I want fiber’s agent. Fiber seems to have a contract with every food manufacturer now. What’s next, pork rinds with fiber?
And, at the peak of our insanity…we now are excited to purchase soft drinks that are marketed as ”real”…because they’re made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, as if the soft drink is now healthy. Added sugar is added sugar…period!
Let’s stop the insanity, get a real life, exercise and spend qualilty time with friends and family. And as far as food goes, there’s something magical about the stuff we ALL know is good for us. I gotta go with Michael Pollan on this one, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”.
General Healthy
