Because largely
we are not eating the kind of foods natural for the human species to eat. As a
species, we have changed our diet on a worldwide scale, over the 10,000 years
since the beginning of agriculture. And in the last 150 years the changes to
our diet have been introduced at an exponential rate.
.
Natural
Selection in our case may not have been good for us because unlike any other
species we have the ability to change what would be a natural diet for our species to eat, to one that
is not. We selected in favor of high energy foods, more sweet, starchy, oily or
fat, and for larger yields of crops without selecting for more healthy
nutrition at the same time. This kind of market biased selection inadvertently
has reduced the valuable phytonutrients, the beneficial antioxidant qualities
plants once contained, and the medicinal ingredients once provided in our diet
that could make us more resistant to biological pathogens in our environment.
.
In addition
we have fed our domestic animals antibiotics, hormones and put them into feed
lots, sometimes confined where they cannot exercise, and out of the sun. We
have genetically modified corn, wheat and soybeans, in the past 70 years, and
on top of this, these GMO foods are ingredients in many of the processed foods
we buy in the stores. We feed these GMO products to chickens, pigs and cattle.
We feed them artificial substances like oreo cookies,* surplus foods, animal
proteins, and don’t understand why animals are unhealthy and that they are also
not healthy for us to eat.
.
Interestingly
corn, wheat, soy and dairy products are used as supplemental elements in
hundreds of other processed foods, since they have been made more abundant by
selecting for higher yields. Many of these same foods are genetically modified.
Read the labels of your favorite salad dressing. It is hard
to find even one without one or more of the above four foods in it. (Yum.)
Without GMO Free on the label you don’t know what is in your food, disguised so
that it tastes delicious.
.
There are
strong indications that genetic modifications are not processed well by the
human intestine, which weakens or causes havoc in the process of digestion. It
is said that 90% of our immune system occurs in the intestines. Immune systems
for many people have gone awry, and indirectly cause auto-immune diseases,
which take years to identify. To make matters worse doctors often treat
symptoms rather than trying to rebuild the health of the immune system by
identifying the causes. Check it out on the internet. There are hundreds of
autoimmune conditions or diseases, some of them deadly.
.
There are
also all these many pathogens and toxic chemicals in our environment, that we
are exposed to each day, and which get into our diet as well.
.
But in
spite of this, I am very hopeful about our future, because I have read several
books in the past few weeks that offer cutting edge research, both about
health, and about the beneficial nutrients in our diets. I believe this will
enable people to inform themselves and to have an impact upon the market place.
With this kind of information we can control what we eat, and can improve the
health over the coming years.
.
(*As a reporter, In
2001 I visited a model farm that fed dairy cattle ground up oreo cookies –a
certain percentage of their diet, approved by the FDA.)
© by Ruth Zachary
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