If you live and eat in the US, you and your family are part of the experiment. No sign-up was necessary, as your free pass is one of the many benefits of life here in the land of the free. In fact, we pay for the privilege of becoming lab-rats, first for the experimental food and then for the extortion-priced healthcare. The results of the experiment are in full view everywhere we go whether we see them in the shoppers at the local grocery, at work, or in the mirror.
People often have trouble connecting the conditions they see with the experiment they've been part of, but the link remains. Strangely enough, lung tumors don't show up on x-rays in the shape of a Marlboro logo. Thunder thighs and oversized guts don't often have "Coca-Cola" logos on them either. But, given the right information, most reasonable people can make the link.
Experiment #1: Plastics
No matter what you eat, if you bought it, chances are it's packaged in plastic. Even if it's in a tin or aluminum can, it's packaged in plastic (modern cans all use plastic lining material). Long thought to be wonderfully "inert", we've since learned that this isn't the case.
The only difference is that the top one was exposed at birth to just one part per billion of an endocrine-disrupting chemical."
The most widely known contaminant is BPA (bisphenol-a), which gained widespread recognition as one of the components of polycarbonate water bottles. There's plenty of reason for concern here. BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning that your body has receptors which capture it and react to it at extremely low levels, as our body does with hormones we produce ourselves. In fact, you don't even need to be directly exposed to any BPA at all in order to experience the effects it's been linked to (obesity, autism, diabetes, etc). It has trans-generational effects lasting as long as three generations.
Lucky me, I've got this stuff in my teeth, as does most anyone with composite fillings. Are mercury amalgam fillings any better? Yet another reason not to eat the concentrated sugars and starches of the modern industrial diet, which are what typically cause cavities.
BPA, as it turns out, is just the tip of the iceberg. One study tested a wide variety of "food safe" plastics, discovering that 95% of them were leaching compounds also thought to be endocrine disruptors, but which are less well known. This includes plastics and can-liners which are now being touted as "BPA free".
It also turns out that phthalates -- chemicals often used to soften plastics used in soda bottles -- are directly linked with insulin resistance and the development of diabetes. Drink pop from a can and a bottle (one in each hand, of course), and you're likely participating in all 3 of the experiments I've listed here today. What's not to like about going blind and having your digits and limbs amputated, while going bankrupt for the privilege?
Yet another reason to grow your own, or at the very least avoid packaged and processed foods. Go for the glass jars or bottles when you can.
Experiment #2: Pesticides
Back in 1962, Rachel Carson published her now famous book, "Silent Spring". This woke a lot of us lab-rats up to one of the experiments they'd been subjected to, resulting in a ban on DDT in 1972. Unfortunately for us, this pesticide is quite long lived, and still remains the most common contaminant found in the mud of many lakes and streams. It's still used in countries like China (but, hey, what isn't?) where we get a lot of our food here in the US. (hint: avoid anything made with apple juice concentrate that's not explicitly US sourced)
A Washington State University researcher recently discovered that DDT also has trans generational effects, just like BPA. It makes people fat, though not from direct exposure. The effects are noted primarily in those whose great-grandparents were exposed to it. They're apparently even greater than the effects of the above noted BPA.
As I noted earlier, "Roundup" -- which is sprayed on the vast majority of all corn and soy in the US, among other crops, is now being implicated in the dramatic rise in autism. But you don't eat corn and soy, you say? Au contraire!
I've railed on enough already about my favorite pesticide -- Atrazine. Suffice to say that I've met a lot of breast cancer patients here in the corn belt.
Experiment #3: High Fructose Corn Syrup
Judging by the carts piled high with suitcases and 2-liter bottles of pop at my local grocery store, it seems to be a hot commodity. Judging by the physique of the people pushing (or, oftentimes, riding on) these carts, that may not be such a good thing. Yes, like most industrially produced food, pop is cheap. Aside from the benzene, BPA, mercury, and phthalates it contains, it has yet another problem. The high-fructose corn syrup used to sweeten pop (and ketchup, cookies, and a whole host of other foods from companies you should avoid) triggers insulin resistance.
Michael Pollan noted in one of is books, if you've ever seen something advertised, chances are you shouldn't be eating it. That's just a start, but I'd say that's excellent advice!
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