The Food industry wants you confused
It's a matter of life or death, literally. The leading two causes of death in the US is heart disease and cancer. The science tells us these diseases can be prevented and even reversed by our diet. Unfortunately, the food industry has other ideas for you. Marketing is a powerful tool and I'll likely prove it in this first paragraph. Only those that can put their strong bias aside for moment will be able to read on. This article just presents the evidence so keep in mind that science doesn't care what your opinion is.
The corporate food industry is now regulated largely by themselves. It used to be that special interests would lobby politicians for favorable laws and regulations but nowadays they just cut the middleman out and install a corporate food representative at the head of all government agencies. It's now a revolving door between the politician and the corporation. It makes sense how we got here because, well, its big money. Regulations are often, if not always, written to the benefit of corporations and at the expense of health and nutrition. When regulations are inadequate, the corporate food industry largely works on an honor system — but when health and nutrition are mixed with profit, honor, is as rare as hen's teeth. Case in point, Tom Vilsack, current US secretary of agriculture is also an advocate of pink slime on behalf of the beef industry to maintain their profits over the science and health of all Americans. Rarely has their ever been a true evidence based advocate of citizens health over corporate food industry profits.
“A well-used approach for alcohol, tobacco, and, more recently, food-related corporate interests is to shift the focus away from health. This involves reframing a fat or soft drinks tax as an issue of consumer rights and a debate over the role of the state in ‘nannying’ or restricting people’s choices.” Dr. Michael Greger.
VIDEO [The Food Industry Wants the Public Confused About Nutrition.]
It's no surprise that the food industry wants you to be confused about what's healthy. Even the nutrition facts on food labels are confusing, because the serving size is not necessarily the same as what you should be eating. The same applies to the serving size on the back of the package: three crackers have less fat than ten. While this difference in serving size isn't a big deal, it does mean that you should pay attention to this information and especially what is missing or changed. Did you know that there were over 60 difference names for sugar? That's just the tip of the iceberg in how companies try to bypass regulations and deceive consumers.
Corporate interests want you to think that their products are healthy, but that isn't true. Food corporations spend over $30 billion on advertising and over $50 billion on in-store marketing each year. Companies pay supermarkets to promote their products in secret deals using incentivized contracts. They also use health experts to argue that sugary drinks and soda are good for you, but these experts are paid to deliver misinformation. They are quoted in published articles and appear on live TV spreading misinformation that feed your bias but none of it is based on truth. Truth and evidence is based in reputable peer reviewed science. There are thousands of studies published in the NIH and other reputable institutions that prove what is healthy and what is not but few of us can read scientific literature. That's why nutrition experts like Dr. Greger, Dr. Neil Bernard and more are so essential - to read the complicated science on our behalf and give us the simple scientifically proven facts. PROOF of what is good for you and what is NOT.
The first and hardest step to being healthy is putting your bias aside. It is a critical step into the journey of understanding what you put in your body and what the consequences are. There's a lot of existing science to learn and even more amazing science yet to be uncovered about what food is best for our bodies. If your bias is too strong and you rely on the corporate food industry's advice, then you are on a statistically unhealthy path to a likely un-ceremonial short end. To be healthy and live our lives to the fullest, we need to continue learning about individual nutrients, while focusing on eating a balanced whole food plant based diet.
References
67 hidden names for sugar, UCSF: https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/hidden-in-plain-sight/#.Yewgif7MJPY
Food industry wants you confused, Dr. Greger: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-food-industry-wants-the-public-confused-about-nutrition/