Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 It took years just to get consensus on the fact that trans fatty acids are dangerous to health, and even then, the FDA still refuses to ban them from the food supply, kow-towing to the interests of giant food corporations who insist they need hydrogenated oils to ensure longer shelf life for their food products (which guantees more profits).
There is currently no effort underway to ban known cancer-causing chemicals from the food supply, even when the science is very clear about the damage such chemicals are causing to the U.S. public. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Some industry observers insist that when food corporations bombard would-be, unsuspecting customers with sensual, pleasurable images or messages about cereals, fast foods, cookies, candies, chips, ice cream, and other junk foods, they may be to blame because, in a way, they're thwarting people's sense of personal responsibility and choice.
In fact, scientists affiliated with the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom released a study in the Journal of Neuroscience in May 2006, which supports this point of view. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 REPPED: The giant food corporations have one mission: selling more food and beverage products to consumers. Succeeding with that mission depends on keeping consumers in the dark on certain issues such as the presence cancer-causing chemicals found in popular food products.
Here are ten things the food corporations, whose products dominate grocery store shelves across the United States and other countries, absolutely do not want you to know.
1. The ingredients listed on the label aren't the only things in the food. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Selling mac nuts (or almost any other agricultural commodity, actually) to mega-business food corporations is a fast track to personal bankruptcy. Right now, in fact, when Hawaiian mac nut processors even offer to buy the nuts from local farmers, the dollar amount offered amounts to a net loss to the farmer. The small guys can only stay in business by selling direct to consumers.
That's why I say don't buy your mac nuts from a big, brand-name food company. Buy 'em directly from the people who grow them. My advice is the same for other specialty food items. |
| Support your local farmer, and keep the big food corporations out of the transaction.
The end of Hawaii's mac nut industry?
If something doesn't change in Hawaii soon, its local farmer mac nut industry could be all but wiped out in a matter of years. Perhaps in as few as two years, you may witness a devastation of the macadamia nut industry, to be replaced by factory farms, massive use of chemical pesticides, labor violations for the workers, and everything else that goes with corporate control of the food supply. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 If you're not sure what's genetically modified and what isn't, rest assured that most of the brand-name products made by the largest food corporations contain one or more genetically modified ingredients. The most common are corn and soybeans. So buy food and food products from small, local companies or "natural" food manufacturers. Visit your local food coop. Eat local!
3. Support legislative efforts to require the labeling of genetically modified food ingredients. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 In the beginning, food corporations didn't want to be required to list any ingredients at all. They claimed the ingredients were "proprietary knowledge" and that listing them would destroy their business by disclosing their secret manufacturing recipes. It's all nonsense, of course, since food companies primarily want to keep consumers ignorant of what's really in their products. That's why there is still no requirement to list various chemical contaminants, pesticides, heavy metals and other substances that have a direct and substantial impact on the health of consumers. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| All in all, are beleaguered food corporations worried about potential lawsuits? "You'd never get them to admit it. Certainly not to our audience," says London-based analyst Jason Streets, formerly with UBS Warburg. "But some corporations have set up internal committees to look at the issue of obesity, or they've been talking with the World Health Organization to learn what they can do about it."
Interestingly, some insiders also believe that legal actions or threats of them could eventually harm sales of sugary products. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 If the food corporations had their way, all ingredients would be considered "proprietary formulas" and not listed on the label at all.)
This bottled water issue brings to light the apparent deceptive practices of some of the largest suppliers of bottled water products. By avoiding the honest labeling of the source of their water while relying on snow-capped mountain imagery, these companies quietly mislead consumers into thinking their water products are from a pristine, natural source such as a mountain spring. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 And to make matters worse, powerful food corporations are constantly trying to water down the definition of "organic" to include the agricultural use of obscene substances such as raw human sewage. (Fortunately, that was not ultimately allowed under the "organic" label, but the food companies tried to sneak it in!)
The only way to truly know where your food comes from is to know your local farmers. When you know the people growing your food, and you can meet them face to face, then you know what you're getting. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 REPPED: Do you ever wonder just to what degree mainstream media (MSM) organizations are influenced by food corporations? On January 2, 2008, CNN Health posted a story that claims pizza, burgers, Canadian bacon and ice cream are diet-friendly and good for your waist line!
Did they mean it's good for watching your waist line grow to an ever-expanding size? No, they actually mean these foods are good for slimming your waist line!
The article was brought to my attention by a concerned NewsTarget reader. When I first saw it on CNN's website, I thought was a hoax. But it's no hoax. |
| The main "expert" quoted in the story (Bonnie Gluck) is a "dietician," and dieticians follow a very limited view of nutrition promoted by drug companies and food corporations. Dieticians are still taught nutritional information that was outdated ten years ago. (For example, they still do not distinguish the qualitative differences between raw foods and cooked foods, and they have no education about superfoods like microalgae.)
The story contained absolutely no recommendations about truly healthful foods except, perhaps, eggs. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| It's a replacement for the USDA's highly corrupt and manipulated Food Guide Pyramid, which is little more than a marketing document for the dairy industry and big food corporations. The Honest Food Guide is an independent, nutritionally-sound reference document that reveals exactly what to eat (and what to avoid) to maximize your health. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 At the top, there would be reform of the FDA, and we would create a true Department of Health that is actually interested in promoting health, and not just promoting the financial interests of politically powerful drug companies and food corporations.
We've got to sever the corrupt connection between government and industry, and create some honest regulatory agencies that are actually going to do something to protect the consumer. Today, we are far from that. In fact, it's nowhere in sight. |
Michele Simon
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 So, many food corporations, trade associations, and industry front groups are adopting an intermediary approach: admitting there's a problem but laying the blame elsewhere—with the individual. Call it the "personal responsibility" strategy. This line of reasoning goes like this: it's up to each individual to make "better" choices at supermarkets and restaurants. More importantly, it's each person's duty to make positive lifestyle changes, such as exercising more. |
| The narrative is familiar: food corporations are on your side, dear consumer; we care about you; we're looking out for you. We're providing you with many wonderful food and beverage choices, and we want to make sure that you'll continue to be able to enjoy them. Those bad guys—the people working to impose regulations on food sellers and file lawsuits against them—they think they know what is best for you, but they don't. We do, however; so believe us, not them.
Together we can beat back those big, bad food police and safeguard the American way of life! |
| For example, requiring fast-food companies to provide nutrition information on menus is not an infringement of personal freedoms, but rather a reasonable way to protect public health by ensuring that food corporations provide people with the information they need to make informed decisions about their products.
When they say: We are defending your rights. They assume: There is an absolute right to eat whatever we want.
Legally and morally, no one can claim an absolute right to eat whatever he or she wants. |
| CCF's "personal choice" dogma creates the impression that the freedom to eat as one pleases (a right assumed to be on par with the freedom to speak or worship) is being trampled upon by those advocating for regulatory oversight of food corporations. But that's simply not so. The U.S. Constitution does not protect an individual's right to a Big Mac, or any other food. Also, even individual freedoms that are expressly guaranteed by the Constitution (such as free speech) are not absolute and are always balanced against the greater interests of society. |
| Another curious thing about front groups like CCF is that food corporations can derive benefits from their slithery PR work without even paying for it. As Northeastern law professor Richard Daynard notes, the "smart folks" in the food business are happy to take advantage of the so-called free rider effect. They realize, explains Daynard, that "as long as CCF is doing it anyhow, why should a particular manufacturer pay for it, even if they like the service? The irony is that CCF is going to be funded by people who are behaving irrationally. |
Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.
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 As illustrated earlier, the highly processed pseudofoods laid out by giant food corporations have contributed enormously to the abysmal standards of health in this and other countries, which has in turn contributed enormously to the burgeoning pharmaceutical companies and medical industry. Indeed, on closer examination, they would appear to be feeding off of one another. Eat our bad food, get indigestion, go to the doctor, take our over-the-counter or prescription antacid, etc. All the while ignoring the original cause. |
Mike Adams
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 Unlike some nutritionists who say that obesity is just the fault of people for eating too much, I say it's just as much due to the sinister actions of the food corporations. These corporations knowingly put ingredients into their foods that defeat biological appetite control mechanisms, thereby programming consumers for repeat purchases and accelerating obesity. This harming of the appetite control mechanism in the human body results in more processed food sales, and that's what makes food companies money. They have every incentive to use ingredients that will induce people to overeat. |
Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.
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| Another marketing tactic involves food corporations developing sponsorships with leading nonprofit organizations by paying for the use of their logos in advertisements. For example, a popular ice cream sandwich company paid the American Diabetes Association to use its logo in ads for its artificially sweetened line of products to give the impression of endorsement by this health-oriented organization. This was done in spite of the fact that these dessert products contain high levels of total and saturated fats, which is a risky choice for diabetics who are prone to obesity and heart disease. |
| With the help of aggressive advertising by U.S. food corporations, overeating the wrong foods and subsequent malnourishment has become an established problem for other wealthier nations, and is now starting to grow rapidly among the middle class and wealthier segments of poorer nations as well.
In both rich and poor countries malnutrition has become an impediment to development. Hunger and obesity on an individual level, increases the risk for chronic and acute dzs-ease, reduces physical fitness and shortens lifespan. |
| Even a few mammoth food corporations have jumped on this bandwagon by creating health food divisions within their companies. This is not surprising, given the public's growing awareness and concern with what they consume.
Anyone can easily make the transition from eating large amounts of anti-nutrient foods by merely switching the brands of foods they regularly eat to natural food brands. This is the very least that anyone can do for themselves in terms of Eating for Health and is a cinch to do once you have become familiar with what to buy. |
Mike Adams
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| I believed that food corporations only used safe food ingredients, that personal care products were safe to use on your skin, and that diseases like cancer and diabetes were mysterious, complex diseases with no known cure. I also believed that organizations like the American Cancer Society were searching hard for a cure, and when they found it one day, they would give it away for free and rid the world of a terrible disease. All they needed was a little more money.
Perhaps these are some of the things you now believe, too. They are certainly what the industry wants us to believe. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Here are ten things the food corporations, whose products dominate grocery store shelves across the United States and other countries, absolutely do not want you to know.
1. The ingredients listed on the label aren't the only things in the food. Cancer-causing chemicals such as acrylamides may be formed in the food during high-heat processing, yet there's no requirement to list them on the label. Residues of solvents, pesticides and other chemicals may also be present, but also do not have to be listed. The National Uniformity for Food Act, currently being debated in the U.S. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 The bill is being pushed by large supermarket chains and food manufacturers, spearheaded by the powerful Grocery Manufacturers of America.
Big food corporations and the biotech industry understand that consumers are more and more concerned about food safety, genetic engineering, and chemical-intensive agriculture, and are reading labels more closely. They understand that pesticide and mercury residues and hazardous technologies such as genetic engineering and food irradiation will be rejected if there are truthful labels required on food products. Industry-sponsored H.R. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 As consumers in the Western world, we are being continually assured by food corporations, petrochemical companies, drug companies and even government regulatory bodies like the FDA, that all of these chemicals are perfectly safe. There are even allowable limits of many of these chemicals, which the EPA says are perfectly safe. Why should a consumer believe that he or she needs to read your book if all of these chemicals are advertised as being safe for us? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 I say there should be limits on how much influence the food industry has over this pyramid, because it has the fingerprints of big food corporations all over it. That's why the message is "Eat more of everything". The USDA does not have the courage to say "eat less" of anything. They won't even tell you, "Eat less sugar." Can you believe that?
What kind of food guide pyramid is that? It's the kind of pyramid that you get when there's a lot of payola going on, when there's a lot of under-the-table money being handed out. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 By the way, consumers who are waiting around for the giant food corporations to "do the right thing" on their own are going to be sadly disappointed. Corporations will only do the right thing after they are sufficiently convinced that doing so will be more profitable than simply ignoring the issue. Ethics has nothing to do with the decision, and people who suffer under the illusion that for-profit corporations take ethics into account in any way whatsoever are living in la-la land. In the real world, like here in the USA, corporations are willing to make money at any cost. |
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