Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 What is a processed food? It's a food that is manufactured and typically sold in pretty packaging at a very high markup price over the cost of its basic ingredients. Breakfast cereal is a processed food. Most frozen foods are also processed foods. Dinner mixes, macaroni and cheese boxes, canned soups, lunch snack boxes, packaged meats, crackers, breads and many other grocery items are all processed foods.
So what's wrong with processed foods? First off, they are usually manufactured with heavily refined, processed ingredients such as white flour. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Maybe stupid people just tend to eat a lot of processed foods, or maybe processed food makes people stupid. Perhaps a whole cycle is set up: Stupid people start eating processed food, it makes them even more stupid, so they buy more processed food; then, they're on a downward spiral. Pretty soon, they're just an average American consumer, zoning out from reality and buying whatever products are advertised on television because they taste good.
I do know that most of the intelligent people I've ever met are very careful about what they expose themselves to in terms of their senses. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Halloween, my dear friends, is the big kick-off of a season of massive caloric intake where we gulp our way through Thanksgiving, Christmas and Near Year's, treated by an endless buffet of sugars, chemical additives, processed food and saturated fats. If processed food made people smart, America would be the land of sheer genius.
But, alas, it seems to have the opposite effect. |
Tom Bohager
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 Pottenger reported the underlying nutritional factor had to be a substance that was destroyed by the heat used in the cooking and pasteurization processes; the raw foods not exposed to this processing maintained this substance (enzymes), while the cooked and processed food did not. (See Francis Portenger, Jr, "The Effect of Heat-Processed Foods and Metabolized Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of Experimenral Animals," American Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery, vol. 32, no. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Breakfast cereal is a processed food. Most frozen foods are also processed foods. Dinner mixes, macaroni and cheese boxes, canned soups, lunch snack boxes, packaged meats, crackers, breads and many other grocery items are all processed foods.
So what's wrong with processed foods? First off, they are usually manufactured with heavily refined, processed ingredients such as white flour. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 Processed food" basically means any food that you can buy in a can, jar, packet, or bottle that has been produced in some kind of factory as part of a bulk manufacturing process. Most processed foods would quickly spoil if kept on a shelf for very long. In order to make sure that won't happen, raw food ingredients are processed at very high heats. This causes grains, fruits, and vegetables to lose most of their vitamins, minerals, and fiber, as well as other nutrients. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Halloween, my dear friends, is the big kick-off of a season of massive caloric intake where we gulp our way through Thanksgiving, Christmas and Near Year's, treated by an endless buffet of sugars, chemical additives, processed food and saturated fats. If processed food made people smart, America would be the land of sheer genius.
But, alas, it seems to have the opposite effect. |
Too Profitable to CureBrent Hoadley, Ph.D.
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| The FDA and the USDA are culpable drug agents when you consider they approved the additives for our processed food products. Red Dye #2 and transfatty acids are just two examples of lobbying efforts gone astray. The food police were left with egg on their faces.
Any processed food has been modified to the extent it has increased shelf life because of added preservatives (chemicals). |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 They're far healthier than mainstream consumers, healthier than processed food vegetarians and infinitely healthier than Atkins Diet followers. If you're looking for people who are genuinely healthy, go hang out with raw foods people! You won't find a happier, healthier bunch of people anywhere except perhaps in the mountains of Tibet.
We learned that high-vibration living (higher consciousness, compassion towards living things, spiritual awareness, etc.) goes hand-in-hand with following a raw foods diet. |
Michael Pollan
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 Burkitt, for example, believed it was the lack of fiber in the modern diet while McCarrison, a British army doctor, focused on refined carbohydrates while still others blamed meat eating and saturated fat or, in Price's case, the advent of processed food and industrially grown crops deficient in vitamins and minerals.
Not everyone, though, bought into the idea that chronic disease was a by-product of Western lifestyles and, in particular, that the industrialization of our food was taking a toll on our health. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Big Pharma and the FDA (with a little help from processed food manufacturers) have destroyed the health of this nation, and they are working hard on destroying its economy, too. It will take America three generations to recover from the damage done by this criminal-minded industry, and history will judge Congress harshly for its blatant unwillingness to put a stop to this system of modern medicine that has become the No. 1 threat to the American people.
No war, no terrorist action and no viral pandemic has even come close to the number of Americans killed by FDA-approved prescription drugs. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Sounds silly, but it's true: Most processed food gifts end up giving their recipients an increased risk of serious disease. So for those interested in actually giving people healthful gifts that enhance health and prevent disease, these Transition Nutrition gift baskets are a dream come true! Every single food item contained in these gift baskets contains numerous disease-fighting phytonutrients. The white mulberries, for example, which are found in the Bliss Mix product, contain powerful disease-fighting anthocyanins. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 To protect yourself from these dangerous processed food products, here are the action steps to take:
1) Check the ingredients of all processed meat products in your refrigerator and pantry. Throw out any products containing sodium nitrite or MSG (monosodium glutamate).
2) Inform your spouse, roomates or children of what you're doing and why you're doing it. Show them the sodium nitrite right on the label of the products as you throw them out. Let them know that the World Cancer Research Fund now recommends that ALL consumers avoiding eating processed meats for life! |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 This processed meat idea hit me one day as I was driving past a local Wal-Mart grocery store and thinking to myself, "I wonder if people would really eat processed food products if they knew what they contained?" On an impulse, I turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot and decided to enter the store and buy some processed meat products with the intention of photographing them. This caused a concern, since I would never be caught dead buying processed meat products, and certainly not in a Wal-Mart. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 And all the processed food you keep eating is devoid of real nutrition, which explains why you're still hungry even after eating an entire bag of cookies, chips, donuts or whatever.
Read my book Natural Appetite Suppressants for Safe, Effective Weight Loss to learn more about natural strategies that really work for reducing appetite and eliminating cravings, or you can start by consuming trace minerals and microalgae like spirulina, chlorella or blue-green algae.
Secondly, you've got to engage in regular exercise. Gee, you've heard that a million times already, right? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 But then American-made processed food products invaded their islands, edging out traditional foods like raw coconut, fresh fish, seaweed and taro. Today, South Pacific populations are suffering from widespread diabetes, depression, heart disease, learning disabilities, asthma and much more -- all thanks to the "invasion" of American foods, medicines and products.
America is the world's largest exporter of disease. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 So instead of eating cooked food, processed food or "instant" foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you drink delicious raw juices throughout the day. There's no deprivation, no fasting and no starvation. You can drink unlimited quantities of all the fresh, delicious juice you want!
This provides every nutritional element needed for human consumption, including plenty of protein. (Raw vegetables are loaded with protein. It's only when you cook them that the protein is destroyed. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 The answer, of course, is because these associations earn money by licensing their logos and recommendations to processed food manufacturers. Anything for a buck, it seems.
This kind of cowardly approach to health is prevalent across conventional medicine, and it usually involves conflicts of interest with the big corporations funding many of today's most prominent disease organizations. The American Diabetes Association, for example, accepted millions of dollars from soft drink companies and candy manufacturers. |
Andreas Moritz
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 Around 60 percent of the processed food products found in supermarkets—from hamburgers to ice cream—may contain ingredients that have been genetically tampered with.
The planet is not only a home for human beings. The sun also has to support the growth of all the other species, including plants, animals, insects, and especially microbes, without which life here would not be possible. The mathematical complexity that stands behind a system of organization so infinitely diverse and intricate as planetary life cannot be fathomed, even by a trillion supercomputers. |
Dr. Steve Blake
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 Much of the sodium consumed is hidden in processed food.
Chloride
Chlorine (chemical symbol CI) is a poisonous, greenish-yellow gas in the halogen family of elements. Chlorine is used to disinfect water and is used as bleach. Chlorine combines easily with sodium, hydrogen, and many other elements.
When combined with sodium or hydrogen, chlorine forms a stable ion called chloride (C7~). The chloride ion has a single negative charge. Table salt is sodium chloride.
Chloride is an essential nutrient. Chloride is the principal anion (negatively charged ion) in the extracellular fluid. |
| Hair loss.
14. processed food has:
(a) Less potassium and more sodium.
(b) Less sodium and more potassium.
(c) More potassium and less chloride.
(d) Less sodium and chloride.
15. During peak growth years, the amount of extra calcium retained each day
(a) 100 mg.
(b) 200 mg.
(c) 300 mg.
(d) 400 mg.
16. Bones are dissolved by:
(a) Magnesium.
(b) Osteoclasts.
(c) Osteoblasts.
(d) Osteoporosis.
17. Calcium ions in muscle cells can:
(a) Stimulate muscle contraction.
(b) Release blood sugar from storage.
(c) Enter through the calcium channel.
(d) All of the above.
18. |
| Unhealthy sources: processed food often contains too much sodium and chloride. Forms in the body: bound to sodium as salt or to hydrogen as hydrochloric acid.
Main functions: maintains the cell membrane potential, is needed for energy production, and is used as an acid buffer. Adequate Intake: 4.7 grams daily for adults.
Toxicity: not found with potassium in food. Toxicity from supplement overdose is possible.
Maximum potassium potency per tablet has been set at 99 mg for supplements. Deficiency is from excessive losses rather than dietary lack. |
| Unhealthy sources: processed food often contains too much sodium and too little potassium.
Forms in the body: free potassium ion in cells and in the enzyme pyruvate kinase. Summary for Calcium
Main functions: bones and teeth, muscle contraction, and blood clotting. Adequate Intake: for adults and adolescents, 1000 to 1300 mg per day. Toxicity is rare.
Tolerable upper intake level is set at 2500 mg for ages one and above. Deficiency can cause stunted growth in children and osteoporosis in adults. Sources: dairy products, almonds, tofu, sesame seeds, vegetables, and beans. |
| What percentage of their salt intake do Americans get from processed food?
(a) 10 percent.
(b) 25 percent.
(c) 50 percent.
(d) 75 percent.
4. Sodium deficiency is seen with:
(a) Excessive sweating.
(b) Excessive salt intake.
(c) Lack of sodium in the diet.
(d) Excessive potassium in the diet.
5. The tolerable upper intake level for sodium intake for men is 3.8 grams. How much sodium does an average American man eat?
(a) Three grams.
(b) Six grams.
(c) Ten grams.
(d) Twelve grams.
6. Dietary lack of potassium can cause:
(a) Sodium deficiency.
(b) Chloride deficiency. |
Michael Pollan
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| You also won't find any elaborately processed food products, any packages with long lists of unpronounceable ingredients or dubious health claims, nothing microwav-able, and, perhaps best of all, no old food from far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of their taste and nutritional quality—precisely the kind your great grandmother, or even your Neolithic ancestors, would easily have recognized as food.
Indeed, the surest way to escape the Western diet is simply to depart the realms it rules: the supermarket, the convenience store, and the fast-food outlet. |
Andreas Moritz
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| Read labels. If a processed food contains more than two to three separate items on it, it is likely to be of no use for your body. Ideally, eat only foods produced by nature, such as fruits, fresh salads, cooked vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, etc. With the exception of stevia, xylitol and D-mannose, some honey, etc., strictly avoid sugar and starchy foods such as pasta and potatoes. Much worse than sugar are artificial sweeteners and products that contain them; you should avoid these at any cost. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| A heart association recommends foods that damage your heart
A solid understanding of nutrition is so rare today that even a well-known heart association continues to endorse processed food products that contain hydrogenated oils. Think about this for a minute: these are foods that contain trans fatty acids, and a heart association is still telling people it's fine to eat these foods. Trans fats are poison to the cardiovascular system and the heart. Why would any health association advise anyone to eat foods containing trans fatty acids? |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 In the United States and the Western world in general, the reduction in iodine consumption may be because more people are avoiding dairy, seafood, processed food, and iodized salt, all food substances high in iodine. Vegetarians, depending on the strictness of their practice, are largely deficient in iodine. Symptoms of iodine deficiency include mental fatigue, coordination problems, and stunted growth in children as well as goiter.
The Thyroid Connection
Low iodine levels contribute greatly to hypothyroidism (low thyroid hormones). |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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| Several past cluster outbreaks of autoimmune disease still haunt scientists because of the rapid and insidious way in which thousands of individuals were struck ill with autoimmune reactions seemingly overnight, not from contact with unseen chemicals but from impurities in the processed food products, drugs, and supplements they consumed.
In May 1981, for instance, food product salesmen in Spain sold a rapeseed oil to stores that, unbeknownst to them, contained trace ingredients derived from an oil diverted from industrial use. |
Michael Pollan
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| Nutritionism, which arose to help us better deal with the problems of the Western diet, has largely been co-opted by it: used by the industry to sell more nutritionally "enhanced" processed food and to undermine further the authority of traditional food cultures that stand in the way of fast food. Industry greatly amplifies the claims of nutritional science through its advertising and, through its sponsorship of self-serving nutritional research, corrupts it. |
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