Non-Food In Our Food
I’m incredulous and pretty heartbroken at the moment. I don’t like to dwell in the negative, so I’ll end on a high note, I promise. But stand by for some bad news. I couldn’t believe what I just read.
“The average American ingests approximately fourteen pounds of chemicals per year in the form of food additives (such colorings, acritical flavorings, preservatives and emulsifiers), pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones and heavy metals.”
-"Radical Homemakers” by Shannon Hayes, 2010, pg. 79-80 (affiliate link)
I went hunting for the Greg Horn book she cited, but I didn’t want to pay for another book. The Google Machine spit out this study from the Ecologist by Dr. Mancini in 2012. Good news? He says it’s less than 14 lbs. Bad news? He says its 5 lbs.
That’s means, on average, we’re eating AT LEAST half a pound of non-food, in our “food,” every month…
No wonder we’re all so sick and medication-dependent…
Think about how much that is… What if we went through the drive-thru at least twice a month for our Quarter-Pounder Food Additive Meal. Or maybe we go weekly to be closer to the 14 pounds a year average? I don’t know what that looks like in your minds eye, but everything I conjure up makes my stomach flop.
Yes, Hi, I’d like a #3 with extra Red Dye 40, but hold the glyphosate, last week there was just too much.
These numbers are insane!
If we’re consuming 150 pounds of added sugar a year… should it surprise us that nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes? That means 1 out of every 10 of us might be paying $200-500 a month, just for diabetes medication.
We’re eating non-food, sprinkled with sugar so that we’re hooked and eat more of it, and it’s making us sick. We’re paying for this non-food with our health, wealth, and life. It’s taking years off our life, making those years more sickly and drug-dependent, and costing us all of that life energy-converted-to-dollars we’ve worked to save up, just to spend on meds. No wonder retirement isn’t something people generally plant for, it sounds impossibly miserable based on average stats!
This has to stop.
Bloomberg published a study that Americans spend, on average, $1200 a year on prescriptions. Cancer drugs? Those are about $10,000 a month. You read that correctly. A month.
Most Americans can’t afford a surprise $400 expense. And that was before COVID-19!
We literally cannot afford to keep doing this to ourselves.
The good news? WebMD says most cancer cases are related to “lifestyle choices.” As in, we literally have a choice. The CDC says about 5% of diabetes is Type 1 (when your pancreas doesn’t make insulin), meaning ~95% of diabetes cases develop over years before they are diagnosed as Type 2 after developing insulin resistance. We have a choice here too; “You can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes with simple, proven lifestyle changes such as losing weight if you’re overweight, eating healthier, and getting regular physical activity,” according to the CDC. All the things we know we should be doing…
I knew there was too much sugar in our food, and “food stuff” on the shelf being sold as if it were food. I’ve done a lot of sugar-in-our-food research. Sugar Coated on Netflix did a great job packaging a lot of salient points together; you should check it out!
I also knew that our cancer rates were high, but I didn’t know that we were #7 in the world. Leave it to WebMD to provide that gloom and doom stat. If we think about it, though, that stat resonates with a lot of us, personally. Everyone knows someone who has fought cancer. Odds are really good you’re related to that someone.
All of this should really drive home the point that we need to take back control of what we’re eating. Not only do we need to be eating at home, but we need to be growing our food at home. And if we’re crazy busy and don’t have time (all too common, completely understandable), then we need to source our food from someone we know. We need to sign up for the CSA Box (Community Support Agriculture food subscription program) with the local urban gardening group, farmer’s market group, or family that lives just outside of town. We need to “give up” a Saturday and buy in bulk from the farmer’s market a bunch of corn to freeze, tomatoes to can, and other produce you save to eat throughout the year.
You might feel like you don’t have time. But if you’ve read Your Money or Your Life (affiliate link), and have figured out how much you actually make an hour… and then think about how many hours medications would or do cost… maybe you’ll make some time. For example, I approximate that I actually make $13/hour, when reducing for commute, office wardrobe, taxes, etc. $1,200 a year on meds would be 93 hours of work, every year, working just to pay for meds. And that doesn’t include the cost of health insurance, the office visits, driving to/from appointments/pharmacy, etc… No, thanks.
Maybe instead of growing your own, you’ll prioritize buying organic at the store, and rinsing everything in a vinegar water solution (1 part vinegar to 10 parts water) when you get home, just in case, to clean up the convenient food available to you at your local store. Costs more on the front-end, but less is more.
Ultimately, we agree with Joel Salatin; you should know who grows your food if you don’t grow it yourself. You should be invited to see how its grown if someone else is growing your food—to ensure no slight of hand or gimmicks to hide unacceptable practices. You should have a personal relationship with your body’s fuel.
What if we decided now’s as good a time as any to do the food math, and see if maybe we do have the time and resources to grow some of our own food. You’d be surprised at what you could grow in your yard if you stopped mowing and planted food instead. Maybe start buying some seeds now, so you have them ready for next year? If you didn’t garden this year, I hope you do next year. In the meantime, I hope you support your local farmer’s markets, CSA programs, and other farm stand programs. If we get back to the basics, we’ll cut out a lot of that ‘extra’ we don’t need, or want, and be happier for it in the long-run.
These choices are yours. As an adult in this free country, you are able to grow your wealth and health by the choices you make. How will you spend your time? How will you spend your resources? You get to choose whether you have water or the soda to go with your meal. Whether you’ll reheat those leftovers from that awesome dinner you made, or go through the drive-thru ‘because it’s quick.’ Are your choices preventing illness, or are they limited to just treating illness? Are your choices growing your wealth and health? If the answer is no, those choices will cost you. That’s your choice. Just be aware of the costs rather than listening to all of the forces at play telling you how busy you are and that you need convenient options. We have a choice! Let’s make the best ones we can for ourselves, and for our friends and families!
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