I just wanted to touch base quickly. I have (partly) weaned myself off obsessing over the world’s problems, which continue to unfold without my overweening supervision.
I have (gradually) been paying more attention to my here-and-now life. I’ve also been paying more attention to my diet. (I’ve now lost about half of the weight I’d like to lose.)
Dr. Robert Lustig’s book Metabolical has been a huge eye-opener for me. Lustig makes the argument that most refined foods are closer to poison than they are to food.
He argues that the burgeoning epidemic of obesity we’ve seen over the past 40 years is not caused by “gluttony and sloth” but rather by the toxic diet of North Americans. Furthermore, he argues that a great many of those of normal weight also have insulin/glucose systems that are way out of whack, setting up even apparently healthy Americans for diabetes, heart attacks, hypertension, stroke or cancer in the future.
Lustig argues that our current focus on bacteria and viruses is misplaced, that chronic diseases caused by a screwed-up metabolism are killing millions more Americans ever year, and is why life expectancy in the United States has been falling for four years in a row.
Lustig traces the start of the decline to the lousy science of Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys, who published Seven Countries back in 1980. Keys argued that saturated fat in the diet was a major predictor of heart disease, even though a more careful analysis of the data suggested that sugar was the more likely culprit. (Though Italy and Japan both had very low rates of heart disease, and a low intake of saturated fats, both countries also had very low levels of sugar intake.)
The sugar lobby seized on Key’s findings and spent millions of dollars in a campaign to demonize saturated fat, thereby letting sugar off the hook.
Hundreds of refined foods had the saturated fat removed, which made them taste absolutely awful. The food industry replaced those fats with a mixture of high-fructose corn syrup and gelatine to make them taste better.
Fructose is not easy for the body to digest. Unlike glucose, which every cell in the body can use, fructose most be metabolized in the liver. Whenever there’s an excess of fructose, it is converted to fat and stored in the liver, which damages both the liver and the body’s insulin balance. Fructose also interferes with turning off the body’s hunger hormone ghrelin, and interferes with the hormones which create a feeling of satiety after eating.
The animal fats in foods were replaced with oilseed oils - corn, soya, and canola - which are all omega 6 oils. This, in turn, upset the normal balance between omega 3 and omega 6 fats in the body, resulting in multiple health problems associated with inflammation.
To have refined foods that would store easily, most of the fiber was removed. For grains, this also required removing the germ of the grain - along with most of the nutrients in the grain.
To have fats that wouldn’t go rancid, the cis bond in fats and oils was converted to a trans bond by the application of high heat. Such trans-fats were immune to spoilage because bacteria couldn’t digest them. Unfortunately, neither could our human cells, so trans-fats would collect as sludge in the blood-stream. (Though trans-fats have now largely been removed from most foods, the process took about ten years longer than it should have.)
The food industry also recognized that four foods are somewhat addictive: caffeine, sugar, salt and fat. They created a vast array of snacks and fast food, and encouraged the proliferation of colas, juices and sports drinks. Which further damaged the health of America - and, increasingly, the whole world.
Lustig’s prescription is straightforward: feed the gut, and protect the liver. You feed the gut by eating whole foods that are full of fiber, and protect the liver by avoiding added sugar. Avoiding all super-refined foods is essential: “It is comes with a label, don’t eat it!” Eat veggies, fruit, beans, nuts, and seafood is Lustig’s basic advice.
What strikes me after reading Lustig’s book, is that the damage that the Agri-Biz Industrial Complex has done to the health of America, is very reminiscent of the toxic effects of both the Pharma-Healthcare Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Complex.
Pretty much all of the major religions have identified greed as a vice and a selfish moral failing. We have been told for a couple of hundred years now that capitalism somehow transforms the sin of greed to make it an engine of prosperity and human betterment.
I would suggest that, while greed does create an incentive to innovate, take risks, and work hard, it also creates a great incentive to get rich through one or other form of corruption and/or malfeasance.
The needs of the Military Industrial Complex are served by endless wars.
The needs of the Pharma-Healthcare Industrial Complex are served by having tens of millions of chronically sick Americans.
The needs of the Agri-Biz Industrial Complex are served by producing vast amounts of convenient but toxic and addictive foodstuffs. They get rich poisoning us.
I do not know how to replace capitalism in a way that creates incentives while avoiding endemic corruption. I do suspect the not-too-distant future will bring a serious enough economic collapse that the opportunity will exist to imagine and implement an economic system more just - and less toxic - than the one we have now.
PS: Here’s a good short video from Dr. Lustig.
If you still not sure ultra-processed food is bad for you, have a look at this: