“Our industrial food system is rotten to the core. Heirloom arugula won’t save us. Here’s what will.” – Paul Roberts

Some excerpts I’ve saved from the excellent article, Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008. After all, why give Delicious.com all the juice?

• For all the benefits of a local diet, eating locally doesn’t always translate into more sustainability.
• Going meat – and dairyless – one day a week is more environmentally beneficial than eating locally every single day.
• A truly sustainable food system is inherently resilient – more capable of self-correction and self-revitalization than its industrial rival.
• A reintegrated model can require almost twice the labor hours of a conventional agribusiness one.

No matter what you’re eating, chances are it contains some or all of these ingredients:

Healthy foods hidden dangers.
(Credit: Daily Express)

• Additives
• Antibiotics
• Preservatives
• Monosodium glutamate
• High fructose corn syrup
• Artificial flavoring / natural flavoring

In fact, according to Uncle Sam, there are more than 3000 substances that are allowed go into our food, often referred to as the “Everything” Added to Food in the United States (EAFUS) database.

As usual, Wikipedia is nice enough to break things down for us. Here are the broad categories they have listed for food additives:

Acids

Food acids are added to make flavors “sharper”, and also act as preservatives and antioxidants. Common food acids include vinegar, citric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, fumaric acid, lactic acid.

With the latest news from JAMA that neither vitamin C or E reduce the risk of prostate or total cancer in men, everyone is now asking, ‘what good are they then’?

“vitamins E and C are important as part of our antioxidant defenses, even if we have not yet documented specific preventive effects.” – Dr. Weill

According to WebMD, vitamin C is great for fighting against:

• cardiovascular disease,
• eye disease,
• immune system deficiencies,
• prenatal health problems, and even
• skin wrinkling.

With vitamin E, early lab studies are promising, but studies have been disappointing. The only established benefits are for people who have an actual deficiency, something rare for most of us, unless you have certain diseases like cystic fibrosis or digestive problems, or you’re on a very low-fat diet.

Since I grabbed this “Will Code HTML For Food” image off the internet sometime ago, I can’t remember where it came from, but thanks to John’s Background Switcher, I see it every now and then on my desktop, and right now, it really hits home with a lot of folks.

Thanks to my wife Natalie, luckily I’m not in that dire a strait, but believe me, if it weren’t for her, I’d be a piece of wet toast out in the rain today.

So, to all you people that have a lock solid secure job, congratulations! For those that don’t, be as frugal as possible. Luckily, that’s something I actually am pretty good at.

Whether McDonald’s Moms speak for the Kroc family or not, no matter how you slice it McDonald’s, 500 calories = 500 calories, and with all their marketing prowess, they’ll never be able to change that.

Maybe that’s why Mrs. Kroc gave away so much of her money to needy organizations!

For some lunchtime reading though, I suggest Fast Food Nation for all the Mickey D lover’s out there. I read it a few years back and only just last month had my 1st McDonald’s meal since – a $1 chicken sandwich (which was actually well worth it IMO).