The Insane State of the Food Industry

[Austin]

I was at Giant the other day in the health foods aisle hoping to find some coconut oil chips. Obviously, I didn't find any. I decided to look through some other foods during that time and what I found was completely ridiculous. I saw a brand of Fig Newtons, I believe by Newman's Own, no longer run by the late Paul Newman obviously. It had something like "organic rapeseed oil" in it. Or perhaps it was another vegetable oil. Nevertheless, "organic vegetable seed oil". Yay, I'm sure that's super healthy. Then I saw another brand of snack food. The name of the company who made it was called something like "Straight From Nature". The ingredients on the back had "Organic Corn Syrup" and "organic sunflower oil"... Umm, what? Just wow. How could that turn any health minded individual onto a product?

It seems like pretty much anything in a package these days has some type of vegetable or seed oil in it. And everyone at my job has a list of allergies or horrible acne. Part of my father's intestine just passed through his stomach wall (I forgot the name for this). I wonder when people are going to wake up and realize how terribly unhealthy modern packaged foods are. Is the USDA corrupt or just stupid?

 

[kiran]

It's called a hernia, I think.

 

[j.]

I wonder when people are going to wake up and realize how terribly unhealthy modern packaged foods are.

I think in a short time. Most of us know about Ray Peat thanks to the internet, so the internet is the main thing which is gonna fix this.

 

[Dean]

Well...The people that run the USDA and all the government regulatory agencies are the same people that run the Big Ag/Big Pharma/Processed food companies on a revolving belt of soft facism. The laws that dictate our food and drug supply are written by the lobbyists of the aforementioned companies that the legislators don't even bother to read because they are too busy stuffing their pockets with loads of money that the aforementioned lobbyists handed them. Dr. Peat, Gary Taubes and others are writing about how nutritional science has been entirely corrupted. Add all that up and it's not too hard to understand why we are where we are.

As to when people en masse are going to "realize" what's going on, I'm not real optimistic. People have to want to know the truth before exposing them to it can even be remotely constructive. Also relevant to consider is the tremedous capacity for self denial and delusion humanity is displaying in this day and age.

 

[chris]

The industry are more content calling something a "paradox" that doesn't fit with the mainstream ideas, than try determine whether they have got something wrong.

 

[John Eels]

The industry are more content calling something a "paradox" that doesn't fit with the mainstream ideas, than try determine whether they have got something wrong.

So true, LOL. It's bizarre. I see men in white coates scratching their head when they peruse unexpected results of a study: "It is a paradox!" [eggs don't raise cholesterol; SSRI's increase suicidal ideation; saturated fat doesn't clog arteries; add your own here_________]

 

[kiran]

Some people eat lots of sugar and don't get fat.

 

[John Eels]

Ethnographers visit Peat land. They find many tribe members to be in exceptional health and yet they consume several hundred grams sugar daily. Whhhhhhyyyyy? Chief Ray Peat is sharp and witty despite his old age, protégé Danny Roddy has gorgeous hair and libido like a bull and Cliff surfs seven days a week. I guess they must have great genes. Imagine if they didn't eat sugar how much healthier they might be

(another good one: Smoking is good for you. It lowers Serotonin. See how the researchers argue. Fascinating.)

 

[John Eels]

Smoking has beneficial effects on serum testosterone: Relation of age and smoking to serum levels of total testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate in aged men.

Results: Serum T did not decrease with age, and was significantly higher in smokers than for non-smokers. Serum DHEA decreased with age more sharply in non-smokers than for smokers.

 

[kiran]

(another good one: Smoking is good for you. It lowers Serotonin. See how the researchers argue. Fascinating.)

See them try desperately to spin it correctly.

The answer may now lie in producing drugs that stimulate serotonin production during the vital three weeks in which it takes the chemical pathways to recover after a smoker has stopped.

Anti-smoking campaigners said the research was confirmation that smoking did not help in one of its few remaining, claimed benefits: reducing anxiety.

Maureen Moore, Chief Executive of anti-smoking pressure group ASH Scotland, said: "Smokers believe that it relieves their stress but in fact this is a misconception. They are just relieving their nicotine addiction and not their stress."

The other reason people thought smoking relaxed them was that they would take deep breaths to get the smoke into their lungs, she said. "Breathing deeply is known to relieve stress, so it's not the smoke, but the breathing which helps."

 

[gretchen]

This is how it's been since the mid 80s-early 90s. The general feeling is, no one cares. In the last 15 years the public has been more interested in cramming in their 5 fruits and vegetables a day and moralizing about carbs, calories and exercise; they don't understand (and don't want to understand) the PUFA issue.

 

[chris]

So is smoking beneficial?

 

[kiran]

Peat actually mentioned somewhere that cigarettes are bad for you because they cause vasoconstriction, which is not so good for young people.