Deleterious dietary direction
We often get bad advice from the people we trust most
Everywhere you look these days, there’s advice on how to eat. TV commercials, magazines, emails, websites promote an endless litany of different diets: paleo, carnivore, low-GI, Atkins, Weight Watchers, golo, keto, vegetarian, vegan, and so many more. Friends and family frequently forward their favored fare. Vegans have no compunction about obnoxiously offering opinions on ominvorous or other options. Even the government gives Goebbels-worthy guidance on the grub you gobble.
NIH gave Tufts University millions in grants, and the school spent three years developing the “Food Compass”, which rates Cheerios and Lucky Charms as healthier than eggs and ground beef.
This system also rates American cheese (which is not cheese but mostly oil) as healthier than beef jerky, fast food fish sticks as healthier than steak, and school lunch pepperoni pizza as healthier than a roast beef sub sandwich.
The USDA’s embarrassingly unsound, upside down food pyramid, which was completely misguided (or just manipulated by various factions of the food industry) has been replaced by the USDA’s MyPlate. Unfortunately, MyPlate still follows much of the frivolous, fallacious, and fattening (yes, fattening) feedback as its forerunner.
For instance, MyPlate, like its predecessor, recommends selecting low-fat or fat-free dairy options. Did you know that farmers feed pigs skim milk to fatten them? Don’t believe me, look it up. MyPlate also continues the condemnation of saturated fat, despite the fact that saturated fats are not only healthy but necessary for good health (and better for high-heat cooking than other fats). It also recommends a regular intake of “oils” because “they are a major source of essential fatty acids and vitamin E” (despite the fact that most vegetable and seed oils are out of balance in omega fatty acids, are highly refined, and are known to cause inflammation).
Government goofiness notwithstanding, the one place you’d expect to get solid nutritional advice is your doctor. Unfortunately, most medicinal “masters” are misguided as well. Aside from generally still following the grotesque government guidance, they have fallen pray to the giant food conglomerates. This explains the recommendation of certain supplements to aid in nutrition and health, from birth, to childhood, and into adulthood. Aside from containing (much like so many over-the-counter vitamin and mineral supplements) isolated, non-bioidentical, lab-created vitamin and mineral analogues which have little (if any) benefit (if not detriment), these supplements have little actual nutritional value.
For mothers who do not wish to nurse (or, in the rare cases of being unable), doctors recommend formula which is, allegedly, intended to mimic mother’s milk (the perfect natural newborn nutrient-rich nourishment).
Note the ingredients in the above image from Enamel Infant Formula:
Nonfat milk - a fattening ingredient that lacks the healthy fat needed for the development of healthy cells and brains
Lactose - sugar
Vegetable Oil - what infant needs vegetable oil? Especially soy or sunflower? How is that “nutrition”?
Whey protein is a great source of protein, for those who participate in a rigorous strength and resistance training program
Then the requisite additives to make it appear that the infant is receiving necessary vitamins and minerals
Of course, the infant does not receive from this admixture any of the immune benefits of mother’s milk, nor many other nutrients that cannot be mimicked. But….doctor knows best, right?
In the next stage of life, if your child isn’t conforming to statistical averages, additional supplements are suggested, such as PediaSure, a commercial for which was somewhat of a driving factor in my writing this piece. The commercial claims that the child’s pediatrician was concerned about the child’s growth and suggested PediaSure to aid in catching up.
So, according to PediaSure, the key ingredients to a child’s growth are:
Water - well, no one can argue that we don’t all need water
Corn Maltodextrin - a highly-processed carbohydrate (basically, a very rapidly-absorbed sugar)
Vegetable Oil(s) - every kid should be drinking from a bottle of Mazola, right?
Sugar - but we repeat ourselves
Milk Protein Concentrate - not necessarily horrible, though likely casein rather than whey (or perhaps a mixture of the two). Whey is healthier, and some people who have milk allergies are actually reacting to casein.
Soy Protein - no one needs soy protein. Contrary to popular opinion, soy is not healthy (unless it is organic, and preferably fermented)
Again the requisite appearance of healthy vitamins and imerals
And let’s not forget to throw in “natural” and artificial flavors, “Monoglycerides,” Carrageenan, and cellulose.
Sounds like just what every growing child needs for good health, right?
Then, when you become an adult and are still unable to get the nutrition you need, why not try Ensure?
This ingredient list looks strikingly similar to the PediaSure, though it actually does appear to contain Mazola (corn oil). This is anything but nutritious. There is nothing healthy or nutritious about these chemical concoctions, and they are potential poisons.
The fact that doctors will recommend these products, or still follow USDA guidelines, demonize saturated fat, and see things like high cholesterol as a problem and not a symptom, reveals a tragic shortcoming of the medical industry: that of continuing education.
Having long ago been on the inside and seeing it firsthand, I know doctors have little time for continuing education. Unfortunately, what little education they tend to receive post-medical school comes from two places that do not generally have your health in mind: big pharma (topic for another piece) and large food conglomerates.
Food conglomerates are responsible for many of the studies that are undertaken and used as the basis for dietary direction. They often fund research, and they provide educational materials to assist doctors in keeping up with the latest findings. Do you really think eating eggs is as bad for you as smoking cigarettes? No. But having you eat real foods, products from animals raised the way God created them to be raised, or plant products grown the way God created them, cuts into the profits of the global giants, the ten major corporations that control much of the world’s “food,” as depicted here:
Is it any wonder they exert the influence they do over an industry that is (was originally) intended to look after your well-being? Is it really a surprise that they could be behind the information from which doctors receive their coaching on comestibles? Is it too far fetched to think this is the reason TIME magazine recently published an article about a dietician saying that highly processed foods may not be as bad for your health as you think?
Everyone has their weaknesses, and at times junk food or other processed foods may be enjoyable; but these are the products that should be limited in your diet. Real food, food raised and/or grown the way it was created and intended, like grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish, and non-gmo grains, fruits and vegetables that haven’t been heavily doused with dangerous pesticides and endocrine-disrupting herbicides like glyphosate, will always be the healthiest options. And doctors won’t usually be the people from whom you will receive the best dietary advice.
How unappetizing! {sigh} One of my major frustrations is how difficult it is to eat healthy. Forget cost, even if you ignore cost, it's absurdly hard to buy healthy food.
As your article points out... don't even get me started on the horrible "advice" from the "authorities".
Garbage in, garbage out, exactly like a computer program…did I just inadvertently analogize the Matrix???