We’ve written several posts about the craziness that is our current food system. That it continues unabated despite all the evidence it needs serious reform is just another clear sign that our government, the institution that’s supposed to protect us, has fallen prey to the big money of industrial oligarchs.
The mounting critical information about this particular strain of capitalism on steriods can come from surprising places. Places like the Women’s Hair Loss Council, which has produced a report entitled “Hair And Back Again.” It costs about $25, but it’s a real gem at identifying the man made enemies causing women to lose their hair.
The list of nefarious suspects is all too familiar.
There’s those sweeteners again, including refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and aspartame. From the report:
“Refined sugar’s number one drawback is that it increases and spikes insulin levels which in turn inhibits the release of growth hormones which causes not only hair loss, but severely decreased immunity.”
“If we had a nickel for every woman we’ve talked to who simply cut high fructose corn syrup out of her diet and subsequently grew her hair back, we’d be rich….
High Fructose Corn Syrup is produced in a way that contaminates it with mercury, and there are two ways in which this can happen. The first is the caustic soda used to produce high fructose corn syrup is often made in plants that rely on mercury in the process, thus contaminating the caustic soda with mercury before it is used to make the High Fructose Corn Syrup. Secondly, the Mercury Cell technology that is commonly used in the process of creating High Fructose Corn Syrup.
But now a third reason has come to our attention why cutting out any product with High Fructose Corn Syrup is such a powerful weapon in the fight against hair loss. Typically, foods that contain high fructose corn syrup also contain a number of other suspected substances that contribute to hair loss. Common substances found in foods that contain HFCS include sodium benzoate, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium acid phryphosphate, calcium propionate, glycerin, soy lecithen, and xanthan gum.”
Beezer here. Cutting out HFCS from your diet is almost impossible, it turns out. From the report again.
“Let’s take a moment to really come to an understanding of what it means to eliminate all high fructose corn syrup from the diet. This includes nearly every single product that is “mass manufactured” by giants such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nabisco, Kraft, and others. It includes nearly all sodas, all junk food, all grocery-store bought bakery goods, all Heinz ketchup, McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s hamburger buns, many types of ice cream, cereals, juice boxes, anything made by Kellogg’s, candy bars, pop tarts, Nutri Grain bars, many sauces, and even some soups…..
As recently as 1976, (consumers consumed each year) less than ten pounds. By the year 2000, it was over 60 pounds. Current estimates assert that in the year 2009, the average American consumed over 100 pounds of high fructose corn syrup. Just imagine how much mercury is in all that corn syrup.”
Beezer here. And as for aspartame, a product of chemical company Monsanto, there’s this:
“Aspartame is the “fake sugar” present in all diet sodas and “sugar free” products. It is, without a doubt, the most toxic substance on the market currently being sold to consumers. Over one million people in the US report suffering from seizures after ingesting it.
There are so many studies and so many findings on the wide reaching toxic effects of aspartame that it is an absolute tragedy it is still on the market….
A further problem with aspartame is that it converts to formaldehyde in the body, which can eventually lead to chronic formaldehyde poisoning, which can also cause hair loss.”
Beezer again. Monsanto, as per usual when examining our food system, comes in for special displeasure.
Monsanto is the inventor and producer of something called Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin, or rBST.
The study reports: “It is banned in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Canada. In America, however, it is certain that rBST has been used on the cows that made your milk/yogurt/cheese unless specifically otherwise stated on the milk carton…
The controversy over rBST goes back years. It was first developed by Monsanto through the use of a genetically engineered strain of E-Coli. Monsanto is a well known corporation that genetically engineers crops, animals, and hormones. Monsanto currently controls 90% of the corn and 80% of the soy grown in America, crops which are all grown with their genetically modified seeds.
In 1994 Monsanto developed rBST under the trade name Posilac. The hormone, which is injected directly into the dairy cow, prevents the death of mammary cells. However there were unintended consequences.
Injecting cows with rBST hormone increased the risk of the cow developing mastitis, or infection of the udder, by 25%. With an infected udder, the cows would pass puss through the milk into our glasses. The condition was also excruciatingly painful for the cow.
The FDA, which is currently run by former employees of Monsanto (including Michael Taylor, Margaret Miller and Suzan Senchen), has labeled rBST as safe. When a small group of farmers decided to produce hormone free milk and labeled their cartons as rBST free, Monsanto sued them for “false advertising.” Thankfully, farmers are still allowed to print on the carton the fact that their milk is free from added hormones, or “rBST Free” but it is always accompanied with an asterik * that says rBST is completely safe.
To this day rBST is still banned in Europe and abroad due to the fact that it causes cancer. However, a number of women have reported to us that they suspect it caused their hair loss, because they stopped drinking milk altogether, or switched to a milk made from cows not treated with rBST, their hair started growing back.”
In another part of the report, the authors come back around to our friend Monsanto and it genetically changed soy and corn seeds
“From this company comes just about all the corn and soy in the United States. And this corn and soy is genetically engineered to withstand showers of its pesticide Roundup, which kills every living thing it touches. Because the corn and soy is genetically modified not to die when contacted with Roundup (which is a concoction of over 4000 chemicals that it does not have to disclose) US farmers now dump in excess of 400 million pounds of Roundup onto the corn and soy crops each year.
What’s worse is that President Obama recently appointed a former Monsanto employee, Tom Vilsack as our agriculture secretary in the United States, and appointed former Monsanto employee Michael Taylor to the FDA.”
Beezer once again. So Monsanto is to our food, as Goldman Sachs is to our banking. Both have infiltrated their regulators at the highest possible level. It’s like the old Bill Cosby joke about having your tonsils taken out. “They are there to fight the germs that make you sick,” Cosby tells his child who is afraid of the surgery “They are coming out because they joined the other side.”
Not too surprisingly, the majority of women who join this organization change their diets. Almost 80% now eat only organic food.
Although the bad actors are well identified in the report, much of the report deals with the good things we can all eat to become healthier and stay that way. If you want all that good information, you’ll have to buy the report.
There is one nifty piece of information that’s worth sharing.
“When purchasing fruits and vegetables, notice the 4-digit code on its sticker. The first digit of the number tells whether a food is non-organic, genetically modified or organic. The rhyme goes: 4-is a bore (non-organic) 9 is fine (organic) 8-I hate (genetically modified foods). Be careful to pay attention to these labels, as large signs at many stores mislabel nearby foods as organic when they are actually pesticide laden or genetically modified.”
Now if we could only label bankers so easily.
