Health and Eating and our Food Supply

The more I learn about food, our food supply, and our eating habits, the more amazed I am. We've really messed up our bodies, our health, and our food, in so many ways.

The most recent example of this is iodine deficiency. Iodine is blocked by soy flour (hello? this is in everything, including a lot of g-f stuff). We eat less iodine and iodide than we need, and a lot is blocked by other things. The foodie revolution, insisting on sea salt or kosher salt, has affected this, as well. But apparently a lot of folks have a lot less than they need, and instead of approaching it from a nutritional perspective, doctors approach it from a 'lets give it a pill' perspective.

I really, really wish there was more of a 'whole-body' approach. Even my GYN, who takes a natural approach, uses pills/capsules of 'natural' remedies and vitamins, instead of looking at the whole eating picture.

I do wonder if this is one of the reasons why I do better in summer when drinking the raw milk, though. Its fresher, and doesn't have supplemental things added to it. If I ever have kids, I think I'll heat it at home, do the low-slow pasteurization, and let them drink that.

But all our food comes through a pipeline. Even our water comes through pipes, pumped through miles of pipes, and how can THAT be better for us? The packaged salads have all kinds of bacteria... its just sad. I'm so tired of reading more stuff that scares me about our food supply, about more ways we are ingesting toxins. Everything is wrapped in plastic, or doused in chemicals. If its low-fat, the fats have been replaced with fillers.

Powdered milk (the stuff I grew up on) has been implicated in health issues. The lining of cans (since cans now have a nice plastic coating) releases BPA. Everything has pesticides. Nothing is actually ripe. We have monocultures of one crop, one type of mango, one type of banana...

All our food has crud in it. Its all highly processed, even the organic stuff.

And just trying to find things like organic beef liver, or organic chicken liver. *sigh*

Trying to figure out what seafood is sustainably harvested, what isn't going to kill our oceans.

And they are finding, more and more, that things like lard, suet, butter, are actually healthier for us than the other stuff, the substitutes. (granted, non-hydrogenated lard, suet, organic/grass-fed butter).

But we also have huge amounts of things. Its so hard to find stuff in reasonable quantities. Some things, like potatoes and onions, ok, buy in bulk. But why can't we get 'yogurt-size' cups of sour cream? I've thrown away more sour cream in my life because I only need three spoonfuls for a recipe.... this is when countries like France, who have their markets, make sense. You can buy enough creme fraiche for the recipe... you can buy cheese in the amount that you'll eat... you can buy stuff in the amount you need, that you'll use! Fruit, veg... and nothing has corn syrup in it. Its simpler, like food used to be.

Lets get our food supply simpler!