Three Killers: Fat, Sugar & Salt                       

One often hears the phrase, “The killers among us’ which really depicts murderous psychopaths walking or living next to us but this article deals entirely with the ‘the killers within us’. 

Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what was eaten in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). Americans (and this concept goes for other nations in the Western World) ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our tables. It mainly comes from processed food. As a result, in the United States, one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It shouldn‘t come as a great surprise that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes or that the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales. While they are raking in that kind of money, the total economic cost of this health crisis in the US is approaching $300 billion a year. This can be attributed to those three killers and those who support those three killers as they ravage the health and wellbeing of everyone who ingests these items in excess.

 

Where does our drive for pleasure come from?

The ‘pleasure center’ in our brains is the general term used for certain regions in our brains. Pleasure consists of multiple brain processes including liking, wanting and learning served by distinct yet partially overlapping brain networks. The surface of our tongues has 10,000 taste buds that recognize sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness. These buds go wild when they are hit with chocolates, potato chips and vinegar on our fish and chips. Of course, our tongue instantly sends messages to our pleasure centers which subliminally screams, “MORE!”

                 

What damage do these killers do to our bodies?

FAT 

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, high-fat diets are the second leading cause of preventable death among Americans. Annually 300,000 individuals in the United States die due to poor diets high in fat which invariably leads to obesity that will create a large number of health concerns. High-fat foods include sweets, fried foods, butter, red meats, whole milk products, poultry, egg yolks and seafood. They also include such items as potato chips, pretzels etc.

The major cause of these deaths as a direct result of too much fat in our bodies is cardiovascular disease—clogging of the arteries.  In 1999, when I had my original heart attack, it was discovered that of the four major arteries feeding my heart, the first one was clogged, 40%, the second one, 90%, the third one, 90% and the fourth one 99%. The surgeons took the major veins from my legs and used them as replacements of the latter three diseased arteries. However, by then, it was too late to really repair my heart since the damage to my heart was too severe. Subsequently, just as the status of my heart functioning was before I had the open heart surgery, only 27% of my heart still functions which means no more mountain climbing. When I climbed up the deadly Matterhorn in Switzerland when I was 42 years of age in 1975, I said to one of my fellow climbers, “I am closer to God than I ever was before.” Now when I climb a flight of stairs, I am closer to God than I have ever been before. 

Diabetes is directly linked to high-fat diets and obesity. The Journal of the American Medical Association also says that 250,000 Americans will die each year as the result of diabetes. Overwhelming food intake and obesity make it more difficult for your body to process insulin, which is used in metabolizing blood sugar. Diabetes leads to high blood pressure, which can lead to a variety of health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, renal failure and conditions of the feet.

Do I still eat fatty foods? Of course I do. How can I avoid them? Almost all processed food has some form of fat in them. These man-made, processed fats are especially common in commercial baked goods, such as cookies and crackers, along with potato chips and microwave popcorn.

Our bodies need some fat for health, but junk food provides primarily fats that harm our health. Foods like hamburgers, pizza, ice cream potato chips and fish and chips (Mmmm, they taste so good) contain large amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol, which in excess may put us at risk for heart disease. Trans fats can also raise the risks of having a heart attack. 

Cheese is a real killer if taken in excess. Processed cheese, cheese slices, prepared cheese, cheese singles, or cheese as part of a food product is made from normal cheese and sometimes other unfermented dairy ingredients, plus emulsifiers, extra salt, food colorings, or whey. Many flavors, colors, and textures of processed cheese exist.

Who can resist a tasty slice of cheese on a hamburger? What about a slice of cheese with your apple pie? Eat them to excess and the next slice you undergo will be the one your heart surgeon does on you when he begins your open heart surgery.

For years, the US federal government bought the dairy industry’s excess cheese and butter, an outgrowth of a Depression-era commitment to use price supports and other tools to maintain the dairy industry as a vital national resource. This stockpile of thousands upon thousands of tons of cheese and butter was packed away in cool caves in Missouri which then grew to a value of more than $4 billion by 1983. Alas most of it went bad and had to be destroyed. Instead of storing it in caves, they should have shipped it to countries which were in need of foodstuffs to feed the starving.

The fat content of milk is the proportion of milk, by weight, that is made up by butterfat. Research found that low fat milk drinkers fully compensated for the energy deficit between low fat and whole milk. Yet those who drank skimmed milk (fat removed), it was found that males compensated while females did not compensate for the energy difference. Although energy compensation does not change the total fat intake of most consumers, lower fat milk drinkers may still have the benefit of a decreased consumption of saturated fat which of course is good for their health. 

SUGAR

Can anyone live without sugar? No. Does anyone want to live without sugar? NO! Despite the fact that sugar really tantalizes our taste buds, it is a real killer of human beings. But why must we die because our pleasure center goes into overdrive at even the sight and smell of something sweet?

Sugar has been blamed for nearly every known disease and even for the fall of several empires. While those accusations may sound like exaggerations, they probably are closer to the truth than you realize.

The real culprit that causes heart disease, cancer, and diabetes—the three leading disease killers in the United States and other westernized countries today, is sugar. The sugar connection to coronary-artery and heart disease was first noticed in the 1970s. British researcher John Yudkin, M.D., came to a similar conclusion. In his classic book Sweet and Dangerous, Dr. Yudkin cited numerous examples in a variety of societies that showed that sugar was a more likely cause of heart disease than fat. For example, the Masai and Sumburu tribes of East Africa, he explained, have almost no heart disease, yet they eat a high-fat diet of mostly meat and milk but no sugar.

Recent research is proving the validity of the theories posed by Drs. Cleave and Yudkin, which clearly shows a direct relationship between sugar and heart disease because of insulin. Remember that when sugar is eaten, insulin is produced. Insulin not only helps to store excess sugar as fat but it also helps regulate blood triglyceride levels, which are a major predictor of the development of heart disease. The more sugar you eat, the more insulin your pancreas will produce, and the higher your triglyceride levels are likely to be.

One of the primary sources of calories for Americans is sugar—specifically high fructose corn syrup in soda and processed foods. Because of advances in food processing technology in the 1970s, fructose derived from corn has become very cheap and is widely used in the majority of processed foods for increased sales.

Our bodies metabolize fructose much differently from glucose because the  entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on our livers, where excess fructose is quickly converted into fat, which explains the weight gain and abdominal obesity experienced by so many people in the US and other westernized countries.

SALT

Every adult has about 250 grams of salt is his body. That’s about 3 to 4 salt shakers. Salt is necessary in the body to transfer nerve impulses, among other things. To stay healthy we need to ingest about 1 to 2 grams of salt per day. But research shows we eat a lot more salt than we should—about 10 to 12 grams per day.

However, taking too much salt on your food is  unhealthy because when the kidneys secrete too much sodium from the salt, they produce the hormone renin. Renin has the effect that the body holds on to moisture. The result is a dramatic rise in blood pressure. Many people die from a high salt intake, because the high blood pressure results in a stroke or heart failure.

Processed, packaged foods are often high in salt, or sodium. Excess sodium in your diet can increase your risk of high blood pressure and stroke.

The trouble is that we just love salt with our food. It is what turns macaroni and cheese into something that is so tasty rather than being bland. It is what turns potato chips and peanuts also into something that is so tasty. It adds flavour to our fish and chips. It is also what turns us into a being a corpse.

Who is to blame?

For most of the last ten thousand years, food production was a simple affair by producing grown wheat or raising one’s own livestock on small farms, orchards and market gardens and trading at local markets, and cooking their own meals  at home.

But as society became more modernized, we ate cheaper food with less and less nutritional content thanks to the efforts of the manufacturing food industry. But it's making us obese and bringing about early deaths to members of our families and our friends.

Prepared food is convenient for busy people who work long hours whether the food is bought and microwaved at home, or eaten at a fast food restaurant. Since processed food tastes good, is cheap and easy to prepare, it panders to our need for instant gratification which is more powerful than our awareness that the food is actually bad for us over the longer term. We know it's bad, but we don't care. After all, we are going to live for a long time, is that not so? Well, it is not so.

Driving the whole thing is aggressive marketing by food manufacturers, who are masters at pushing our 'instant gratification' buttons. They know how to make their food products look tastefully appealing. The message is getting through and sure enough, consumption levels of these foods which are high in fat and sugar is on the increase. 

Do these food manufacturers care that their processed food is actually killing us? No more than the tobacco industry cares that their cigarettes are killing millions of smokers.

So what are governments and health authorities doing about it? Federal and state governments in the US have, since 2002, implemented a series of programs aimed at schools, sporting bodies and community groups, to promote healthier eating, exercise and physical activities. The approach is to encourage people to make healthier food choices and to get doctors to play a greater role in persuading people to lead healthier lifestyles. Now processed food manufacturers are required to state exactly how much fat, sugar and salt is in each package or container.

Unhealthy foods are still marketed at adults and particularly children. Labeling doesn't help because most people don't understand what the labels mean. Fresh nutritional food is getting more expensive relative to manufactured foods. We're eating more and more manufactured food.

Food companies often find themselves besieged by complaints from consumers and competitors for false or misleading advertising. The risks are especially high when products feature hard-to-define claims such as “fresh” or “natural.”

False advertising claims have also affected other large food companies in recent years, including Kellogg and Campbell Soup. Below are some of the most recent, big-name false advertising disputes to hit the news

§  Kellogg announced a settlement payment of $2.5 million in a class action filed against the company for false advertising arising out of its claim on boxes of Cocoa Krispies that the product improves immunity for kids.

§  Another recent settlement with the Wrigley Company over false advertising of its gums’ advertised germ-killing benefits resulted in the payment of $7 million.

§  Four New Jersey women sued Campbell’s claiming they were tricked into buying tomato soup labeled “25% less sodium” when it purportedly contained a comparable amount of salt to regular Campbell’s soup. Campbell’s sought unsuccessfully to dismiss the case, arguing that the advertising claim refers accurately to its soup in comparison with the average sodium content of the soup on the food market. The judge allowed the case to go forward, stating that “the fact that the labels were literally true does not mean they cannot be misleading to the average consumer.”

§  A woman sued General Mills after consuming 24 packs of YoPlus yogurt and not seeing any improvement in her digestive health despite the company’s marketing of the yogurt on a digestive health platform. Federal district and appeals courts have ruled that a class of plaintiffs can be certified based upon her claim despite General Mills’ objection that shoppers purchased YoPlus for different reasons, different places, different times, with different results and as such cannot be grouped together as a class. They lost the motion to dismiss.  

I remember the days when the tobacco industry advertised their products by having doctors state in the magazine ads that smoking tobacco was good for every smoker’s health. The processed food industry is no different than  the old snake oil salesman who used to sell his phony medicine to gullible people.  It always came down to the big buck.

If you have been to the grocery store lately, you know that you can't walk by an isle without reading such labels as "enriched," "fortified," "natural," "Organically grown," etc. However, these types of product labels are often misleading and false. As a consumer, it is important to explore both sides of the product packaging and to be suspicious of false food labeling.

The processed food industry is aiming their advertising to our kids who are gullible enough to believe all the promises stated on the cardboard cereal boxes. Here are some of the cases of false advertising.

Kellogg Co. agreed to comply with expanded advertising restrictions in its advertising campaign for Rice Krispies cereal after U.S. regulators found the company falsely advertised the cereal improved children’s health when in fact it did not. Kellogg had earlier agreed to stricter advertising rules in 2009 when the FTC alleged the company misled consumers with false claims that Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20 percent.”

There are four words that you should watch out for on boxes and containers of processed food. They are;

Natural

As many consumers know, there is no nutritional or legal definition of “natural” in the world of food and beverages, so manufacturers are free to use the word as they please.

Made With

Companies can claim that a food or beverage is “made with” real fruit or vegetables or whole grains, but it may not be “made with” much of it and it may not even be good for you in any case.

Whole Grains

Lucky Charms is a rather ridiculous example of a whole grain food, but it is in fact advertised by General Mills to contain “More Whole Grain than any other ingredient!” and is labeled as a “Whole Grain First Ingredient” cereal. Not so.

Light

Foods marketed and labeled as “light” are usually more processed than the original versions they are meant to stand in for. Manufacturers can’t reduce the fat or the number of calories in a food without altering its flavor, so sodium, sugar substitutes and an array of other harmful additives are often added to compensate.

This kind of false advertising is no different than placing a product in a large box which in fact, only holds two thirds of the product inside the box. It is a scam. For this reason, you should take a second look at what the package tells you with respect to the fat, sugar and salt content in each of the foodstuffs they are trying to sell you. The contents of each of these killers may seem small to you but so was Napoleon and look what he did. He declared war on several nations. These processed food companies haven’t declared war on you however. They have snuck up to you unseen and with their three hit men, fat, sugar and salt; they are ravaging your heart and other organs of your body. And one day, you will fall victim to them.