Food rant 5

I had a job interview today but I didn't get it. It worked out for the best.

Food rant continues, this is the last one!

The problem is, it has got so that it is difficult to avoid eating these foods. I enjoy cooking and also baking and making my own sauces, pickles etc. But I still have a full time job and other interests in life and some evenings I am just too tired to spend time chopping up vegetables for next days lunch. And the food companies are very clever at adding just the right amount of fat, sugar and gluten to their foods to make them very addictive. To make you crave more. I don’t even know what to think of the breakfast cereal that is actually called Krave! Have you seen the adverts? They sell this on the strength of its addictive properties. And this is actually quite a common theme in food advertising. Does anyone think food that is actually addictive can be a good thing? We don’t really need addictive food do we? We know we need to eat already.

There is a rather interesting hypothesis that one of the reasons these foods are so addictive is because of our gut bacteria. We feed them this junk food, the ones that like to digest it multiply and out compete the other ones. They need more junk food. They send signals to our brain to make us eat more junk food. Think that is too far fetched? Our guts are our biggest source of neurotransmitters, those chemicals that send signals round our nervous systems and which act on our brains. Lack of certain neurotransmitters can cause depression, anxiety, sleepless nights. Sound familiar?

The food companies would love to have you believe that their product is healthy. Low in fat! Contains wholegrains! Can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet! But it could be slowly killing us in the most horrible ways with diabetes, alzheimers, or deeply affecting our quality of life with depression and IBS.

The enemy is not sugar, or fat, or gluten. It is processed or pre-prepared food. We simply cannot trust the food companies, any food companies to prepare our food for us. Their business is to make money, not to nourish our bodies. If they can exploit a new health fad they will. Many of the companies which you may think are small an independent have been swallowed up by the giants who know the value of having customers believe they are buying from a small and independent company.

If you need any more convincing about how powerful food companies and their marketing are, consider that they have somehow managed to convince generations of women that the company’s formula milk is more nutritious than their own! Think about it! Isn’t that mental?

STOP PRESS - Tesco have announced that they are so far removed from actual food production that they are unable to tell the difference between a beef cow and a dairy cow.

As a result of everything I have learned recently, I am going to be basing my food much more round vegetables and reducing my intake of empty calories such as flours and cereals and of course sugar. Not eliminate them completely but just eat more nutritious foods. And of course avoid processed foods wherever possible. And make sure I am not eating too much of anything, whether that be spinach, soy, beans, eggs. Too much of ANYTHING is bad for you. Even water can kill you if you drink too much of it. To my mind, that is the most probable reason why gluten may be affecting so many people. We just eat so much of it that it starts to make us ill. Just like eating too much kale would eventually make you ill - as nutritionally wonderful as it is.

There is a saying which I have come across a few times in my nutritional wanderings and it is this

Eat real food
Not too much
Mostly plants

In fact I could have just posted that at the start and not bothered with all the rest.. :-)

Thank you everyone who has commented on this. I have enjoyed the discussion. And well done to anyone who has read the whole thing! Blips will revert to being brief from now on. :-)