The recent European food scandal provides a timely reminder about the importance of knowing exactly what is in your food.
While this very public scandal has involved the substitution of beef for horsemeat, it raises a serious question for everyone – do you really know what has been added to your food? Additives in pre-packaged food here in Australia may OR may NOT include horse meat, but be assured that pre-packaged food does include additives and substitutes that are harmful to your health.
Consider this: the pre-packaged food you purchase and consume from your supermarket is filled with sugar, salt, preservatives, food colouring, high fructose corn syrup, emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, flavour enhancers, stabilisers, and thickeners. These additives are used by food manufacturers to artificially increase the shelf life of food, and to reduce their production costs – with little consideration for the negative consequences to your health.
Simply put, these additives and substitutes are making our population fat and sick.
This scandal highlights the problem with pre-packaged food: it is highly processed. By its very nature, food processing takes natural food and re-invents it into a value-added product that is more lucrative to the manufacturer (The Guardian). In the process, the health value of the original natural food is lost.
So how can you overcome the negative consequences of consuming processed food?
The answer is straightforward: the entirety of the food you consume should be natural, whole food. This is the only way to guard your health against the modernisation of food, which is being led entirely by the rapid advancements in food technology and food industrialisation. The multibillion-dollar food manufacturing industry does not have the interests of your health at the core of their business. The sooner you turn away from pre-packaged and highly processed food, the sooner you will experience the positive health benefits that come from eating whole and natural foods.
The rapid rise in obesity levels and the Type 2 diabetes epidemic in Australia have been highlighted on many occasions within this blog. The changing nature of our food is playing a major part in these national and global health issues. Although we may lead busier lives than the generation before us, it is imperative that we, as a society, get back to preparing our meals from natural foods. The perceived benefit of eating pre-packaged food to save time does not outweigh the considerable risks posed to your health by eating processed foods. The evidence is overwhelming and can no longer be ignored.