Getting Rid of Anti-Foods

This Journal covers important potential developments in governmental spheres which could lead to very good changes in American foods and American health.

An article by Epoch Times health writer Marina Zhang, posted on 11-17-24, details a few of the more notorious and harmful chemical additives in American foods, and highlights the possible removal of these chemicals from our foods.

As the near future head of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. vows to reduce and eliminate these anti-foods from of the lives of all Americans. If confirmed by the Senate, RFK, Jr. will be in a position to enact sweeping changes in a food industry which profits from poisoning our lives with some very bad chemistry.

In reading this nice article summarizing some of this chemical badness, you can begin to take steps now to severely curtail and eliminate foods containing these additives.

Here is the article about RFK, Jr. and the aim he is taking on these bad anti-food additives. There is more than ample science and research evidence to condemn these chemicals as toxins and poisons in our lives.

RFK Jr. Has Taken Aim at These Additives, What Could He Do as HHS Secretary?

Americans have the shortest lifespan and highest ultra-processed food consumption among developed countries.

“Americans are being poisoned,” former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated throughout his campaign. He linked the nation’s poor diet to rising health care costs for chronic diseases and shorter lifespans.

Americans have a life expectancy that is five years shorter than other developed nations and that may be because 50 to 70 percent of the American diet is ultra-processed foods—the highest consumption rate in the developed world. Many of the food additives and ingredients used in the United States are already restricted or banned in Europe.

Now nominated as Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration, Kennedy will oversee 80 percent of the country’s food supply, as well as all cosmetics, drugs, and pharmaceutical products.

Though approved for use in both the EU and the United States, HFCS in Europe is used in a modified form called isoglucose, which contains up to 30 percent fructose, whereas American HFCS has 42 to 55 percent fructose.

HFCS 55, which contains 55 percent fructose, is the most commonly used. This more concentrated formula allows food to taste sweeter with a smaller volume of sweetener.

HFCS is similar to table sugar in overall composition, though it went through additional enzymatic processing during production. Research has not shown clear evidence that HFCS is more harmful than sugar, though as a common ingredient in ultra-processed foods, HFCS has undergone a lot of scrutiny.

HFCS 55 has a higher fructose content than sugar. This can strain the liver because the liver has to convert fructose to glucose. Therefore excess fructose consumption can lead to buildup in the liver and cause fatty liver disease. Fructose also doesn’t trigger the body to release insulin, nor the hormones that tell the brain to stop eating. Research suggests that this dynamic may lead to overeating and weight gain.

HFCS, like sugar, has also been linked to liver disease, heart disease, and cases of behavioral problems.

During his campaign, he said that seed oils are everywhere and are the most common ingredient in the processed foods that make up the American diet.

Most seed oils, like canola, soybean, corn, and sunflower oils, are approved by the FDA as GRAS. Soybean oil is the most commonly consumed oil in the United States.

These oils are highly processed. They are extracted using a solvent (often hexane, which is toxic), degummed by adding water and acids to remove the gums of the oil, neutralized with soda to keep the oil from turning rancid, deodorized to make the oil non-pungent, bleached to remove the color, potentially hydrogenated to keep it shelf-stable, and more.

This is because, compared to fats like tallow, which is saturated, most processed vegetable oils are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which make them more prone to oxidation when heated. When eaten, these oxidized fats can damage cells and genes in the body.

These food dyes have been linked to behavioral problems like ADHD and cancer.

Most food dyes are made from petroleum, which makes them cheaper and more durable  than the natural colors used in countries like Canada and Australia.

In a campaign video released in mid-October, Kennedy specifically targeted tartrazine, or yellow 5 for its prolific use in foods ranging from Doritos to yogurt and supplements like vitamin gummies and cough syrups.

The EU banned the use of benzoyl peroxide in food in the 1990s due to concerns about potential toxicity such as liver damage and poisoning.

Food ingredients that are categorized as food additives undergo relatively rigorous premarket safety review, with the FDA setting an allowable limit.

But GRAS ingredients do not have to undergo this premarket review if the substance has a long history of use, or if there is a scientific consensus on safety.

In 1997, the FDA proposed a new regulation that allowed companies to self-determine GRAS status without submitting it for affirmation from the FDA. This change was gradually phased in and made official in 2016. As a result, companies no longer have to notify the FDA when they have a new GRAS substance.

This created a major loophole, with the primary one being that “there are unknown ingredients in the food supply that the FDA and the public doesn’t know about,” Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at NYU School of Global Public Health, told The Epoch Times.

Since this rule was made by the FDA, the FDA can amend the rule to close the loophole, requiring companies to declare what GRAS ingredients they have made. Congress may need to update the 1958 legislature to make it clear that the FDA should review GRAS applications, Pomeranz said.

Europe tends to ban food additives faster than the FDA and require a rigorous pre-market approval process for new ingredients. The FDA is much slower than other countries to make these changes, often 30 years slower or more, Pomeranz said.

If the FDA is able to lower their criteria needed to ban a product, that could allow potentially harmful substances to be taken out of food faster, Pomeranz said. The agency’s criteria for banning a product is also not transparent to the public.

Additionally, there is currently limited evidence linking various food additives with conclusive findings of harm, mostly due to limited research funding.

“The FDA will need more resources in order to review the unbelievable amounts of ingredients we have.” Pomeranz said, which would need to come from Congress.

The FDA in September hosted a conference where they mentioned they would do a systematic post-market review of products on the market, with the growing list of GRAS substances as a major focus.

They may not know what to review, though, if food makers do not clearly label what is in their products, Pomeranz said. The new ingredients may be given a vague label of flavoring or preservatives without giving the actual chemical.

Kennedy mentioned during his campaign that he would get National Institutes of Health, which has an annual research budget of more than $45 billion, to fund research into the causes of chronic disease. This would include finding the health and safety risks of various food chemicals.

Pomeranz said this would be a welcomed change.

Some large industry groups have publicly expressed their support to regulate food more rigorously, Pomeranz said.

Companies that give consumers safe and nutritious food are currently at a disadvantage, Pomeranz said. “It’s really hurting competition to allow companies that are not doing right to just get into the marketplace.”

“If there’s no regulation to even the playing field, companies have less incentive to protect us, right?”

Crestone and Beyond

For the past 2 decades RFK, Jr. has developed a highly informed and passionate desire to bring needed changes to the food industry, the agriculture industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical industry; from all corporate levels and on down and on through to the citizen. His mandate is called Make America Healthy Again…MAHA. Imagine what it would be like if childhood health in America began to improve and the chronic diseases of our older citizens began to abate. This will be a monumental undertaking, and is one in which I wish him great success.

His data, facts, and perspectives on every aspect of American health are very important to understand. As a practicing physician for the past 5 decades and as a son of physician parents, I have watched the medical industry and the health of Americans steadily decline over the course of my life. All of us have witnessed and in some way participated in the enablement of big corporate industrial profiteering and the associated poisoning of the environment and every creature on this planet.

During the 1990s phase of my surgery career I used to go around Boulder County, Colorado and places in Alabama and Florida giving slide show presentations of what has gone wrong in American food and health. I called the show “Tomorrow’s Health Today.” This is when I cooked up and started using the term “anti-foods” in reference to the incredible array of chemicals which are put into our natural foods.

I had discovered an antique shop displaying a large and well organized collection of Life Magazine publications which stretched back into pre WWII decades. Since I once enjoyed this weekly publication as a child and teenager, I was attracted to surveying this collection. Being interested in the “food is your best medicine” concept I began to study the various types of advertisements in the post WWII editions and took note of how our foods were being adulterated as evidenced in the advertisements displayed in the magazines. I made an interesting slide show from these Life Magazine ads to share with audiences.

What I discovered was a a lay-out of how the progressive poisoning of our foods occurred from the 1940s through the 1970s. I made many slides from food and tobacco advertisements in these magazines. There were many ads by tobacco companies depicting physicians promoting cigarettes. There were ads promoting sugar products and trans fat products. And there were many more kinds of examples of a food and agriculture conglomerate gone awry.

You can see some examples of the smoking doctors racket in this comprehensive 2006 PubMed article: “The Doctors’ Choice Is America’s Choice…The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930-1953

By the end of the 1990s I was well on my way to transitioning out of general, vascular, and trauma surgery into offering people lifestyle health advice.

In those days I was not yet talking with people about mitochondrial health. The importance of mitochondrial health was being steadily unveiled since the 1970s. In 2014 I wrote an article for this website entitled Minding your Mitochondria. This has some basic and some more detailed information. Since that article was written research on mitochondrial health, mitochondropathies, and the diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction has been developed and unveiled into a very important growing science.

The next Journal will present an excellent compelling article which portrays the importance of mitochondropathies in the development of the major neurological diseases.

All of the anti-foods currently being consumed will be shown to contribute in some way to mitochondrial dysfunction and related diseases.

There is no time like the present to begin educating yourself about these anti-food chemicals and developing new healthy habits based on reducing and eliminating as much as you can.

Thanks for reading….Wishing you the best that life and love have to offer.

Signing off from Crestone and Beyond

Associated Reading

1. WATCH: RFK, Jr. Endorses President Trump, Suspends Campaign, FULL VIDEO-8-23-24…the now historic announcement by RFK, Jr. speaking on 8-23-24 about his Trump endorsement, his proposed health mandate, and some of the grim facts and statistics about American health. His pertinent comments about the Ukraine war process roll into his comments about American health at about minute 24:00 in this video.
2. Phytochemicals…and a Great Seal of Natural Healing…an October, 2016 writing on this website about some of my earlier explorations in the world of natural healing.
3. The Great ‘Splainin’ Cometh…a brief incisive look at the blatant governmental corruption of the past 4 years.
4. Jay Bhattacharya Emerges as Top Contender for NIH Chief…Dr. Bhattacharya is one of the physician heroes of the COVID-19 drama. He is a Stanford professor of health policy and has been a leading critic of government-imposed lockdowns and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. “If Bhattacharya is ultimately nominated and confirmed to lead the agency, he would be responsible for 27 institutes and centers on issues ranging from cancer and aging to drug abuse. Those include the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was formerly chaired by Dr. Anthony Fauci…In October 2020, Bhattacharya was a lead author of the Great Barrington Declaration alongside Harvard University’s Martin Kulldorff and Oxford University’s Sunetra Gupta. That document, which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, called for an end to the COVID-19 lockdowns, which had been in effect for most of 2020.” This appointment will be a very positive step in helping to secure the kinds of policies which will lead to improved health in America.