• Let The Dough Rise, Stop Gassing The Tomatoes and Set The Chickens Free!

    Posted February 23, 2014: by Bill Sardi

    In the relentless pursuit of competing on price for the food consumers’ dollar, food producers are not only ruining the taste and palatability of foods but also our health.

    Take for example the current gluten-free craze.  Where did this emanate from?  Some say it is the hybridization of wheat.

    More than $10 billion of gluten-free products were sold last year, according to a report in the New York Times.  But there are only 1.8 million Americans who have celiac disease where the immune system attacks the small intestine and another 18 million people (~6% of the population) who are gluten sensitive.

    The true celiacs might want to check their vitamin C intake levels.  That might be the origin of their problems.  As for the rest of us, should we be searching for gluten-free products before gluten sensitivity sets in?

    Well, a little secret slipped out into public view recently.  In an article published at MotherJones.com reporter Tom Philpott visited Washington State University’s agriculture research facility near Seattle where they are studying ways to make bread more palatable.  His report reveals two things.

    One is that flour today has the bran and the germ removed and then added back, well at least part of it.  It’s the bran portion that is of particular interest because, as I documented in a book that I wrote, the removal of bran from bread is what spawned the current diabesity epidemic.

    But journalist Philpott’s article reveals another important fact.  He writes: “The problem is that most industrial bakeries only allow bread to rise for a matter of minutes—not nearly long enough to let the yeast and bacteria digest all the gluten in the flour, let alone the extra dose in the additives. The result can lead to all kinds of problems in our gut.”

    Good God, in the interest of expediency and profit, we’ve spawned a whole new phobia– gluten sensitivity is induced by commercial bread bakers!

    As Pogo the comic strip character once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”  Methinks the tail ought to be pinned on the correct donkey so the public can demand bakers allow their dough to fully rise before baking.

    Stop gassing the tomatoes!

    Are there any other examples of how commercial interests have robbed common foods of their goodness?

    Another example is the gassing of tomatoes to ripen them.  Way back in 1991 an article in the New York Times noted that scientists had genetically altered tomatoes so they no longer produced a gas that naturally induces ripening.  There was less spoilage and this left the ripening process to produce distributors, who gas them with ethylene oxide just prior to being brought to market.  This produced those infamous tasteless tomatoes.

    Set the chickens free!

    Another example of false advertising in the food industry is the oft-used term “cage free” or “free range” chickens.  These domesticated animals aren’t caged in tightly packed hen houses but neither are they allowed to roam around and forage for food such as grubs and insects and seeds as they once did.

    You might want to read Forrest Pritchard’s explanation of what “free range” chicken really is.  Chickens are just given more space to exercise.  Kind of like a prison exercise yard.

    So the eggs these chickens produce exhibit colorless yokes that only regain their golden yellow color when growers feed them marigold powder.  And chicken meat certainly isn’t tasty and juicy as it once was.  It’s now rubbery and difficult to chew thanks to hybridization of the chickens themselves.  You can read more about this at the Farm Forward website.

    So much for “farm raised,” “whole grain,” “naturally ripened, ”gluten free,” and “cage free.”  © 2104 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

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