Although consuming fructose by itself doesn’t excite insulin secretion, consuming concentrated fructose, in foods containing HFCS such as soft drinks, baked goods, breakfast cereals, and snack foods, is dangerous. That’s because instead of being taken up by muscle cells all over the body, the fructose goes right to the liver and triggers the production of fats such as triglycerides and cholesterol. This is called lipogenesis. This is why the major cause of liver damage in this country, which affects 70 million people, is “fatty liver.”28 The liver was not designed to metabolize the large quantities of fructose found in artificial commercial foods.
HFCS has been shown to increase insulin resistance. This means that it interferes with the removal of other sugars from the blood, requiring the pancreas to produce more insulin to do so.29 The explosion in the occurrence of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the past fifty years was caused (partially) by this high exposure to sugar and HFCS in fast foods and soft drinks.30 Excess HFCS—and fructose in particular—also contributes to high blood pressure, not only by its promotion of plaque buildup (atherogenesis), but also by inhibiting a key enzyme called endothelial nitric oxide synthase, which is important for maintaining normal vascular elasticity.31
Exposure to HFCS has created a nation of metabolically challenged individuals who are overweight, diabetic or prediabetic, and have high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. This is called metabolic syndrome and is a condition that has led to a health crisis of unprecedented proportions. Fructose-induced insulin resistance is linked to both diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.32
HFCS and other fast food ingredients increase advanced glycation end products, or AGEs, which age tissues, destroy the insides of the eyeball, and create nerve damage, kidney damage, and other complications of diabetes. If this weren’t bad enough, HFCS is manufactured using chemicals that are commonly contaminated with mercury, and mercury residue has been found in significant amounts in such products. This is especially concerning for long-term problems developing in children exposed to these products.33
AGEs Age Us Rapidly
Advanced glycation end products, also known as glycotoxins, are a diverse group of highly oxidant compounds that cause cumulative pathogenic damage and are a significant factor in chronic disease development, premature aging, and death. AGEs form within the body as metabolic toxins when we eat sweets and have higher blood glucose levels, but we also consume them from dry-cooked fast foods, particularly commercially baked products. Dry heat in cooking promotes new AGE formation by tenfold to one-hundred-fold above the uncooked state across food categories. Animal-derived foods contain the most AGEs and produce high additional amounts of AGEs during dry cooking, especially broiling, frying, and roasting. In contrast, high-water-content fruits and vegetables or water-based cooking such as steaming or cooking in soups or stews prevents AGE formation.
When AGE formation occurs from the darkening of food, the reaction is known as the “Maillard” or “browning” reaction. The disease-causing effects are not only related to the ability of AGEs to promote oxidation and inflammation; AGEs also bind with cell surface receptors or cross-link with body proteins, altering their structure and function.
The types of foods and cooking methods that fast food restaurants favor promote the production of AGEs. In particular, grilling, broiling, roasting, searing, and frying propagate and accelerate new AGE formation. When these foods are infused with HFCS before cooking, they become even more potent in their disease-promoting effects.34
HEALTH-DAMAGING EFFECTS OF HFCS
Obesity
High blood pressure
Diabetes
Blindness
Liver disease
Kidney disease
Premature aging
High triglycerides
High cholesterol
Heart attacks
Dementia
Strokes
Cancer
This constellation of risk from HFCS, AGEs, heterocyclic amines (see the Grilling Up Some Cancer section), chemical colorings, and nutrient deficiency from fast food leads to an accumulated toxic burden, resulting in “brain fog.” This is characterized by difficulty in concentrating, loss of the ability to work a full day, and loss of memory, and it will likely lead to eventual dementia.35 More and more people with dementia are flooding nursing homes, and many require round-the-clock care.
Processed foods are also linked to the incidence of strokes.36 The epidemic of stokes, occurring at younger and younger ages37 has sparked an entire industry of health care facilities that cater to impaired young people who have destroyed large sections of their brains with fast food. The incidence of strokes before the age of forty-five is five times more common in black populations, likely due to the increased consumption of fast food.38
The combined effect of the fast food and processed food industries has resulted in an explosive epidemic of obesity and diabetes, with its resultant kidney failure, limb amputations, and heart problems. Medical bills to treat diseases associated with obesity alone are more than $185 billion annually.39
SIX FOODS WITH THE HIGHEST
AMOUNT OF AGEs AGE/KU PER 100 GRAM PER SERVING
1.Beef frankfurter, broiled 5 minutes 11,270 10,143
2.Beef steak, pan fried in olive oil 10,058 9,052
3.Chicken back or thigh (no skin), roasted and barbecued 8,802 7,922
4.Chicken breast, breaded and then oven fried 9,961 8,965
5.Chicken back or thigh with skin, roasted and barbecued 18,520 16,668
6.Bacon, fried 5 minutes 91,577 11,905
GRILLING UP SOME CANCER
Long-term studies with hundreds of thousands of participants have established that diets rich in animal products are associated with a higher incidence of heart attacks and cancers.40 Animal products also do not contain antioxidants and phytochemicals that offer protection against disease and protect the brain.
But there’s worse news about animal products. The processed meats (and other meat) available and prepared at fast food restaurants present a different level of danger because of the way they are processed, the chemicals and flavorings added to them, and then the way they are prepared. These processed meats often contain sodium nitrite, a known carcinogen, and also contain heterocyclic amines, which are linked to colon cancer. Heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and lipid peroxides are chemicals formed when muscle meat, including beef, pork, fish, and poultry, is cooked using high-temperature methods, such as pan frying, grilling, and barbecuing. These compounds have been found to be mutagenic—that is, they cause changes in DNA that increase the risk of cancer.41
Substances that enter the body along with cooked red meat also include N-nitroso compounds, which have been shown to damage genetic material, leading to cancer. The heme iron in red meat promotes lipid peroxidation and the formation of reactive oxygen species and N-nitroso compounds, all of which contribute to the development of cancer.42 Increased consumption of processed meat, and meats cooked with typical fast food cooking techniques, correlates positively with the likelihood of developing breast cancer as well as colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancers.43
If you choose to eat a small amount of animal products in your diet, it should never be breaded, deep fried, pan fried, barbecued, or grilled. These are the ways that animal products are traditionally prepared by fast food restaurants and street vendors—and these are the most dangerous way to incorporate animal products into your diet. Fast food–style animal products also lack eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and (docosahexaenoic acid) DHA, the two omega-3 fatty acids found in seafood and small wild animals.
The problem is clear: The American food industry has succeeded in its quest to “hook” Americans—especially populations in the inner city, where healthy foods are not as available—on the most dangerous and destructive foods ever devised. It has taken the most disease-causing foods and found a way to make them even worse.
SALT IN FAST FOOD
The proc
essed food and fast food industries are also responsible for increasing salt intake. The excessive level of sodium in the modern diet has caused an epidemic of high blood pressure. Living in the United States, your lifetime probability of developing high blood pressure is higher than 90 percent, with accompanying increased risks of heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.44 High salt intake causes scarring of the heart, called coronary fibrosis, which further increases the risk of developing a dangerous cardiac arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat.45
The important issue is that your lifetime salt intake correlates best with your risk of having a heart attack or stroke in later life. This means that feeding kids, teenagers, and young adults salty foods is not without risk, even though their blood pressures have not elevated yet. All the salt they consume when they are young cumulatively adds up and results in damage to the body’s vascular system.46 People pay a steep price for the high salt fast food they eat when they are young, with years of suffering and chronic diseases down the road. Excessive salt intake also increases the risk of developing asthma, autoimmune disease, stomach cancer, osteoporosis, and kidney failure.47
Shockingly, salt is added to almost every fast food. Even soda, ice cream, milk shakes, and other desserts contain added salt. Salt is a natural preservative, but the real benefit to fast food vendors is salt’s effect on their customers’ thirst. The more salt hidden in a fast food meal, the more the customer will drink. And drinks are the most profitable item on a junk food menu, selling for five times the price of gasoline, even though they are mostly water, chemicals, and sweetening agents, and they put salt in them too.
The highest amounts of salt are found in fast food fried potatoes, which can hardly be called potatoes anymore, as fast food French fries have as many as twenty-three ingredients in them, including sweeteners, salt, antifoaming agents, preservatives, and colorings. They are more a potato-chemical slurry, with extra HFCS and salt mixed into the batter—and after they’re fried, they’re coated with even more salt.
The burgers aren’t just meat; HFCS and salt are mixed into the meat before it is fried or grilled. One fast food meal gives you such a dangerous amount of salt, that even if you were to eat nothing else and drink only water for the rest of the day, you would still be in the salt danger zone. For example, a Big Mac from McDonald’s, with no salted fries or soda, already supplies 950 milligrams of sodium.48 A typical meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) supplies more than 3,000 milligrams of sodium—and that’s just one meal.49 One box of popcorn at a movie or ballgame has so much salt in it that you’ll find yourself waiting in long lines to buy drinks to satisfy your increased thirst.
Salt is also just like the other “white stuff”—sugar: When you eat salted foods regularly, you deaden the taste for salt, you like salty foods, and you crave more and more salt. People like lots of salt because when they were young, they routinely ate lots of hidden salt in all their foods.
Manufacturers also add salt to their foods because it makes people eat more food; scientific studies confirm that salted foods increase appetite and caloric intake. The results of careful investigations indicate that salt intake shuts down the cues to stop eating when full.50 Salting food prevents people from knowing when they have eaten enough food and induces overeating and obesity.51
The “Processed Food Era” started about two to three generations ago, right after World War I. Soon, heart attacks and stroke rates skyrocketed. Yet there are still areas of the world where people eat a more natural diet, and salt intake is comparatively very low. Pockets of people live on diets without added salt in New Guinea, the Amazon Basin, and the highlands of Malaysia—and high blood pressure is unheard of in these regions.52
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), consuming less sodium is one of the most important ways to prevent cardiovascular disease.
Salt reduction to 1,200 milligrams a day is estimated to prevent fifty-four thousand to ninety-nine thousand heart attacks each year in the United States.53
MANY SCHOOL LUNCHES SERVE FAST FOOD
Our addiction to fast food has invaded college campuses, high schools, and even elementary schools. Chicken nuggets, pizza and hamburgers (with bromated flour), soda, and French fries are common fare on school lunch menus. For example, a California statewide sample found these fast foods at 71 percent of schools, and more than half even served brand name products from chains such as Taco Bell and Domino’s Pizza.54
Furthermore, your child’s public school lunch may be held to a lower quality standard than even fast food restaurants. Millions of pounds of meat judged unfit to serve in fast food restaurants makes its way into our school cafeterias. Meat that is only fit for pet food or compost is being served at schools, according to a USA Today investigation. The newspaper reported that the Agricultural Marketing Service, which purchases meats for schools, bought meats with levels of E. coli and other bacteria that exceeded acceptable levels for fast food outlets.55
Hidden dangers lurk in foods commonly served in school lunch programs around the country. For example, look at these ingredients for a hotdog bun marketed to school lunch programs:
INGREDIENTS: ENRICHED BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR (WHEAT, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID, POTASSIUM BROMATE), WATER, SUGAR, WHEY, DEXTROSE, VEGETABLE SHORTENING (PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN & COTTONSEED OIL), SOY FLOUR, SALT, MONO & DIGLYCERIDES, EGG, YEAST, SOYBEAN OIL.
MAY CONTAIN 2% OR LESS OF: SODIUM STEAROYLE LACTOLAYTE, WHEAT GLUTEN, FOOD STARCH, AMMONIUM, DATEM, L-CYSTEIN, VINEGAR, CALCIUM PROPIONATE, (PRESERVATIVES), MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE ASCORBIC ACID, AZODICARBONAMIDE, ENZYMES. CONTAINS: WHEAT.
Note that these buns contain partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils. Many countries have banned these trans fats because they have been demonstrated to be dangerous and to greatly increase the risk of heart disease. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled in 2015 that partially hydrogenated oils are not “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) and will require these oils to be phased out from processed foods by 2018.56 But in the meantime, since nobody is looking, trans fats are fed to our kids. Heart disease and increased aggressiveness are both associated with consumption of trans fats.
The bun ingredients also contain potassium bromate, which is not only a carcinogen, as we have seen, but is known to impair iodine metabolism, which can lead to iodine deficiency and potential brain damage.57 The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that iodine deficiency causes an 8- to 10-point drop in the global IQ.58 Even though potassium bromate is banned in other countries, and even by most fast food restaurants doing business abroad, we here in the United States somehow see it as permissible to serve it to young children in our schools.
Corn dogs are another popular menu item in public school lunch programs. According to a company that manufactures corn dogs for school lunches, their “100% Whole Grain Chicken Corn Dogs on a Stick” are “Smart Snack Approved,” with portions and nutrition levels that meet school standards. The nutrition label, and the ingredients on the company’s website, tells a different story. It’s a pretty low standard of excellence, if you ask me.
CHICKEN FRANK: MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN, WATER, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF SPICES, SALT, POTASSIUM LACTATE, POTASSIUM ACETATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, FLAVORINGS, SODIUM DIACETATE, SODIUM ERYTHORBATE, SODIUM NITRITE.
BATTER: WATER, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, WHOLE GRAIN CORN, SUGAR, LEAVENING (SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE), SOY FLOUR, SOYBEAN OIL, SALT, EGG YOLK WITH SODIUM SILICOALUMINATE, ASCORBIC ACID, EGG WHITE, DRIED HONEY, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR. FRIED IN VEGETABLE OIL. CONTAINS: WHEAT, SOY, EGG, AND GLUTEN.
Here’s a great idea: Feed kids a chicken frank made with corn syrup and sodium nitrite, and then make believe it’s a health food! It’s really a Frankenfood. And after all, nobody will know that eating more sodium nitrite–preserved meats increases heart disease and diabetes risk,59 or that sodium nitrite and N-nitroso compo
unds, when fed to animals, increase low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and harm pancreatic beta-cells that produce insulin.60 Aluminum additives are linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.61 This artificially flavored concoction is then deep-fat-fried to make sure it’s a cancer promoter. And we thought schools were intended to build brains, not destroy them!
It’s crazy that almost half of all entrees served in elementary schools include processed meats (such as hot dogs, ham, sausage, luncheon meats, corned beef, and canned meats), yet WHO has declared that processed meats are a class 1 carcinogen in humans, placing them in the same category as asbestos and cigarette smoking.
We need a revolution in information about food. We need our population to educate themselves about food, nutrition, and health. We can have the healthiest population in the history of the world if we take advantage of the recent advances in nutrition and food science. Modern scientific advances in health care and longevity all point to the fact that colorful natural foods, eaten as they were grown or picked from gardens, farms, and trees, contain complex factors that protect human health. Eating fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds—the “anti–fast foods”—is the secret to improving our nation’s health.
But even more than that: If we feed our most at-risk and economically sensitive populations healthful produce, we will increase their opportunity to reach their intellectual and economic potential. Instead, the fast food, soft drink, and processed food industries have used modern food science and technology to devise the most effective setup to create widespread addiction to their products—magnifying and creating human tragedies. These industries have conditioned humans to prefer, crave, and eat their products instead of real natural foods. This process has engulfed American cities and is spreading throughout the world. It is creating overweight, sickly, and emotionally scarred humans and burdening our societies with spiraling health care problems and overwhelming health care costs.
Fast Food Genocide Page 4
