Environment - Science - Health: The Health Costs of an Industrial Diet

"In the matter of fats, we truly are what we eat and what we eat truly matters." 

- Susan Allport, from The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3's Were Removed From The Western Diet and What We Can Do To Replace Them 

The 20th and 21st century industrial food system changed the way all of us eat food. Cows, who once roamed the prairies feeding on Omega-3 rich grasses, were reduced to Omega-6 rich grains. Chickens, pigs, and even fish have undergone this change in their diets. Yet food companies have assured people that these new forms of meat are safer and healthier. Though, all of us continue to suffer greater risks to diseases and cancers. We pay more for food in the age of cheap food production. We continue to give the FDA and privately funded research our trust ( who are made to give positive results to private profits). The pattern is obvious; our food is determining our health. Pharmaceutical Companies want us to pay for supplements we should be getting from nutrients in locally grown food. We lose to industrially sourced foods who have stripped nutrients and put in additives to increase shelf-life. These patterns may not be as simple as Omega-3's versus Omega-6's. But my logic shows that if a fish from the wild in Lake Erie is full of Omega-3's while a fish from a farm in Alaska is full of Omega-6's, and an Omega-3/Omega-6 balanced diet promotes a healthy body in contrast to an Omega-6 one, I'm throwing back the farmed fish. 

The research concludes: individuals of a western industrial food diet have higher intakes of Omega-6's, and very low intakes of Omega-3's. This high concentration of Omega-6's in our diets is said to be the cause of Heart Disease, certain types of Cancer, Type-2 Diabetes and stronger inflammations. Susan Allport and leading nutritional scientists believe a balance of Omega-6's to Omega-3's in a 2.3:1 ratio is ideal for preventing, and in some cases curing, these century old problems of the american industrial food diet.  

Omega-3's function--"to permit animals to think and see... enable nerve cells to send their rapid signals", says Allport, which further allows succinct cellular communication. Plant seeds, the "edible oil",  have high concentrations of Omega-6's, but convert this into Omega-3's upon germination and during photosynthesis. The western industrial food diet relies heavily on extraction of seed oils for foods.    

Newborn diets from an industrial model of over-processed seed-based oil formulas will likely have high concentrations of Omega-6's, which is said by research to decrease brain development and vision acuity. Michael Crawford, a biochemist who currently heads The Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at the London Metropolitan University, flew to FDA conferences in the 1980's & 90's and argued, "It's no longer up to the scientific community to justify why DHA should be in infant formula. It's up to the infant formula company to justify why it isn't."  DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid, is a principle metabolite in the Omega-3 fatty acid chain and is found in the breast milk of mother's with a balanced Omega-3 and 6 diet. 

So, why does a company choose Omega-6's over Omega-3's? The answer is: Shelf Life. Omega-6's are found to take longer for oxidization, the process by which foods break down and become spoiled. Yet again, we find a company is willing to risk the shelf-life of a person to the shelf life of a product. In this case, Susan Allport had a telephone interview with Bob Brown of Frito-Lay who said linolenic acid (Omega-3) "is ten times less stable than linoleic acid", or Omega-6. The USDA agrees with this position, but reality has shown our bodies do not. 

Susan Allport's book found pharmaceutical companies answering, "There's no way to make money from nutrition". Food companies replied to a hired consultant--William Lands--like passive observers at a food crisis they had no control over -- "Bill, we sell foods that people ask for... We don't tell the people what to eat. If you convince the public that our food should have a different balance, we'll change it." This reasoning, using the 'personal responsibility' of a consumer versus the billions spent in advertising, is a companies tactic to externalizing the health costs of their foods onto the public. It is the common tactic to keeping a cost of business low enough, so that the profits out perform any legal liability a company may have to pay for its products deficiency. Reformulations just cost too much.   

Common sense goes a long way in deciding on what to eat in favor of an Omega-3 intake. In the instance of chicken eggs, Artemis Simopoulos's research shows eggs from chickens who feed on plants and insects will have rich increases in Omega-3 fatty acids, while factory raised chickens, fed primarily corn, have a tenth of  the Omega-3's than its counterpart. "For Simopoulos (replying to why Industry hasn't acted in these facts), 'It's a question of economics. The edible oil industry is a very powerful lobby and soybeans and corn are some of our major commodities.'" 

Scientist, Tony Hubert remarks on the situation:"People are going to look back on this time--when we've flooded our food supply with Omega-6's--like they do the Irish potato famine... as the unforeseen of too heavy an emphasis on a single type of food." Simopoulos sees it as, "a human experiment of enormous proportions." 

The FDA doesn't distinguish between the two fatty acids, but clumps them into one polyunsaturated fat. This may be reason enough to call into question our governments interests. Are they unqualified or without the funds to make substantial claims about fatty acids, or is it simply not economical for them to do so? The financial meltdown did not see it economical for government to let the economy run its course to experience the fall of corrupted major investment banks acting to make money off of immoral policies set to deceive mortgage loans. Letting the economy reformulate on food issues would, simply, be too costly for businesses. And, it may result on people looking closer to home for food. It may, cause large groups of people to source diversified foods from a local Farmer and less from the local retailer. Some may already be doing this! 

Cooking and Salad Oils - Ratio of Omega-6's to Omega-3's 

Flaxseed or linseed                                             0.2:1

Canola                                                                   2:1

Canola (for light frying)                                     3:1

Walnut                                                                  5:1

Soybean                                                                7:1

Wheat germ                                                         8:1

Butter                                                                    9:1

Lard                                                                       10:1

Olive                                                                      12:1

Hydrogenated Soybean                                      13:1

High Oleic Sunflower                                         19:1

Corn                                                                      46:1

Palm                                                                      46:1

Sesame                                                                  137:1

Less than 60% linoleic Sunflower                    200:1

Cottonseed                                                           259:1

                                                                                                

                                                                        

Source: USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory. Found within "The Queen of Fats".

Copyright © 2008 The Erie Wire, Inc.

 

   

Reference

"The Queen of Fats"  (University of California Press in September of 2006) by Susan Allport 

Questions to the Author 

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 7:44 AM, The Erie Wire <eriewire@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Susan Allport,

I have a few questions regarding your fantastic book, "The Queen of Fats".

Q: Is an over-consumption of Omega-3's a possibility? Was this addressed by any of the scientists you consulted with?

Q: If butter and lard are sourced from grain fed animals, (besides crisco) what other alternatives exist for cooking?



In Good Soil
Joshua

Hi Joshua, Yes, I think that omega-3s can be overconsumed and that an individual's metabolism can go into overdrive. This isn't often considered since it would be unlikely in today's food culture -- but it is possible. Remember: moderation in everything (including moderation).

 

Besides butter and lard from grass fed animals, canola and olive oil are great choices for cooking. Olive oil doesn't contain many omega-3s but neither does it contain many omega-6s. So it's a neutral framework for a diet rich in other sources of 3s, as was the traditional Mediterranean diet.  

 

Thanks for the questions, Susan

-- 
Susan Allport Howell
333 Hook Rd.
Katonah, NY 10536

914-232-8687

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10264.html
www.susanallport.com

Economy & Industry: Why White Flour?

With recent groundbreaking studies pointing to eating habits as the primary link to many types of health problems, people are becoming more conscious of what they put into their bodies. Because of concerns like trans-fats and empty calories, label reading becomes an important step while shopping for groceries. There are all sorts of health hazards in our favorite food products that we need to be aware of: high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, bleach...  bleach? Yes, bleach, as in whiter clothes, whiter bathroom, whiter teeth and for the last century, whiter food. 

   

The Power of Bleaching our Food

We use bleaching compounds domestically not only as stain-lifters but also as sanitizers. The bleach kills off microorganisms, oxidizing them by breaking down their cell walls and destroying the inner enzymes, structures and processes. Bleaching techniques in our households are usually performed with either peroxides or chlorine. However, in the food industry, they have been used since the early 1900s in the processing of wheat flour. This practice is meant to increase the shelf life of the flour, to make the flour appear whiter and more aesthetically pleasing and to increase the reaction of gluten within the grain in order to produce more volume when baking. During this part of flour processing, the bleaching agent oxidizes the grain (the same way it would oxidize bacteria and other germs), thus its nutritive value is eliminated. Also, when white flour is made, the wholesome bran and the germ are separated out, leaving only the endosperm, which is primarily starch. Millers will enrich the flour with iron and B vitamins in an attempt to make up for the lost nutrients. Unfortunately, the human body is unable to absorb these added nutrients the same way it would the natural nutrients if the whole grain was consumed. Also, the dietary fiber left in the endosperm of the wheat grain is broken down during oxidization, the bulk created by the excess gluten in the flour becomes harder to digest.

The food industry uses several different chemical compounds for bleaching flour. Chlorine dioxide is a common agent used for the process. It is also used in refining sugar, disinfecting drinking water and sanitizing produce. However, during its application of bleaching flour, the chlorine dioxide is known to react with natural properties within the grain to create a type 2 diabetes-causing chemical known as alloxan. Alloxan destroys beta cells in the pancreas, which damages the organ's ability to produce the metabolic hormone known as insulin. Without sufficient amounts of insulin, the body is unable to metabolize sugars and essential fats, and the body is unable to fight off the onset of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. 

According to a 2004 study commissioned by the Erie County Health Department, diabetes was the 5th leading cause of death within our county. Obesity, age and physical inactivity are all serious risk factors that contribute to the onset of diabetes. Also, if there is a family history of diabetes, then the danger of developing the disease significantly increases. While diabetes is commonly thought to be a condition that only develops later in life, it has been predicted that the recent epidemic of childhood obesity means the next generation will develop diabetes type 2 as young adults. They will have higher rates of complications and heart disease than older adults with type 2 diabetes. Children born to young women with type 2 diabetes will be at greater risk as well. The longer a person has diabetes, the more likely he or she will develop the devastating and life-threatening effects of the disease including heart disease, blindness, gangrene and kidney failure.   

If this danger isn't convincing enough to make a person think twice before eating products containing white flour or serving them to children, then consider the flour miller's use of potassium bromate as a treatment in the process.   This additive oxidizes the flour and is also meant to develop the gluten. The use of potassium bromate has recently been exposed as highly controversial due to its cancer-causing properties. The compound has been banned in Canada and the U.K.  for over a decade and California requires a label notifying the consumer if the flour is 'bromated'. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discourages flour millers from using it, potassium bromate is yet to be banned in the United States.

Flours treated with bleaching agents are usually labeled as any of the following: white, enriched, bleached, processed, or fortified.

The Replaceability of White Flour

If you want to avoid these harmful additives when consuming wheat flour, then using 100% whole grain wheat flour is your sufficiently more nutritious alternative.  Whole wheat flour is made from the whole kernel of the grain which includes the bran and wheat germ, the source of most of the grain's nutrients. When buying products that contain wheat flour, look to see whether or not it is made with 100% whole wheat flour. Breads made with 100% whole wheat flour are an excellent source of proteins, B vitamins, minerals, healthy carbohydrates and fiber and also contain less fats than enriched white bread. Wheat flour products can be purchased in most Erie County markets. 

It may be hard to break the habit of cooking with white flour as it is a staple of baking, giving pastries, cookies and cakes the extra fluff, making them so irresistible. But the fact is, replacing white flour is relatively easy and it will make these baked treats more nutritious and decrease negative health effects.