LIVING AN EXCEPTIONAL LIFE #66

By Rhonda Jones

What did you have for breakfast this morning? Pop tarts, donuts, Captain Crunch cereal? Are any of these items even food? These foods are not only processed, but they are also ultra-processed foods. What does that mean? It means that this “food” is so chemically enhanced that it does not even resemble real food. If we were to ship it to our ancestors who lived at the beginning of the last century, they would not know what to do with it.

Processed foods got their big push in the 1950s when women began to work outside the home more than they had in previous decades. They were looking for easy, quick ways to get a meal on the table for their family. This propelled packaged foods such as cake mix and macaroni and cheese to the forefront, and these foods soon gave rise to frozen TV dinners, canned spam and spaghetti, and freeze-dried soup.

The big change to more processed foods began in the 1970s as the tobacco companies began looking for another way to make money. In the 1960s, the truth about cigarettes began to surface. Smoking had been so glamorous for decades. Watch any old movie, and you will see almost everyone in the cast smoking. Television shows from the 1950s and 1960s also had cast members smoking in almost every scene.

But, when smoking was linked to heart disease and lung cancer, the popularity began to fade, and soon, the government demanded that warnings be put on cigarette packages. This was a blow to Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, the two biggest tobacco companies. They could see their revenue begin to slip, and they knew they needed an alternative source of revenue.

So, using their tobacco dollars, they bought Nabisco, General Foods, and Kraft. These were the three biggest food companies in the United States. (I am sure they are still the biggest.) These companies made mostly packaged, processed foods such as cookies, chips, crackers, and other items. Kraft made cheese products along with refrigerated turnovers and a variety of foods, including their signature product, Velveeta cheese. (The dad of one of my friends worked at Kraft, so we all wanted to do sleepovers at their house since he brought home lots of Kraft products.)

It is well noted that the tobacco companies did indeed manipulate their cigarettes and added ingredients that would increase dependence on the products. As if cigarettes weren’t addictive enough, they made them even more addictive to increase sales.

So, that same philosophy was applied to food, and the ultra-processed food was born. Ultra-processed food is usually devoid of fruits, vegetables, or anything remotely resembling food. There are plenty of additives, such as preservatives and dyes. Extra salt, oil, and sugar are also added to create addiction. So, when Bert Lahr said of Lay’s potato chips, “You can’t eat just one,” he was exactly right. It is really hard to resist these foods the as sugar, oil, salt, preservatives, and other manufactured ingredients just make them so irresistible.

But these products aren’t food. Some have added vitamins and minerals since these were stripped out of the product during manufacturing. They provide very little actual nourishment but have a bucket load of calories, so it is virtually impossible to eat these ultra-processed foods and be healthy or lose weight.

What is the answer? Eat whole, unprocessed food. The kind of food that your great-great-grandmother would recognize. Keep the processed foods to a minimum and try to avoid ultra-processed foods altogether. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Fill up and get healthy again.