(photo by Nutraflora [tm] )My good friend Noel in NYC called me last night and told me her concerns about a cereal she had bought at the health food store...
She said aside from the fact that it "tasted like poison" when she tried to eat it, in the ingredient list there was something called "Nutraflora" (TM) which had been trademarked. Trademarked food? Assuming that any trademarked food must either be...
1. Chemical/creepy man made & bad for you (aka not food)
2. Trademarking some process of how they got that 'food' , maybe?
So she looked it up, here... where the whole website described a type of food fiber that helps you "absorb calcium". A "prebiotic" they say occurs naturally... but only in the tiniest amounts.
Really? Naturally occurring... then how can they trademark it? I mean my donkey poop naturally occurs from my donkey but I can't trademark donkey poop across the world. Can I?
Is this really going to start happening already, have any of you seen natural foods that have been trademarked at the grocery, such as fruits and veggies? This really smacks of some Monsanto monopoly type crap, where they have claimed their TM'ed seeds, and even seeds that insects accidentally pollinated miles down the road...(destroying other people's farms for their greed & seed!)
How can you claim seeds OR naturally occurring foods as a trademark?
Maybe Nutraflora (tm) can trademark it because actually what it does in your body is not at all natural....
" For example, to get the same benefits offered in one serving of NutraFlora-enriched yogurt, you would have to eat about 22 bananas, 15 onions, 16 tomatoes, or 383 cloves of garlic."Um WHAT? I don't know about you, but hell if I would ever eat 383 cloves of garlic in one meal..... muchless 22 bananas, 15 onions, 16 tomatoes all on the same plate. That is not what the human body was made to do. Period.
To me this is a vitamin product, not a "naturally occurring" food that belongs in Noel's cereal.
And if you wanna know the real deal, this strange shit is in foods you'd never guess...
How about your Horizon organic milk? Or your Silk Soy Milk? Look at the labels.
***
Why is so much food a trademarked experiment these days? And doctors sit around perplexed by all their patients with strange chronic diseases, and food allergies. I believe the mass scale altercation of food through farming AND processing is slowly breaking down the natural abilities & defenses of the human body...
who can say they don't know someone these days who has diabetes, cancer, allergies, arthritis, thyriod disorder, etc. In my opinion it went from minority sick to majority chronically pushing their way through life.
We have made some great break throughs in science, major technological advances. But the altering of what we eat is an experiment we will surely regret. The human body has evolved on foods provided by the earth, not by science labs. The human-like diseases which our pets and animals have begun to have from our man made foods (leukemia, AIDS, diabetes, cancer, tumors) for them is just a small proof of what we are creating for our own now and future.
For good health, eat whole real foods made by nature!
Xoxoxo
PS--- this blog post is the opinion of the author. Don't sue me. Sue Noel, she's the one who brought it up. ;)
I'm of the belief that if you have to Google an ingredient, you probably shouldn't be eating it...
ReplyDeleteAlso, if my cat turns her nose at it, I probably shouldn't be eating it either.
I've always said if the ingredient is an acronym, like THBQ, or if the ingredient is immediately followed with the reason why it is used, like "to preserve freshness" it is usually very, very bad for you.
ReplyDeleteLiving organisms or other living things can be patented if they are man-made. So a peach tree cannot be patented, but if you genetically modify a peach tree so it grows twice as much fruit or it is drought-tolerant, the GMO-peach tree can be patented.
GMO crops for the most part have been unsuccessful in their claims or they've had other adverse effects, although the sale of GMO seeds tends to climb because the market is dominated by GMO-friendly companies like Monsanto. The overall yield of GMO soy beans has been proven to be no greater than natural soybeans. Use of "Roundup Ready" crops (crops which aren't killed by the Roundup pesticide) doesn't lower the amount of pesticide being sprayed and in some cases it needs more, and that's before a Roundup-resistant pigweed evolved which causes the farmers to use as much as ten times the already elevated levels of pesticide they used to spray.
A wind-resistant GMO corn was made so the stalks wouldn't get blown over and damaged by the wind. The unforeseen problem that occurred as a result? The stalk were so strong that they punched holes in the tractor tires when the corn was being harvested.
This is really interesting, I have a 'natural' cereal that I bought recently and couldn't eat because I thought it had a weird chemical taste. I rarely eat things like that anymore (processed foods) and it just cemented in my mind that I need to stick with whole foods.
ReplyDeleteThe FDA has never defined the terms "natural" or "organic". The USDA has defined both, although "natural" is only defined for meat & poultry and even that is a little shady. For the most part a producer can slap the "natural" label on just about anything else and get away with it. They could also claim that "natural" describes the taste, not the content. Back in the 80's a light beer actually had more calories than a regular version and the brewer said that "light" only described the flavor.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the USDA, a food product can be only 95% organic and still carry the "organic" label, or it can have even less than that but legally claim it has "organic ingredients".
Long story short, it's just not safe for the chemically sensitive to trust anything they see on a label. Plus, the packaging could also be a problem, what good does it do to put organic food in a can lined with BPA?
Individual produce associations tend to have very strict organic regulations. One of my friends is an organic wheat farmer and I can tell you that organic wheat should be safe, it's amazing the regulations and documentation he has to follow. He tries to sell the wheat to organic bakeries, but if someone else buys it who knows what happens to the wheat before it lands on somebody's plate.
I switched to a whole food diet this spring and it was one of the best choices I've made. Another good rule to follow: don't eat any food that was made by someone you don't know. It fits the whole food lifestyle quite well as well as keeping the bad stuff at bay, but as you would guess, you end up cooking 99% of all your meals. It also helps when you live in a town with a great farmer's market and which has several whole food grocery co-ops.
Hey Gwynne...
ReplyDeletegood idea! Whole foods are best, and if it's packaged it should be some simple one or two ingredient list.
Except for Amazake rice milk... which i LOVE, it has maybe 4 things in it.
Lou Cheese!
You are full of good info on this subject and I am thankful you have shared it! I know you have written extensively on this subject on your blog when you were leanring about reading labels... it's so good to hear you switched to a while foods diet. What changes did you notice in your health?
I seriously think I would die if i didn't eat that way i do, i don't know how the rest of America survives???
Stephanie...
I can taste pesticides or chemicals on my food really easily now, after years of being off that shit. You know right away when you put it in your mouth and it ceases to taste like 'food'. :0
Reminds me of eating soap when it happens.