Corrupt Food Industry / Population Control

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I think that just about everyone will find  something in this post that will surprise them.  I know I did.

More and more of the pieces are coming together.  The CONSPIRACY runs so deep and wide it makes it hard to detect and harder to believe.

The elite have been poisoning us for quite a while.  The technology they have developed  and implemented is far beyond our ability to overcome.  Just like the WORD of God states  If Jesus/Yahushua does not return soon, there will be NO LIFE LEFT TO SAVE.

AGENDA – DELETE HUMANITY

The Global Diet – A Matter of Life or Death

FOOD SUPPLY

THERE IS NO FOOD LIKE OUR OLD FOOD

Nourishment

What will you do when…

THIS IS A MAJOR ATTACK ON OUR FOOD SUPPLY

WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN BILL GATES’ WORLD?

BILL GATES IN HIS OWN WORDS – EUGENICS BY ANY MEANS

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THE RISE OF DISEASE & GREED:  INSIDE THE GLOBAL CORRUPTION OF THE FOOD INDUSTRY

By: MIGHTY PURSUIT TEAM
Like breathing and sleeping, eating is a basic function of human life. Every day, we buy food through a variety of mediums, whether that be from the supermarket, the convenience store, Amazon, a fine dining experience or a quick stop at our favorite fast food joint. Every time we eat, we carry around an unconscious assumption that since our food is being served at a restaurant, or since it is allowed on a grocery store shelf, that means that the food must be safe. Although most of us carry that assumption, sadly it is wrong. Over the last 60 years, we have seen an unprecedented increase in disease in the United States, both in the short-term and long-term. The short-term effects of this can be observed in the 48 million Americans who contract food poisoning every year. Doing the math, that’s roughly 1 in every 6 people, with many resulting in hospitalizations, or even death. Over the long-term, chronic disease is affecting the population in a wide variety of ways. For instance, in the 1950s, just 10% of the population was obese. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 42%.  Chronic diseases are a source of incredible suffering in the general population, as people deal with cancer, diabetes, digestive disorders, strokes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and kidney disease. And did we mention mental health issues? The latest data from the CDC revealed that 7 out of 10 deaths every year are due to chronic diseases. How could this be? Sometimes when we develop chronic diseases, or even end up in the hospital, we don’t even think about our diet. Maybe we’re just getting older, or maybe this is just genetic.  And while both things may carry some influence in some cases, the overall logic doesn’t make much sense. Consider that in recent years the effects of the COVID vaccine have caused a major stir, because people don’t want to put a foreign substance into their body.  If that’s the case, why WOULDN’T the stuff we put in our bodies everyday – our food – have either a positive or negative effect on our health? With food, we’re talking about potentially putting foreign substances into our bodies EVERY DAY over an entire lifetime. The problem is that many of us don’t see it that way, because we carry around the assumption that our food is safe. We see the beloved bag of M&M’s, a happy meal at McDonald’s, a can of Pepsi or even a footlong at Subway and think it is perfectly fine for us. Could there be some healthier choices? Sure, but everything in moderation, right?  Sadly, the reality is far darker than we could have ever imagined. There are many foreign substances and chemicals in our food, much that is unregulated by the United States government.  A recent report analyzing over 11,000 products on our grocery store shelves revealed that 70% are toxic for our health. Some products could make you sick immediately – i.e. food poisoning – but more likely these products will have a detrimental effect on your health over time. When you peel back the layers, you discover that most restaurants and fast food companies are basically serving disease on a platter.  You discover a food system that is incredibly corrupt and motivated by greed and power, with everyone playing a part from the food companies to the government to even the supermarkets themselves. To be clear, this is not a matter of fear-mongering or trying to make a news-worthy headline, rather it is a truth that has been documented extensively by many food experts in books and documentaries throughout the years. It’s happening right under our noses. And in an effort to protect ourselves and those we love, we need to learn about how the corrupt system is set up, and the many different ways we interact with it on a daily basis. So let’s begin.

THE RISE OF PROFIT-SEEKING

If you were to transport back in time to the late 1800s, chances are you would be living on a farm, growing your own food and eating mostly home-cooked meals. In fact, at that timeover 90% of the American population lived on farms. Today? Just one percent. Dr. Marion Nestle, who is one of the top researchers in the world, explains in Food Politics, “The diet of the earliest American settlers depended on foods obtained through farming, hunting and gathering, and – to a limited extent – internal and external trade. What people actually were eating before the twentieth century, however, is only known only from anecdotal accounts or small surveys.” What we know about the science of nutrition did not start to fully develop until the late 1800s. This is when Wilbur Atwater, the father of modern nutrition, put into motion the first set of dietary guidelines. However, at the time you could say that food producers did not have “blood on their hands”, because they did not understand the full extent of how food impacts the body from a nutritional standpoint. But with knowledge comes responsibility, especially when you know what you’re producing will affect the health of the general population. If you know better, do better. The problem is that from the earliest days of nutrition advice, it appears that the opposite was happening. Nestle goes on to explain that when the 14-page pamphlet How To Select Foods was published in 1917, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) “ignored Atwater’s advice” to limit sugar and fat intake, two things that still plague our society today. Why would they do such a thing?  Nestle explains that, “dietary advice issued by the government never has been purely based on considerations of public health,” and goes on to note how the government has always been in bed with the food and agriculture industries. As noted in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, the meatpacking industry had significant influence over the government agencies even this early in history. The impact of this would be capped for a few more decades until the 1950s, when a few key developments significantly advanced the rise of disease and greed.  Big Food companies rose to prominence, coupled with the fact that women started working more and home-cooked meals were no longer a given as they had been in previous generations.  This led to the birth of something that has come to define our modern society – convenience. As Bryan McDonald explains in Food Power: “The watchword in the industry – as for consumers – was convenience. Companies could appeal to consumers’ desire for convenience and time-saving by selling products with longer-shelf lives and more processing that meant less preparation in the home.” With such a large opportunity to sell into, food companies still faced a couple problems. “Chief among them was the problem of “fixed stomachs,” the fact that Americans were unlikely to eat more food.. increased consumption of one type of food meant decreased consumption of another type of food,” McDonald writes in Food Power.

This is one of the first signs of everything going terribly wrong, because “fixed stomachs” were never a problem to solve. As Nestle puts it plainly in What To Eat, “if you eat more, you are more likely to gain weight and become less healthy.”

When you’re producing a product that people ingest and thus can put their health at risk, profit no longer becomes the biggest priority. You cannot create a business model that is based on making people sick. If you have decided to make a living through these industries, an ethical reality is that there will likely be a cap on how much money you can make… unless you want to cause disease in the general population for the sake of profit. And unfortunately, this is exactly what food companies did. Food companies slowly started expanding people’s stomachs by increasing portion sizes alongside brilliant marketing campaigns.  Portion sizes are now triple what they were in the 1950s.  How did we go from a 10% obesity rate to 36% in modern times? There’s your answer. But food companies didn’t just stop there. Their goal wasn’t just to increase stomach sizes, but ALSO make food cheaper.  “New artificial flavor agents helped liberate companies from production bottlenecks because of dependence on natural fruits and flavors. All told, during the 1950s, food scientists developed more than 400 new additives for use in preserving and processing foods,” McDonald adds. Again, here we see an ethical limit that the food industry was bumping up against. There is a baseline cost to creating products that are actually made of real food – like natural fruits and flavors. You cannot get around this if you want to protect the health of the people. But the food companies didn’t care and started making artificial ingredients in a lab anyway. These additives, as you’ll learn shortly, are absolutely toxic for our health and have had a big role in the rise of disease. And we eat them all the time. Fast food restaurants have rode this business strategy – cheap ingredients, big portions and convenience – all the way to the top of the proverbial food chain. McDonald’s is now worth $209 billion dollars. We don’t often think in these terms, but the reality is that being that large means they have directly contributed to disease or death in millions of people. To understand why, let’s explore the two critical parts of a food company’s business strategy. First the “eat more” agenda, followed by the development of artificial ingredients.

THE RISE OF THE “EAT MORE” AGENDA

Rapper Biggie Smalls once said “mo’ money, mo’ problems.”  In a similar way, more food equals more problems for the human body. But food companies haven’t heeded the words of Biggie, as creating bigger portion sizes and bigger pocketbooks is always top priority.  They push their agenda at the expense of science, which has proven that one of the keys to living a long and healthy life is eating less.  Which makes sense, by the way, because food was a scarcity for much of human history. As we discuss in our blog on fasting, science has revealed that our bodies function much better on less food (or even without food at all) rather than with excesses of food.  Eating more is simply unnatural for us. Despite this, we’re eating more than ever and playing right into the hands of food companies. As we already mentioned, portion sizes are now triple what they were in the 1950s. The average American now consumes 3,600 calories per day – a massive increase from what was previously 1,800 for women in 1950 to 2,800 for men.  Four times the amount of people are obese.  But how exactly has the food industry been so successful in stretching “the fixed stomach” and getting us to eat more? Most of it comes down to psychological manipulation tactics. Here’s several key strategies.

Portion distortion

One of the main manipulative strategies over the last half century has been creating “portion distortion” in the consumer. This refers to the underlying psychological process that unfolds over time when larger portions keep getting placed in front of us. Both mentally and physiologically, our perception starts to become skewed when we are exposed to larger portions. This includes:

    • Psychological triggers: when we are served bigger portions, we take bigger bites, and will likely finish the entire plate even if we are not hungry anymore. This naturally creates overeating.
    • Expectations: We start to expect larger portion sizes, and are disappointed when normal sizes are given to us, especially at sit-down restaurants.
    • Cravings: At one point in time we may have been disgusted by large portions, but now we develop cravings for larger portions.

 Food companies know all of this, so they have increased sizes periodically since the 1960s. Consider that in the 1980s the average bagel was just 3 inches in diameter. Now it’s double that at 6 inches.  A little research will lead you to discover that nearly every food product was smaller at one point in time. As unethical as it may be, food companies knew it was a smart business move to increase portion sizes because they now pull in much more revenue. Unfortunately, portion distortion has happened with everything from soda sizes, snack packaging and fast food meals to restaurant entrees and grocery products.

Get the biggest bang for your buck

Another psychological manipulation tactic that often is paired with portion distortion is presenting the illusion that we’re getting the biggest bang for our buck. In employing this strategy, food companies have intentionally reshaped how we see the value of food.  This strategy is employed at most fast food restaurants and also at the grocery stores (i.e. Walmart). In some cases, food companies will often have larger portions at slightly higher prices so that we really feel like we’re getting the most for our money. As we discussed in our blog on beating the manipulation at the supermarket, the entire store is designed to get you to impulse buy, and thus eat more food. This is all terrible news for our health, because we didn’t need the extra food to begin with. It’s not good for our bodies. It is here that we must stop and think about why their food is so cheap to begin with. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And in the case of cheap food, it’s because they’re selling us garbage.

Controlling the narrative

To make matters worse, the food industry has leveraged their political clout to control the public narrative so that no one hears any messaging that “eating more” is bad for you.  As Nestle documents in chapter one of Food Politics, every time there has been support within the government to potentially send out messaging to the public to eat less, food industry officials quickly run to “discredit, weaken and eliminate” those messages. They’ve even gone as far as influencing the U.S. dietary guidelines, which is supposed to be driven by science. Somehow they’ve gotten the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) to include friendly language that DOES NOT tell us to eat less, rather to just eat within a certain set of vague parameters. More on that later. All of this matters deeply, especially when people are seeing tons of food advertising everyday urging them to eat more.

It’s all YOUR responsibility

This all culminates with the last (and most laughable) manipulation tactic, which is to deflect blame onto the consumer. When food companies are criticized for creating the obesity epidemic, very rarely will they accept responsibility. They resort to shaming people, saying that it is the consumer’s responsibility to manage their weight and eat less. But how much control do we really have when they increase portion sizes, create portion distortion and control the narrative through the government? Is it really on the consumer, when companies use every psychological trick in the book to get us to buy more and more of their product?  To continue to use this argument is no different than the logic of a drug dealer. You’re doing everything you can to get people to eat more and you build the market, only to deflect blame when people develop a disease because of what you worked so hard to sell them.

THE RISE OF FOOD ADDITIVES, GMOS & PESTICIDES

Large portion sizes often lead to weight gain and health issues, but the situation gets much worse when the food you’re ingesting is toxic itself. This is where food additives enter the conversation. Food companies take advantage of the fact that people are generally uneducated about the food production process and are unaware how their health is being impacted by the way their food is being made. They take advantage of the fact that we trust them to do right by us. But they don’t. They make food with profits in mind, not our health. They alter food in ways that are unnatural and put us in danger. To fully grasp this, you need to first understand the concept of processed food. In recent years, this word has started carrying a negative connotation, but a large part of the population still doesn’t understand what it really means. Processed food isn’t inherently bad. Most food is processed, in the sense that you make it safe for consumption. This could be as simple as peeling a fruit or chopping an apple. In these cases, it would fall into the definition of a minimally processed food. The problem is that the more you process a food, the more it loses its nutritional value and health benefits. Most of the American food supply is ultra processed, in the sense that it has been so heavily altered that it resembles nothing of real food anymore. We don’t often think about how it’s possible for a food to have shelf life for many months or even years. In large part, it’s because the food has been so heavily processed, and infused with so many food additives. This is where the conversation gets really ugly. Food additives, which are also known as artificial ingredients or food preservatives, are “chemicals added to foods to keep them fresh or to enhance their color, flavor or texture,” per BetterHealth. They have absolutely zero nutritional value. And they’re terrible for our bodies, which is why Europe has banned many of them from our food supply. The United States government could enact the same laws to ban them TODAY, but they don’t. Consider that even Whole Foods has gone ahead and banned over 260+ artificial ingredients from ever making their way into their stores. But not the U.S. government. As we’ll learn later, it is because of the incredible amount of collusion with the food industry. In some cases, the use of additives is particularly evil. Food dyes, like Red 40 and Yellow 6 have been linked to everything from lymphoma and kidney tumors to ADD and chromosomal damage.

Yet food companies like Mars use them in products like M&M’s to enhance the appearance and market to children – fully knowing that these chemicals are linked with disease.

Sadly, the problem of food modification extends far beyond packaged foods, and makes its way into our meat, fruits and vegetables. GMO is another buzzword that has gotten negative attention recently, and for very good reason. In short, anything that has gone through genetic modification is considered GMO. This applies to both meat and vegetables. Research has shown that GMOs are toxic for the human body. For example, to increase profits meat producers will pump cattle full of growth hormones.  Consider that we produce nearly DOUBLE the meat that we did in 1960. For the cattle, it contributes to inhumane living conditions. And for us, we end up ingesting everything they pumped into that cattle.  When it comes to vegetables and fruits, harmful pesticides are sprayed on farms across the country to control pests, bacteria, mold and fungus. How bad are these for our health? In 2016 over 11,000 people sued Monsanto, one of the chief offenders, because they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from Monsanto’s pesticides.  Whether it’s food additives, GMOs or pesticides, all of these practices are incredibly unnatural and unethical. It is possible to make foods that are simultaneously convenient and nutritious. And it’s being done. But most food companies opt not to do that, because it would create added complications and be less profitable. Time and time again, they prioritize money over the health of the general population. It is clear that they have blood on their hands, in the form of death and chronic disease in millions of people.  This business strategy – get people to eat more and modify foods – is incredibly profitable. As we’ll soon learn, food companies do everything in their power to control the public narrative and protect this strategy.

THE RISE OF FALSE CLAIMS

Food companies are extremely skilled when it comes to controlling the public narrative and protecting this business strategy.  All of this happens behind-the-scenes in a very strategic manner, so that the average person won’t recognize that food companies are actually the ones pulling the strings. In Unsavory Truth, Nestle gives us an inside look into the industry playbook of controlling the narrative. Their first strategy is to cast doubt on the science. Even when the data is conclusive and clear, anything that would potentially lead to less profits represents a threat to food companies. This applies on an ingredient level (i.e. Red 40) and a product level (i.e. selling meat). It benefits them to create mass confusion around nutrition information. For example, sugar in large quantities (especially added sugar) is terrible for human health. Sugar is largely nutritionally useless, and mass consumption can lead to cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  But with the sugar industry, Nestle reports “this industry was engaged in casting doubt on inconvenient science as early as the 1960s.”  Nestle herself has been on the receiving end of this strategy. After publishing Food Politics, she did a radio interview and outlined the dangers of consuming too much sugar. What happened next? She received a ridiculous letter from a lawyer at the Sugar Association, accusing her of making “numerous false, misleading, disparaging, and defamatory statements about sugar.” This is one small example of thousands, in which food companies try to silence the truth. They have a long line of lackeys, ready and willing to do the dirty work.  The next step of the playbook is to fund research to produce desired results for their products. Nestle explains that the parent company of M&M’s, Mars International, once “marketed the candy bars – recommending two a day, no less – as a means of increasing blood flow, lowering blood pressure and reducing the risk of heart disease,” based on studies they themselves funded. Clearly, this is a ridiculous claim. Yet the general public does not know that Mars or any other company are the ones behind the candy bar studies. At face value, it appears that independent researchers are the ones who did the studies.  The public is not aware that a food association or company gave that researcher funding. As Nestle explains, “Researchers who take food industry funding do not believe that it affects their study design or interpretation and are outraged at the suggestion. Research, however, shows strong correlations between funding and research outcome.”  This produces a massive amount of misinformation in the media. Both intentionally and unintentionally.  Intentionally, through talented PR teams leveraging their media connections to ensure that news articles are written on the study. And unintentionally, when other media outlets simply pick it up because they found it to be newsworthy, not being aware that the underlying studies are biased.  When this reaches us, the consumer, we take things at face value when we read certain headlines. It gives us comfort knowing that we can then eat that candy bar twice a day and (supposedly) get health benefits from it.

The dark reality is that many food companies are well-aware their product is terrible for your health and it has ingredients that cause disease, but still proceed to manipulate you so they can make a sale.

In Unsavory Truth, Nestle cites a case where the maker of aspartame (a food additive) funded 74 studies about its safety. Unsurprisingly, every study concluded it was safe. However, aspartame is a known cancer risk and 90% of truly independent studies questioned its safety. While food companies aren’t directly writing or conducting the research study, they often influence, persuade, and “edit” the final copy.

THE RISE OF LOBBYING

At this point, it’s fair to wonder “how is this all legal?” It is largely because the United States government enables and participates in the corrupt food system. While food companies are primarily motivated by profits and greed, politicians are motivated by power. Politicians can ensure that they stay in power when they have the support of powerful food companies with billions of dollars.  Together, they can serve each other’s interests. Much of this can be traced back to lobbying, which by definition is an attempt to “influence a politician or the government and, for example, persuade them to support or oppose a change in the law.” Coca-Cola is one of the biggest lobbyists, spending about $5.62 million on lobbying in 2021. That’s chump change for a company worth $286 billion, but it can pay massive dividends for them in the long run.  While more rules and regulations have been developed around lobbying, there are certainly gray areas that can be taken advantage of. What’s stopping a Coca-Cola lobbyist, for instance, from wining and dining with a congressman and covering the check?

There’s a famous story of Alfonso Fanjul Jr., a sugar baron (and Democratic Party donor), calling up President Bill Clinton to complain about VP Al Gore drafting a sugar tax for environmental purposes. The sugar tax was quickly shelved. 

As one observer recalled, “that’s access“. Corruption isn’t always so cut and dry or obvious, but that situation showed the presidential administration was more concerned with satisfying wealthy donors than public health or the environment. This system is so corrupt that it even extends into the U.S. Dietary Guidelines themselves. Dr. Walter Willett, who is the chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard, says that, “The current system opens the guidelines up to lobbying and manipulation of data.” Nestle, reflecting on this influence, says “I was told we could never say ‘eat less meat’ because USDA would not allow it.”  In 2020, the Dietary Guidelines Committee penned an 835 page document recommending lower sugar intake and limited daily alcohol consumption. They also cited the impacts of climate change on the food supply and how we can adjust accordingly. The Federal Government hit them with a not-so-subtle “thanks, but no thanks,” and omitted the recommendations. It’s almost comical how unsurprised people were by the omissions. It’s become common practice for the food industry to control these guidelines, not scientists. This is incredibly dangerous for obvious reasons, as the guidelines are supposed to inform the public on matters of health.  Lobbying can be a way of creating meaningful change, such as advocating for employee minimum wage or health benefits. But more often than not, it’s used to satisfy financial wants of big corporations, which is exactly what we see with the food industry.

THE RISE OF PAY-TO-PLAY

When it comes to controlling the narrative, the food companies make sure to exhaust every avenue possible. If you’ve ever been to a Dave & Buster’s (a.k.a adult Chuck-E-Cheese), you’re probably familiar with how the process works. You pay the cashier for some tokens and get unlimited access to a host of arcade games and prizes. There’s no skill requirement to enter Dave & Buster’s – you just have to pay up. Many players in the food industry view health professionals and dietary research in the same “pay for play” way. If the research isn’t trending the way they want, they’ll pay to get it moved in the right direction. There’s a variety of ways this is achieved, one of which is sponsorships.  Marion Nestle encountered this firsthand when the American Dietetic Association approached her about speaking at their annual conference. She had a chance to debate food biotechnology (GMOs) in front of leading health experts and food industry execs, and the trip was all expenses paid for…by Monsanto. Dr. Nestle wrestled in her mind: “If I refuse such invitations, I lose an opportunity to explain my views to an influential audience. If I decline the funding, I’m out considerable costs of travel and hotel accommodations. But if I accept the invitation, will my views be compromised by the partnership?” This dilemma is common for leading nutritionists. Much like lobbying, the idea of having nutritionists speak at a conference, even one sponsored by a big food company, isn’t inherently bad.  It gives nutritionists a platform, even if they do feel awkward about contradicting the views of their food industry hosts. Moreover, there isn’t a cut and dry “right” answer. Some nutritionists will never accept such an invitation, but in turn lose out on a platform. Others accept, but are criticized by their peers as “corruptible.”

Nestle also noted that physicians sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were more likely to prescribe medications of said companies. “Major US studies have revealed accepting payments from pharmaceutical companies is associated with increased rates of prescribing those drugs,” said an ABC News article. 

The dubiousness of sponsorship can be debated, but the larger factor at play is  how food companies shape nutrition research in general. Researchers strapped for cash need some kind of funding source, and many big food companies are happy to pay.  Some researchers combat outside corruption by disclosing where their funding sources come from. Though this transparency is helpful, it doesn’t solve everything.  In 1988, the American Heart Association decided to create a “heart-healthy” label for foods. This would serve as both an education piece for the public and a funding source. Food companies would have to pay fees to the AHA to get the heart-healthy certification, sometimes up to $1 million depending on the company’s size.  You can see where this is headed. The FDA was skeptical of this “pay for play” type program, saying “your proposed program could very easily result in the endorsement of products…that quite simply do not represent the kinds of foods that ought to be promoted to achieve healthy hearts.” Nevertheless, the AHA persisted and retooled their program to generally meet FDA labeling guidelines, and reduced fees to get the label. Among the recipients of the heart-healthy certification?  Frosted Flakes. The Chicago Tribune famously reported on the absurdity of this in 1997. “Somehow it seems difficult to write ‘Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes’ and ‘heart-healthy’ in the same sentence. But the American Heart Association has managed to approve the conceptual pairing, right on every box featuring Tony the Tiger.” The AHA defended the labeling process, citing that the fees went to “educational efforts about preventing the disease.”  But isn’t telling people what’s healthy or unhealthy in a grocery store a form of education? Critics argued that the label could mislead people into thinking that certain foods were healthier than others. Many oatmeals, arguably healthier than Frosted Flakes, don’t have the healthy-heart check mark, for instance. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) is also a major player in food and nutrition education. The A.N.D. represents the interests of 70,000+ nutrition professionals, with goals of “improving the nation’s health.” However, they also have troublingly close ties to the food industry.  Their coziness with many food industries is yet another example of dollars doing the talking. The A.N.D. will often put out “nutrition fact” sheets that are often directly funded by food industry sources. The publication “Eggs: A Good Choice for Moms-to-Be” was unsurprisingly sponsored by the American Egg Board. Some other big names that have historically partnered with the A.N.D. include Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s. Their current sponsors include other food titans like Mondelez International, makers of Chips Ahoy! & Oreos. Not exactly paragons of health. As you see, whether it is through studies, marketing budgets, public officials or nutrition professionals, food companies make sure to cover every base when it comes to manipulation.

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Corrupt Food Industry | Hidden Work | Dangerous additives | Documentary

Moconomy
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Corrupt Food Industry – How come ham is pink? Why do we believe that it is good for our children? Why are product labels beyond understanding? Industrial giants are able to stall and orientate policy decisions that directly affect public health.

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But Not SimplerBut Not Simpler

I Hate to Break it to You, but You Already Eat Bugs

I grabbed a box of cereal out of my cabinet. The flakes smelled stale, but I was hungry enough. I poured a cup or two into a bowl, followed by a splash of milk.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization recently released a report [PDF] touting the nutritional and environment benefits of eating our many-legged friends (or pests), which scuttled into all corners of the media. (You can read a very thorough write-up bug eating at io9 and here at Scientific American.) The gist is that insects may end up solving a real food crisis by giving up their lives for human consumption. To most of the world, this was old news–insects are considered staples and even delicacies in many cultures. But Western media still let out an audible cringe at the thought of crunching down on chitin.

Ignorance is bliss…

Out of Sight, Still In Your Mouth

You’re deluding yourself if you think farming is as clean as making a microchip. We are always on insect territory. Try as we might with insecticides and other engineered poisons, bugs crawl all over our food to feed (and procreate) on it. When we harvest and package our crops, a lot of bugs come along for the ride. Be aware, all the hitchhikers aren’t removed. At least there are limits on how many bugs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets you unknowingly eat.

The FDA’s Defect Levels Handbook lays it all out. Staples like broccoli, canned tomatoes, and hops readily contain “insect fragments”–heads, thoraxes, and legs–and even whole insects. (I won’t tell you about the rat hair limits…) Fig paste can harbor up to 13 insect heads in 100 grams; canned fruit juices can contain a maggot for every 250 milliliters; 10 grams of hops can be the home for 2,500 aphids.

All of these are merely aesthetic limits. It’s seemingly for your mental well-being. Like a child moving a mountain of peas around on a plate until it looks like she’s eaten more, the insect legs, bodies, and heads are less noticeable to us at the FDA’s proposed concentrations. Your shredded wheat won’t look like shredded thrips anytime soon. Anything over these limits would be aesthetically unpleasing, but it’s doing you no harm. You obviously aren’t keeling over from eating too much carapace.

The “action levels” sets by the FDA are for maximum insect contamination, so you ultimately ingest less than these limits. Nevertheless, bugs are making it into your gut whether you see them or not. Layla Eplett over at the Scientific American Guest Blog estimates that “an individual probably ingests about one to two pounds of flies, maggots and other bugs each year without even knowing it.”

So, I hate to break it to you, but you already eat bugs. Not nearly enough for you to recognize it or to potentially harm you, but down the hatch they go. You don’t really notice now, so just how much bug would have to be in your food for you to notice? If Westerners aren’t ready to dive into katydid kabobs, we can at least calculate the equivalent amount of bug burgers in your food.

Bug Burger

Bugs like thrips and aphids have to be tiny indeed to pepper our food with their parts without us noticing. By my estimation, 5,000 aphids weigh about the same as a paperclip (each aphid being 1/5 of a milligram). If you are feelings adventurous, that means you could mash and mold 567,000 of the little plant suckers into a leggy equivalent of a Mac Donald’s quarter pounder.

You should be happy the bugs that call our food home aren’t bigger. The largest insect with reliable data on its mass is New Zealand’s Giant Weta, weighing about the same as a jumbo supermarket chicken egg. Just four of these bugs would be the same weight as a Big Mac. But you’ll thankfully never find one of these insects in your food (you’d notice the crunch).

Following FDA guidelines, you don’t have to order a bug burger to eat the same amount as one. If you are a fan of spinach, the action limit is 50 or more aphids, thrips and/or mites per 100 grams. That’s spinach that is 0.01% bug by weight. By the time you eat 1,000 kilograms of spinach you have eaten a quarter pounder’s worth of aphid. (Popeye has eaten a lot of bug burgers.)

Bug beer is even better. Many of the bugs and bug parts will be filtered out during brewing, but the FDA’s limit on the hops that go into the tank is 2,500 aphids per 10 grams of hops. That’s right, 5% of the total weight of the hops making your summer ale can be bug. A quarter pounder’s worth of aphid butt goes into the brewer for every 2.5 kilograms of hops.

Dessert is the same. If we consider the “insect parts” that the FDA limits to be about the same weight as a tiny aphid–a conservative estimate–then once you eat around 100 kilograms of your favorite chocolate you’ve eaten a full kilogram of bug. That’s a serious amount of cocoa, but nonetheless, bug you eat.

And if you fancy making bread from scratch, about one and a half kilograms of insect is sprinkled into every 100 kilograms you use.

Total up all the food you eat over the course of a lifetime, and I’d be surprised if we couldn’t trace a cringe-worthy percentage back to bugs.

Despite all the potential knee-jerk revulsion, it’s important to remember that like all the animals we eat, insects share the planet with us. They outnumber us by a wide margin. If anything, we share the Earth with them. To have insects spice up our food is unavoidable, but harmless. The op-ed pieces screaming about what “gross stuff” the FDA lets us eat are over-blown and under-informed. Think of how many pounds of food you have eaten in your lifetime. How many plates were infested, and how many times were you hospitalized with chitin-related injuries? The fact of the matter is that insects were here first. We do our best to minimize our contact with them, but the circle of life offers the little creepy crawlies up as a viable, nutritious food source, and we should embrace that.

After all, humans have eaten insects for millennia, and one day they will return the favor.—

Update 9/5/13:

Bug blogger Bug Girl informed me that grain beetles were much more likely candidates for my cereal pillagers than my original identification of thrips.\

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The Unbelievable Ways Dried Crickets Are Turning Up in Your Food

Everything you ever wanted to know about the growing trend of cricket flour in food. 

Headshot of Stephanie EckelkampBY STEPHANIE ECKELKAMP

MEDIA PLATFORMS DESIGN TEAM

Bugs are trending…all over my office. I’m buried in samples of foods made from crickets: cricket cookies, tortilla chips, protein bars, even all-purpose flour that apparently has nutty undertones and works well in banana bread. I’m intrigued and slightly weirded out, but most of all I’m wondering: Are bugs in food just a fleeting fad for the Western world, a nostalgic nod to more primeval populations who have been eating insects for centuries? Or does it have the potential to become part of the American palate, akin to sushi in the 1970s? I decide to investigate.

cricket chips

STUART TYSON

How did insects end up in our food?

While eating bugs is common in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it wasn’t until last May that the Western world—and, naturally, a bunch of start-ups—began taking edible insects seriously. That’s when the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization released a report stating that by 2050, the world will need to feed 2 billion extra people, given the jump in population growth. One of its solutions: Eat more protein-rich bugs, which, if they become part of the mainstream global diet, could greatly affect the environment. Crickets emit 100 times fewer greenhouse gases than cattle, and raising a pound of crickets requires 1 gallon of water and 2 pounds of feed, while raising a pound of beef requires 2,000 gallons of water and 25 pounds of feed.  

Cheap food is cool. But, uh, how do we make insects part of the mainstream in the US, where we’d much rather spray them with poison than sauté them in a pan? That’s where creative start-ups come in. Earlier this year, a woman named Megan Miller cofounded Bitty Foods in San Francisco, selling grain-free, cricket-flour-based cookies in flavors like orange-ginger and chocolate-cardamom. She says the cookies are a “gateway product,” meaning their sugary form can help disguise the fact that you’re eating bugs (and the gateway is apparently working, as I’m now on my third cookie since starting to write this article). “The key is turning crickets into something familiar,” Miller says. “So we slow roast them and mill them into a powder that can be incorporated into basically anything.”

Familiarity seems to be the key word. Suzy Badaracco, president of Culinary Tides, a company that forecasts foods trends, predicts that the edible-bug business will certainly grow, but most likely for insect-flour-based products like protein bars, chips, cookies, and cereals—that is, foods in which you can’t see actual bug parts.
SO, they have to HIDE or OCCULT what they are feeding us, because if we knew, we would never eat it!!  That is what the DEVIL does with every evil thing.  DECEPTION AND LIES!!  He knows that once humans buy the lie and begin to partake, they are lost.  They have crossed the line and come under his dominion.
 
The time is right, Badaracco adds, because American consumers have a growing interest in sustainability and nutrition, especially when it comes to high-protein foods. And she seems to be right. Shortly after I chatted with Badaracco, JetBlue announced that it would begin offering Exo cricket-flour protein bars to passengers on JFK-to-LAX flights starting in 2015. Whole-insect consumption, on the other hand, has no historical ties to the US, so it has a lot to overcome before penetrating deeper into the retail and restaurant scenes.

We could only find cricket bars in hipster-riddled markets and Whole Foods. Will that change? Bitty Foods sales are through the roof—they tripled in a recent 3-week span following some good press. What’s more, celebrity chef Tyler Florence joined as culinary director of the company to help develop “a range of products that will go straight into national distribution within a year,” says Miller. She couldn’t comment on specific products but says there’s potential for things like breads and pastas. “Stuff that’s normally just a carb bomb can be turned into something really nutritious,” she notes. And for you number-crunching health nuts, bugs really are good for you: Dried crickets have 60 to 70% protein—cup for cup, that’s comparable to beef—and contain omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, iron, and calcium.

exo bars

chapul bar

STUART TYSON

All this potential growth begs the question: Where the heck will all these bugs come from? Right now there aren’t enough suppliers to meet demand—only about five farms producing food-grade insects exist in North America, which means bug-based foods will remain pricey. For context, a bag of Bitty Foods’ baking flour goes for $20. But interest in bug farming is growing, and, thanks to agricultural technology companies like Tiny Farms, people now have the support to start. “I literally get e-mails every day from people who want to start farming,” says Tiny Farms’ CEO, Daniel Imrie-Situnayake, whose company is creating a model for what a modern, highly efficient insect farm looks like. The goal: Develop a network of these farms, buy their insects, ensure their quality, and sell them to manufacturers. “With the systems we’re designing, production will rise and prices will drop,” he says. “So if you want to replace some of your expensive beef or chicken with insects, that’s going to become very cost-effective within the next few years.”

Oh, and it’s not just us who could be eating more insects—we may one day find ourselves shopping for bug-fed beef, too. What does that mean? FAO’s Paul Vantomme sees some of the biggest potential for insects in the animal-feed sector. “The main sources of protein for animal feed are currently soy and fish meal, so we’re essentially feeding livestock things humans could eat, which isn’t very efficient,” he says. “With insects, we can feed them organic waste that’s not competing with human demands.”

All the things that make these creatures abominable in God’s eyes.  The live off waste drink very little water, do not have proper intestinal systems and they live in cramped spaces where they receive little or no sunshine..  These factors cause them to be unclean.   Unfit to consume.  The biggest factor is that they contain NO LIFE!!  They are not creatures that GOD created them.  They are unable to bring life to your body. 

Not to mention, farming insects requires very little space and water, compared with something like soybeans. But, Vantomme cautions, it will likely be a few years before there’s enough production to make insect meal cost-competitive with current animal-feed sources, as well as the development of the required regulations for the use of insects in our feed chains.

So, whichever way we spin it, it looks like bugs will eventually enter the food supply. Could eating a chocolate-chip cricket cookie save the planet? No, but down the road, the cumulative effect of a large number of people eating small quantities of insect-based foods just might ensure there’s more meat and resources to go around for the burgeoning global population—and help you hit your protein quota in the process.

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The Untold Truth Of Cricket Flour

BY SAMANTHA MAXWELL/UPDATED: FEB. 2, 2023 12:55 PM EST

BY SAMANTHA MAXWELL/UPDATED: FEB. 2, 2023 12:55 PM EST
For some, the idea of eating crickets — and really any insect — is definitely not an option. Pests and creepy crawlies often feel like they’re off-limits in terms of the dinner table. But, if you come across cricket flour, you shouldn’t say “never” just yet. First of all, cricket flour is broken down and processed, so you will not actually have to crunch through the exoskeleton with your teeth. Instead, you just mix the flour into whatever else you’re making and get on with your day.

Eating crickets has several health benefits. According to Dr. Axe, cricket flour is a good source of B12 and amino acids. Additionally, eating crickets is highly beneficial for the world at large as crickets require significantly fewer resources than cattle and livestock. In fact, with so many plus sides to eating crickets, it’s hard not to wonder why cricket flour isn’t already a huge part of people’s diets in the Western world. Cricket flour has much to offer. And, as long as you keep an open mind, you might find yourself enjoying cricket-laden snacks in no time.

Crickets are frozen and roasted before they’re turned into flour


Bloomberg/Getty Images
Cricket flour is often available in bags or jars. Ever wonder how it even ends up like that in the first place? The process of making cricket flour is actually quite straightforward. According to Farmer’s Almanac, the crickets are frozen alive. This may sound pretty cruel, but apparently, freezing them to death is more humane than other methods of killing them. Also, this makes them much easier to ship as needed.

Once they’re frozen, they are dry roasted. This brings out their flavor and ensures that they’re safe for human consumption. Then, they’re milled into flour to create the soft, versatile ingredient you can work into a variety of meals. Clearly, it’s not something one can really do at home, so it’s best to leave this process to the experts. And cricket flour is best purchased from a reputable brand.

Cricket flour is very high in protein

Giedrius Akelis/Shutterstock
Cricket flour is super, super high in protein. And we don’t mean high in protein like a block of tofu. No, cricket flour is actually comparable to skinless chicken breasts; according to Healthline, each cricket has 58 to 65% protein and is also rich in iron. It’s no wonder that cricket protein powder is so popular among gym-goers (via POPSUGAR Fitness). Though it contains less protein than whey, cricket protein powder naturally contains all nine amino acids without having to rely on additives. 

Consuming crickets is a highly efficient way of working more protein into your diet, though there’s a caveat. According to BBC, most people eat much more protein than they actually need. Even so, considering the numerous other health benefits they offer, you might want to consider switching out that steak for some cricket flour goodness, regardless of whether or not you’re an exercise fiend.

It offers a ton of other nutritional benefits


Giedrius Akelis/Shutterstock
Cricket flour has a lot to offer on the health front. It offers plenty of B12, per Healthline, which is an essential nutrient often found in animal products. In fact, cricket flour has 10 times more B12 than salmon. Since low B12 levels are more common in adults over 60, adding cricket flour to dishes can provide a nice buffer against all the health issues that accompany a B12 deficiency.

Crickets contain twice as much iron as spinach, one of the most iron-rich veggies. Some early research even indicates that eating crickets allows our body to absorb all those nutrients much better than other types of protein like beef. There are plenty of healthy proteins out there, but not many of them offer the multitude of benefits that crickets do. Plus, cricket flour has the added benefit of being very low in fat, which means you can exploit all those benefits without burdening your cardiovascular system with a diet that is too high in animal fat.

 

The fear of eating insects comes down to stigma


nicemyphoto/Shutterstock
The idea of eating insects may not appeal to some people. But it’s important to remember that our preferences are largely driven by the societies we grow up in. Diets are often based on location. People eat certain foods because their local cultures dictate what is appropriate to eat. Recognizing the role of conditioning means that we need to push our prejudices aside when evaluating food we’re unfamiliar with.

Is eating insects really that strange, or is it just something you’re not used to? We would argue that it’s the latter. After all, in many cultures, eating insects is a normal part of daily life. It’s not a gimmick or a novelty — it’s just another rich source of protein. And one part of the joy of traveling is getting to experience new foods that you are unfamiliar with.

According to HuffPost, this stigma against eating insects can probably be traced back to the agricultural revolution. In the Western world, nature was viewed as something to fight and conquer. Instead of working with the land, we worked against it. In this way, we began to see insects as pests instead of just another normal part of the natural environment, which led people in the Western world to associate insects with disgust and disdain. These negative emotions persist to the present day and limit our culinary options. It’s time to break down the stigma.   NO!  God declared insects to be unclean.  He told us which things we could consider food.  Most insects are abominations before the Lord.  Why?  Because HE did not create them.  They were made by the Fallen Angels and their progeny when they polluted everything in the Earth!

Cricket flour might be good for your microbiome
Protein, B12, and iron: What else could you want from cricket flour on the nutritional front? As it turns out, there is some early evidence that crickets could also be great for your microbiome or the bacteria that thrive in your gut and help you to break down your food, among other important tasks. Valerie Stull is a researcher at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (via WebMD). She is also the leader of a small study that gave a group of people crickets for two weeks and monitored the results. 

Stull says, “Insects are novel to the American diet, but they should be considered a potentially helpful food that contains important nutrients and fibers that could have benefits to our overall health, including our gut microbiome.” However, she also noted that the health of your microbiome is always changing, so eating cricket flour once or twice isn’t going to make a massive difference in your gut health. Rather, if the initial evidence from the study bears out, it looks like cricket flour (or other insects) have to be eaten on a regular basis to get substantial and sustained health benefits.

 

It has a nutty, earthy flavor

 
Cricket flour is undeniably nutritious, but let’s be honest: If something tastes disgusting, it’s going to be hard to get people to adopt it in any meaningful way, even if it’s really healthy. Luckily, cricket flour is not an unappetizing food. More than anything, cricket flour is neutral and unremarkable. It’s not that drastically different than any other type of flour you’d use. Is it extremely delicious? No. Plain flour definitely isn’t either, but it’s regularly used in a wide range of recipes.

Healthline describes the taste of cricket flour as mildly earthy and nutty. Sure, it may not perfectly replace all-purpose flour in every recipe, but that particular flavor profile will work well in plenty of dishes, including a whole slew of baked goods and even cricket protein bars. It takes some time to get used to working with it and finding out what other types of foods it pairs well with, but when you get more familiar with the product, it all becomes relatively simple to handle, just like any other ingredient.

If you’re allergic to shellfish, you might be allergic to crickets too

Here’s an interesting and important fact to make a note of: If you have a shellfish allergy, you should be very, very careful around cricket flour and any other cricket food product. If you’re allergic to shellfish, there’s a high probability you’re allergic to cricket flour (as per NY Allergy & Sinus Centers). That’s because, like shellfish, including crab, lobsters, and shrimp, crickets are arthropods. Since they’re from the same family of animals, they all contain the same protein, which is — you guessed it — the protein that makes you sick when you have a shellfish allergy.

Similarly, since cockroaches are also arthropods, if you suffer from a cockroach allergy, chances are that cricket products will also be off-limits for you. So, why don’t more people know that they’re allergic to crickets? Since many in the West don’t consume this insect on a regular basis, it’s an allergy that can go almost completely undiscovered. Therefore, if you have any allergy concerns, you’ll want to be very, very careful the first time you try cricket flour.

Cricket flour is an incredibly versatile food

Cricket flour can be added to a wide range of foods. In fact, according to HuffPost, crickets are “very versatile” and cricket flour can be used in “smoothies, baking, sauces, and just about anything.” This is largely due to their light, subtle flavor. This isn’t the kind of protein-packed snack that tastes as intense as a stick of beef jerky. Beyond that nuttiness and earthiness, unseasoned crickets don’t provide a lot of flavor.

If you’re not quite ready to start eating actual crickets, flour makes things even more versatile because you can add it to pretty much anything. It can be added to smoothies and sauces. According to Food & Wine, cricket flour can form a 1:1 replacement for all-purpose flour for almost any baked sweet treats. And, if you’re feeling bold enough to try whole crickets, they can be added to almost any meal or eaten with seasoning. 

You shouldn’t eat crickets found in the wild


benvl photography/Shutterstock
Upon hearing the benefits of eating cricket flour, most people are probably not going to take to their backyards to start hunting down their next meal supplement. However, if you have an inkling to catch your own crickets and make your own cricket flour from the bounty, we’re going to stop you right there: According to Farmers Almanac, you’re going to want to avoid making your own cricket flour. When you catch a cricket in the wild, you don’t know what kinds of pesticides they’ve been exposed to or what they’ve eaten. This could put your health at risk, so don’t even give it a try.

While cricket flour can be expensive, you may be able to find more affordable cricket flour sources online. Just make sure you’re buying from a reputable company so you can feel confident about what you’re putting into your body. Well-sourced and carefully handled cricket flour is safe and healthy for most people, just like any other food product. 

 

Some of the world’s best restaurants serve crickets


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Before you assume that crickets and cricket flour are used to make foods that don’t even taste good, we’re going to stop you right there. In reality, some of the best restaurants in the world are (already) integrating crickets into their menus. For example, Fortune writes that the three-Michelin-star restaurant Saison in San Francisco used crickets in both broths and glazes back in 2017. Additionally, the Boston Herald reported that a Boston pop-up had a whole insect-themed menu in 2015, complete with its fair share of crickets.

In fact, noma, a renowned restaurant in Mexico, serves crickets on its menu as well, according to GQ. While many of these presentations may go above and beyond the typical sprinkling of cricket powder into an otherwise-standard dish, it’s proof that crickets — in all their forms — have a seat at the dinner table. Top-tier chefs have already adopted crickets and cricket powder; the question is, when will the rest of us join in?

Read More: https://www.mashed.com/221797/the-untold-truth-of-cricket-flour/

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Get ready to eat bugs if you want to live beyond 2050

Beef won’t be what’s for dinner much longer.

Andrew Tarantola
Senior Editor
Updated ·8 min read

By 2050 there will be an estimated 10 billion humans living on this planet. Beyond that being a lot of mouths to feed, those folks will be, on average, wealthier than today’s population, with a taste for the foods found in regions like the US and Western Europe. But we simply don’t have the capability, the land or the production resources to ensure that many people can eat a cheeseburger whenever the mood strikes. Luckily, researchers from around the globe are working on alternative-protein sources to supplement our existing beef, pork and chicken.

Of course, there’s tofu, which has been used as a meat replacement for thousands of years. But today’s consumers expect their protein substitutes to closely resemble the meats they’re replacing, which is why Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have arrived to such public fanfare. These plant-based burger alternatives offer the same bloody sizzle that beef does. In Impossible’s case, that comes from heme derived from soy roots that have been fermented in genetically engineered yeast. Beyond Meat, on the other hoof, relies on a processing method that “aligns plant-proteins in the same fibrous structures you’d find in animal proteins.” But as much as they look, smell and taste like a real beef patty, these products are still extruded plant matter — and highly processed products at that.

Julie Lesnik, a biological anthropologist at Wayne State University, advocates that we look to get our meat from smaller, more-resource-efficient animals than cattle — specifically, crickets. She points out that per kilogram, crickets offer roughly the same amount of protein as beef as well as significantly more micronutrients, since you’re consuming the exoskeleton as well.

She also notes that given their diminutive stature and affinity for cramped, dark places, crickets require far less arable land than cattle do, citing a 2013 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Whereas it takes around 200 square meters of space to grow one kilogram of beef, the same amount of cricket needs only about 15 square meters. They can even be vertically farmed. Their water requirements are equally reduced compared to the 22,000 liters required to produce that kilo of beef.

Crickets for the same yield of protein “use less than one liter of water… based on the fact that crickets get all their water needs from their food,” Lesnick said during a recent SciLine webcast. “You still use water to clean your facilities and all the different processing, so one liter is an incredibly idealistic number. So I generally present this more like 100 liters just to be less sensational.”

Switching our diets from cow to cricket could help slow climate change as well. The FAO estimates that grazing animals are responsible for as much as 40 percent of the methane released into the atmosphere every year. Crickets, however, don’t generally eat grasses and hay and therefore produce a fraction of the greenhouse gasses. (Meanwhile, thanks to their fiber-based diet, termites are a significant source of methane. So we won’t likely be raising them as a food source in the foreseeable future.) According to a 2019 white paper by the World Economic Forum, replacing beef with alternative proteins could reduce methane emissions anywhere from seven to 26 percent, depending on the region.

Despite all the nutritional and environmental upsides, getting people to eat crickets — especially when the finished product still looks like a cricket — has proved challenging. “When we’re thinking about why we don’t eat insects, it’s really a story of Europe and that Europe being in high latitudes, insects aren’t available year-round,” Lesnick continued. “Eating insects in the summer can give a reprieve from hunting, but it’s nutritionally redundant, so it’s not an important resource.” And as European nations colonized Africa and Asia, where insects are generally available year-round, they spread their notions on bugs’ relative edibility with them.

So instead of replacing cows and other farmyard animals wholesale with insect protein, why not just grow only the parts that we’re interested in eating? That’s the promise of cellular agriculture. “The idea is rather that we would take the whole cell of a chicken and convert that to a chicken breast instead of using the whole chicken organism to make a blade or a steak,” Kate Krueger, Research Director at New Harvest, explained during the same webcast.

“What we’re talking about is taking cells out of an organism like a cow or a chicken, growing them up onto a material called a scaffold, which organizes the scale cells and helps them grow in thick quantities,” she continued, “and then feeding them with a variety of different nutrients and minerals in a bioreactor to make a full steak-type product.” At least that’s the theory. Krueger estimated that we’re still at least a decade away from being able to produce steaks or sashimi in appreciable quantities, though the process should be able to deliver less readily identifiable products like meatballs and chicken nuggets in as little as five years.

MEET the NEW MEAT/Mark Post/TEDxHaarlem

Given how young the technology is (the first lab-grown burger was introduced in 2013 and cost $325,000), cellular agriculture’s environmental impact has yet to be fully understood. A 2011 study published in Environmental Science and Technology figured that growing meat in a lab rather than a feed yard would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78 to 96 percent and require seven to 45 percent less energy and 82 to 96 percent less water. Those estimates may have been a bit overzealous though, according to a number of subsequent studies that also took into account the energy costs of developing the infrastructure needed to grow these meats.

A 2019 study published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems notes, “Under continuous high global consumption, cultured meat results in less warming than cattle initially, but this gap narrows in the long term and in some cases cattle production causes far less warming.” While cows produce methane, cellular agriculture generates a lot of carbon dioxide. This is because you’re growing meat in what is essentially a sterile lab environment with high energy demand.

While the price of a lab-grown burger dropped to around $11 by 2015, growing meat at scale is still an expensive proposition. “Traditionally, a lot of the media sources [that cells live and feed on] tend to be really expensive for a few different reasons,” Krueger explained. “They usually either contain a fraction of fetal cow blood, which would make products not vegan and is also fairly expensive, or they would contain recombinant proteins: proteins that you would make in different cell lines in a largely expensive process.”

That hasn’t dampened interest in the technology, however. “If we start small and stay small, we can essentially dramatically reduce the cost, and the capital burden drops by an order of magnitude or more,” Yaakov Nahmias, Founder and Chief Scientist of Future Meat Technologies, told Fast Company in 2018. “With these two plays –- a more efficient bioreactor and a distributed manufacturing model -– we can essentially drop the cost down to about $5 a kilogram [$2.27 a pound]. This is where it starts getting interesting because the distributed model also allows you to use the current economics.

“These distributive models allow us to grow organically and essentially replace chicken coops with these bioreactors,” he continued. “This, I think, is a reasonable way of actually taking over and replacing this industry sustainably.”

Until bioreactor technology fully matures, we can always eat algae — aka, seaweed. “Seaweeds don’t require fertilizers, don’t require feed, they don’t require fresh water and they don’t require land,” Denise Skonberg, Associate Professor of Food Science in the School of Food and Agriculture at the University of Maine, explained during the same webcast. “So those are a lot of benefits there.” What’s more, seaweeds are phenomenal at sequestering carbon and nitrogen; can be grown and harvested in as little as two to three months, depending on the variety; and “are extremely nutrient-dense,” Skonberg continued. “They’re primarily noted for their really high content of dietary fiber.”

Seaweed farming is already a big business, a $6 billion industry, according to recent FAO estimates. However, most of those operations are located in East Asia. Skonberg pointed to America’s northerly shores — Washington, Maine and New England — as promising areas for aquaculture industries. “There’s a lot of clean water and a lot of potential for growing seaweed,” she said. “We’re starting off by looking at species that do well in temperate waters, and that includes things like sugar kelp, bull kelp — I mean, there’s a lot of kelps!”

However, much more research is needed before you’ll start to see fresh seaweed in the produce aisle. For example, we’re not entirely clear on what the shelf life of fresh seaweed even is, Skonberg noted. It’s a question that was “answered for cauliflower and broccoli hundreds of years ago, but [for seaweed], we have no idea.”

Food safety and regulation concerns must also be addressed. “Research is under way looking at how well different types of species can concentrate heavy metals in their tissue,” Skonberg said. “Some that are of interest include arsenic. Research has shown that some of the brown macroalgae tend to concentrate it at a much higher rate than the green or the red macroalgae. … Where it’s harvested plays a huge, huge role.”

So whether it comes from a cricket or a lab or off the coast of Indonesia, tomorrow’s protein alternatives will be a win for both consumers and the environment, though likely neither are as excited about those prospects as the cows.

Images: Getty Creative (crickets and bioreactor), Getty Editorial (seaweed and kelp)

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THIS IS WHAT BILL GATES WANTS YOU TO EAT…

Standing_Firm
November 29th, 2023.

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Edible insects are a healthy alternative, rich in proteins and Omega 3, calcium, iron and zinc. We offer you a wide choice of edible insects, ready to be tasted, elaborated according to a strict process and multiple quality controls. All our products are packaged, ready for export to Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Asia… Make your choice.

FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE FOR ORDERS OVER 49 USD

Best Selling Edible Insects

Next Food is a leading producer and distributor of edible insects internationally

Since 2013 we have developed entomoculture (insect farming) techniques to offer you the very best opportunity to discover and taste these edible insects through our online store.

Next Food has an edible insect farm in Thailand while our other insects come from a network of insect farmers located around the globe. The company chose our location in Thailand for its climatic conditions which allow the insects to develop naturally. In addition to this, our farms have been set up to meet the health standards relating to both breeding and packaging.

Our farming and drying process is eco-friendly, uses no chemicals and is carried out according to strict processes and multiple quality controls. Our Thailand farm uses zero paid electricity to raise the crickets so is very environmentally friendly, no climate control is required because of the humidity and the insects are dried using an energy free dehydrator. Insects are dehydrated but can be re-hydrated by placing them in boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Having a sustainable farm ensures the best quality edible insects.

We are known worldwide for high quality edible insects and our wide range of ready to eat products are packaged and ready for export. Our regular customers are located in Europe, the USA and Australasia.

Insect Consumption

Eating edible insects is natural even though the trend has not developed in many western cultures. Many of us eat insects daily without our knowledge. Insects have entered the industrialized food manufacturing process in various forms such as dyes.

“E120” or carmine on product ingredient labels is a substance obtained from the cochineal insect, it is used to dye various confectioneries, pastry and jams, syrups, yogurts, drinks and meats. Cochineal also acts as a dye for pharmaceutical products such as drugs and dietary supplements. Experts say that by consuming these colored products, we eat more than 500g of edible insects each year. This figure is considerable for people who think they do not eat insects. Moreover, this proves that edible insects are not as revolting as we think.

In addition to this, unintentional consumption of edible insects is very common as they can also be accidentally found in industrialized foods. It is almost impossible to guarantee the absence of insect fragments in industrial preparations such as flour, cereals, legumes, pulses, and in vegetable protein substances. Conscious of this fact, health authorities impose regulations by setting up food codes where, for example, an industrial food product must not contain more than 0.1% insect fragments per mass of sample.

In addition, you can swallow insects without knowing it. This is the case when we accidentally swallow a fly while walking or just sleeping. Urban legends say that we could swallow spiders while sleeping; while scientific articles comment on the improbability of this happening, it is quite possible that smaller insects such as ants will fall into our mouths and end up slipping into our esophagus.

Based on this information, studies claim that we can eat nearly 1 kg of insects per person each year.

Recipes

You can also taste ‘plain ones’ and decide to season them ‘your way’ using various flavor combinations made available by the different sauces and spices available in your own kitchen. Plain insects have the advantage of being able to be consumed sweet or savory. We also offer a variety of specialty flavored insects.

Edible insects are a healthy alternative as they are rich in proteins and omega-3, calcium, iron and zinc. You can create your own recipes using our plain insects; look for recipe inspiration on our blog or on the internet where many followers of these dishes put up their own recipes.

Insects to try first

The success of a first tasting of edible insects will influence our opinion on entomophagy (the eating of insects). In this case, it is important to choose the right insect or product to taste. According to some confirmed entomophages (people who eat insects as food), it is suggested that one starts with small edible crickets and mealworms.

Precautions to take when eating insects

Edible insects are clean in themselves, however may contain harmful products such as insecticides, pesticides and herbisides from landing on lawns or visiting certain crop fields that are being treated for pests. It is therefore never advisable to catch insects for consumption from the wild, gardens or fields and it is best to buy edible insects from specialized shops as these insects are bred specifically for human consumption at breeding centers/farms or they collect in tropical areas where the consumption of insects is common practice.

Precautions must be taken before eating edible insects. It is important to know whether you are allergic to edible insects. In principle, individuals who are allergic to shellfish should not consume insects as they may be allergic to the chitin in the insect’s exoskeleton which is very similar to the chitin in crustaceans. If you are unsure, you will need the appropriate medicine to deal with a possible allergic reaction.

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Altered Genes, Twisted Truth

Steven Druker talked about his book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public, in which he discusses the science and regulations behind genetically engineered food. His organization, Alliance for Bio-Integrity, filed a lawsuit that uncovered concerns that some FDA scientists had about risks related to genetically engineered food.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?432111-2/altered-genes-twisted-truth#

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“There’s Nano in Our Food?” What You Need to Know about Nanotechnology and Food Safety

By Jaydee Hanson, Senior Policy Analyst

APRIL 10, 2014
This is the first of a series of blogs on nanotechnology and how this emerging technology is being applied to foods and food related products.

Nanotechnology has the potential to be used in a broad array of products, including foods and cosmetics. Unbeknownst to us, it is already commonly used in many products that are part of our daily lives. However, those rushing to commercialize nanotechnologies have neglected to develop the legal, and regulatory oversight mechanisms needed to reduce the risks of these technologies. We at Center for Food Safety have identified more than 300 foods and food packaging materials that likely contain engineered nanomaterials, including a range of products from nano silver plastic containers to nano titanium dioxide coated baked goods. This explosion of nano-enabled food products has many implications for human health, the environment and the food system as we will discuss over the next few months.

What is “nano”?

Nanomaterials are so small that a nanometer (one billionth of a meter) cannot be seen by an ordinary microscope.  A piece of hair is between 50,000 and 80,000 nanometers wide. The incredibly small size gives nanomaterials different chemical, physical, and even biological properties than conventionally sized materials.

Due to their small size, nanoparticles are able to go places in the body and in nature that larger particles cannot.[i]  Nanoparticles in food or food packaging can gain access to the human body via ingestion, inhalation, or skin penetration.  When ingested, their small size allows them to circulate through the body and reach potentially sensitive target sites such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, the spleen, the brain, the liver, and the heart.[ii]  Nanoparticles penetrating the skin can distribute through the body via lymphatic channels.[iii]  By moving into the bloodstream following ingestion and inhalation, particles measuring 1-100nm “can easily cross the blood brain barrier,”[iv] and “produce damage to the barrier integrity.”[v]

Initial scientific studies demonstrate that current nanomaterials already in foods or food contact substances on consumer shelves, such as nano silver, might be extremely damaging to human health and the environment.  Nanomaterials can cause damage to ecosystems by transporting toxic contaminants through the environment, potentially causing cancer and organ damage, and likely exposing workers to new asbestos-like substances.  Chinese researchers claim that nanoparticles used in printing products have already killed workers in China when they were inhaled by the workers.[vi]  Workers applying nanomaterials to food and food packaging materials could also inhale nanoparticles. Studies on animals indicate that nanoparticles like nanotitanium dioxide can cause cancer,[vii] cross the placental barrier from mother to fetus,[viii] and cause lung diseases like mesothelioma.

Much more research on health and safety related to nanotechnology is needed.  Unfortunately, the widespread use of nanoproducts and the fact that they are unlabeled means that consumers are exposed to health risks and are unknowing guinea pigs of this little-tested technology.  Although there is growing evidence of harmful environmental impacts, detecting, tracking, and removing these nanomaterials from the environment continues to be extremely difficult.

Despite  significant health, safety, and environmental concerns, many of the world’s leading food companies including H.J. Heinz, Nestle, Hershey, Campbell’s, General Mills, PepsiCo, Sara Lee, Unilever, and Kraft have invested heavily in nanotechnology applications.  It is unclear exactly how many food or food related nano-enabled products are currently available; however, by some industry estimates, the total market for nano-enabled food and beverage packaging alone is expected to reach $7.3 billion by 2014.[ix]

Companies are using nanotechnologies as food additives, as flavor/taste modifers, for preservation through nano antimicrobials, for sprays, for encapsulating dietary supplement ingredients, and many other applications. Nanoclays, such as alumina and mullite are being used as dispersants and anti-caking agents, as well as in plastic bottle linings to prevent CO2 from escaping from beer and other fizzy drinks. Other ingredients being used in their nano forms include iron, titanium dioxide, silver, zinc oxide, and chitosan.

Now is the time to demand that governments around the world act to protect workers, consumers, and the natural world from the commercial drive to rapidly expand this technology.  There remains considerable secrecy around the issue of nanotechnology, including nano materials in foods, making it extremely difficult for the public (and the government) to fully grasp exactly how much production, use, and commercialization of the technology has occurred. The failure to use the precautionary principle with regard to past technological developments in the nuclear, chemical, and genetic fields proves the need for robust regulation of nanotechnology. CFS’s NanoAction program is directly addressing this urgent issue.

In subsequent blogs we will go into greater detail about the use of nano in foods and review which foods already contain nanomaterials; potential health risks of nanotechnology; the U.S. government’s promotion and failed regulation of nanotechnology; and the role of nanotechnology in current international trade talks.

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NEW DATABASE SHOWS NANOTECHNOLOGY IN COMMON FOOD PRODUCTS

October 5th, 2015
Center for Food Safety

Searchable inventory provides new tool for consumers and researchers
as food safety agency fails in its duty

October 5, 2015 (Washington, DC)—Center for Food Safety (CFS) today released a new searchable database of consumer food products that contain nanotechnology. Common food related products that contain nanotechnology include candies (M&M’s, Skittles), baby bottles, and plastic storage containers. Nanotechnology is a powerful but novel platform for taking apart and reconstructing nature at the atomic and molecular level with important human and environmental health ramifications. The database contains almost 300 food products and food contact products that use nano.

“Scientists agree that nanomaterials create novel risks that require new forms of toxicity testing. But very little testing and regulation of these new products exists, and consumers have almost no information,” said Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst at Center for Food Safety. “This easy to use database is a step to fill the information gap, to alert consumers of just how widespread this technology is and to improve transparency in our food supply.”

Because of their unique properties, nanomaterials pose new risks for human health and the environment. For example, nanomaterials have unprecedented mobility for a manufactured material. Nanomaterials can penetrate human skin and when ingested, reach sensitive places like bone marrow, lymph nodes, the heart, and the brain.

Despite these novel properties, nanomaterials are regulated the same way as larger materials of the same substance. Although they have not been properly evaluated, they are popping up in a wide variety of consumer goods.

The release of the database comes after a new study published by Friends of the Earth (FOE)- Australia that showed the presence of nanomaterials, specifically nano titanium dioxide and nano silica, in all 14 food products the group tested. None of these products were labeled as containing nano ingredients nor were they submitted for nano-specific regulation. Most of these products are being sold in the U.S.

This new database covers over 40 different types of nanomaterials and is the only database to focus exclusively on food and food contact products. Of particular concern is the prominence of nano ingredients in so many foods frequently consumed by children.

“The FDA is failing to prevent nano-laced foods from being sold. Our food safety agency should demand that these products be taken off the market, as companies are using food additives and food contact materials not approved at the nano scale,” said Hanson.

Bulk scale titanium dioxide is used as a food coloring agent, often to make foods look whiter or brighter, but the FDA has not set exposure limits yet for its use at the nano scale in the US. Moreover, the largest review of nano titanium dioxide studies show that many basic questions have not been answered. Candies like M&M’s, processed cheeses, and chewing gum have all been found to contain nano titanium dioxide.  Nano titanium dioxide is small enough to cross through the intestine and into organs where it can damage DNA and disrupt cell function.

Silica is an anti-caking agent used in powdered food products, but it, too, could cause health problems at the nano-scale. The European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) found evidence that nano silica can damage DNA and concluded that the data is inadequate and no conclusion of safety can be made. Several recent studies have shown that nano silica can cause liver toxicity.

Link to Searchable Database

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GRAPHENE/BLACK GOO IN YOUR FOOD!
Dødgęthêhįjåčk

BONUS—-Deleted Engineer Dialogue FULLY TRANSLATED from the Script of Prometheus
1 week ago

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Secrets of our Food: The Hidden Tomato Chronicles – ENDEVR Documentary
PIRATEPETE

mirrored from ytENDEVR channel I watched this last night. Basically the majority of tomato paste / sauce comes from CHINA! (Just to make $) It was sickening, they rename and repackage it and pretend it comes from Italy and other places but its all from CHINA!. We are going to start growing more tomatoes and making our own tomato products.

For the last 10 years, I have been noticing that what are supposed to be fresh fruits and vegetables do not look or behave as such.  Am I the only one having this experience, or the only one noticing it?? 

I spend the little bit of money I have for groceries and find that what I get for that amount is less and less each month.  But, even more heartbreaking is that the produce that I purchase, may appear alright at the store, but within just a day or two has become rotten and/or inedible.   Even potatoes that normally would have a long shelf life when store properly, develop rotted spots and become soft in a matter of days.   

I have believed for a long time that they were no longer selling us the produce from the current year, perhaps not even from the year before, but rather OLD produce that has been stored for too long.  Perhaps artificially made to look fresh.  

Well, I saw this video today…  It should raise some eyebrows.

BRINGING DYING VEGETABLES BACK TO LIFE WITH TOXIC CHEMICALS

channel image

No_Face_Masks
March 19th, 2023.
Please ignore the globe / planet imagery and talk. We know its incorrect.
1 week, 6 days ago

This lot should have been binned as they were well past their Sell By date, but as usual, humans will find toxic chemicals to bring them back to life just to sell them for a few pennies. Never mind the problems that another human being will get in their bodies when they eat this toxic crap. https://www.thehealthsite.com/fitness/toxic-chemicals-used-to-make-veggies-look-fresh-16805/

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WARNING! Toxic Ingredient BHT found in cereals and crackers!
PIRATEPETE

mirrored from Rumble Renard channelMy wife and I don’t eat ANY processed foods…
2 weeks, 6 days ago

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Processed Food Has Different Bugs in it…
PIRATEPETE

mirrored from ytLazlow channel(its in all processed food I’m sure)Be sure to read the ingredients list!
3 weeks, 1 day

Think about it… They call their 3D printed salmon VEGAN… obviously no meat.  Obviously containing NO PROTEIN!

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Depopulationist Bill Gates Explores 3D-Printed Salmon as a Sustainable Food Frontier
PIRATEPETE

mirrored from RumbleThe Liberty Daily channelI’ll 3D print my hand giving the finger and Gates can eat it. The printer will be filled with dog shit so bon ape-tit Gates.Climate change is a HOAX! F*ck the WEF I’m eating REAL food.

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Farmer Exposes Behind the Scenes Food Industry Scandals
PIRATEPETE

mirrored from ytLillie Kane channelI watched this last evening. This is all true, our son works as a butcher and he told us they use gases on meat to make it pink a few years ago. Once hearing that I started buying meat from the farmers market to avoid the meat sold in stores that is gassed.
1 month, 1 week ago

14 years ago, when I was learning to drive a Semi, one of our stops was in California where they grow a lot of vegetables.  We were held up there for an entire day waiting for our load.  I asked a man who worked there what the hold up was…. He said “Oh, they are still not finished gassing the lettuce.” “Gassing the Lettuce??” I asked.  “Ya, they gas all the vegetables before they ship them out”.    I was flabbergasted and wondered what kind of gas they were putting on our food… or in it. I also wondered if any of the people who consume these vegetables is aware they have been “GASSED”.  

spacespacerr
(Insider)The People’s Voice:Gates Foundation Insider Admits Depopulation Drugs Are Pumped Into Foods
channel image

Puretrauma357🇯🇲
October 23rd, 2023.
Video Rights go to the People’s Voice.
1 month, 2 weeks ago

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Bill Gates Seeking Monopolistic Control Over Food & Agriculture
WideAwakeMedia

Seamus Bruner, author of ‘Controligarchs’: Bill Gates is applying the same ruthless strategy he used at Microsoft to acquire monopolistic control over the food and agriculture industries.

“Bill Gates has adapted this Microsoft strategy from the 1990s called embrace, extend, extinguish, where Microsoft would enter an industry—the internet browser industry—it would extend its reach, and then it would extinguish the competition.”

“We’re seeing that right now with his land investments and his food investments. He’s investing in these fake meat companies. So he enters the farming space… and then he expands his reach, buys up more and more properties, and then he pushes for the regulations that are going to put the farmers out of business.”
4 days, 13 hours ago

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Folks, if you are not convinced yet that they are out to kill us all, I just don’t know what to tell you.  I hope you enjoy what you can while you can, cause the end is coming quicker than you think. 

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