Food seems hard to come by

I have done a lot of studying on foods and food additives. Some of these additives are considered medicines while others are fungicides or miticides. Some of the chemicals that are real bad for us when consumed regularly were allowed prior to 1955 and these chemicals would never be allowed to be approved today if they were not grandfathered in.

The Sodium Benzoate in your OP is in some Sodas. It is actually something that gives the soda a little tang. It is actually a medicine used to lower high ammonia levels in the body by converting them to uric acid which we pee out. High Ammonia in the blood is considered metabolic acidosis. Lactic acidosis is not the same. A combination of methyl group foods coupled with niacin or nitrogen compounds creates Ammonia in the blood or high anion gap. So drinking a root beer might be beneficial. Benzoic acid is found in OJ, Tomato products, and cinnamon. The OJ and Tomato also contain nitrogen compounds though. If you consume too much benzoates or benzoic acid without excreting it it can lead to possible gout effects.

You are right about the foods though, the majority of all foods contains preservation chemistry to extend it's shelflife that is not good for us. They have been pushing some bad chemistry as good for us to make us think that these antioxident chemicals that keep lettuce and beans from getting old is good for us. These chemicals are not required to be listed on green beans or lettuce either, something used in the processing that is deemed safe means we are not required to know what they are using. This practice is used widely in the food industry.

Another thing, commercial food does not have the same rules as the stuff sold in the store. If you buy a steak sandwich and fries at a restaurant there is no regulation that says that the ingredients need to be told to us. It is a voluntary thing by each individual restaurant. Let the buyer beware.

Our home environment is full of chemistry that is bad for us. Endocrine disruptors are everywhere in our environment. Warm plastic or polyurethane gives off gasses that are not good for us. The antibacterial soap is not good for us either. Food is stored in plastic with three or four endocrine disrupting chemicals leaching into food yet they only blow up one chemical so we don't quit using it. The other chemicals have a combined effect worse than the one they complain about.

Just because the chemical sounds bad doesn't mean it is. Some natural sounding additives are worse. Research these additives and find how many people are actually intollerant to them. Alum....a funguside. Annotto....it is a coloring and kills bacteria and fungus. Carrageenan...it keeps people from reacting negatively to foods yet they are intolerant to these foods. it just covers the symptoms. Propylene glycol....it is an antifreeze but is considered gras even though they wanted to ban it in the early nineteen hundreds because of negative effects. Datem...it has nothing to do with dates and is not just a dough conditioner.

I can go on for hours and pages. They make us believe that these things are safe and good for us and in some cases the chemistry can actually be utilized to cure a person. Don't be afraid of it, learn about it and learn how to use it to help you. If you are starting to get run down and getting yucky, maybe a pickle with alum will stimulate your body to fight a bug that you should be fighting. Too much and you could go cykotine. Carrageenan can be used as a medicine too, but eating it every day is not good for you, it can cause hyperactivation of macrophage production. These things can have good effects but constant consumption is bad for you.

The stuff they are putting in bread, the name escapes me now, it is something that extends the life of bread. It is bad for us but if used properly can kill cancer cells...along with healthy cells. There are medicinal properties to almost all foods and learning how to balance the effects is not easy. Too much of some natural foods is bad for us too. Learning a little about these can help us to stay healthy, plant defense chemicals have some positive effects if used at the right time and in moderation. The tree of life is actually a knowledge of the food chemistry and it is an individual trait. Everyone is different, one mans medicine is another man's poison. The medical effect today of a food or additive may also be tomorrows poison. Unhijacked cravings are our best way to stay healthy. But they keep adding additives to our foods to attract us and when we are hooked, we crave those.

Studying the properties of food and additives is not an easy task, food has many different food chemistries in it. Our genetics knows how to moderate these chemistries over generations but altering the food chemistry changes the balance and this can lead to problems. So modifying our diet or the chemistry of the food requires a change in our epigenetic response and requires some balancing of the enzyme activity of the body. It takes generations to add new food chemistry properly into our diet, but we have altered it too much too quick and this weakens our body.

Ooooh, this is getting too long. When things get long they get boring. Sorry for boring you guys.

a reply to: DJW001

I believe the French eat a lot of saturated fats, but not a whole lot of trans fats. It's the huge amount of added sugars, high fructose corn syrup, and trans fats that Americans eat which is causing the obesity.

originally posted by: scorpio84
a reply to: DJW001

I believe the French eat a lot of saturated fats, but not a whole lot of trans fats. It's the huge amount of added sugars, high fructose corn syrup, and trans fats that Americans eat which is causing the obesity.

Actually, the study suggests that Americans' obsession with the health value of foods leads to neurotic eating habits, whereas the French simply eat!

The key to being something other than obese can be linked to dietary habits, but more often than not obesity is a direct result of an imbalance between caloric intake and physical activity.

Most people, including myself, are fat because they sit around and eat, and sit around at work, and sit around in their car, and end up burning way less calories than they take in.

A bunch of fat lazy asses who want to blame someone else for something that is almost completely their fault.

a reply to: rickymouse

Thank you for sharing that - feel free to post more like that here. From my research into the matter regarding sodium benzoate, it is when it is combined with ascorbic acid that a reaction can take place leading to benzene. To be fair, the amount of benzene produced does not exceed FDA limits (which, according to the FDA at least, are far below that which would be harmful). Still, I don't know of any studies regarding the long-term effect of benzene build-up in the body.

Studying the properties of food and additives is not an easy task, food has many different food chemistries in it. Our genetics knows how to moderate these chemistries over generations but altering the food chemistry changes the balance and this can lead to problems

I like that you pointed this out. A truly accurate understanding of what something could do to the body would require a knowledge of all the various interactions. A simple example of this is looking at something that seems to be high in sodium. However, if the same product provides an adequate amount of potassium, the effects of sodium will be mitigated (I still wouldn't say you should go looking for foods that are high in sodium!)

If you are starting to get run down and getting yucky, maybe a pickle with alum will stimulate your body to fight a bug that you should be fighting.

...and yet, aluminum is implicated as a cause of Alzheimer's disease and possibly breast cancer. I guess it's a matter of know what your body needs.

Then again, most of us aren't experts in this field - and researching the various chemistries to have a fully informed opinion is made even more un-appealing when a nice juicy burger and fries off the grill are waiting for us. Of course, thanks to my work, I will now be thinking of HCAs and PAHs every time I have something off the grill.

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

Yes, apparently the most significant factor regarding weight loss is caloric intake. It seems you can even lose weight eating junk food. Though, I would have two questions regarding that study:

1). What impact did the vegetables he ate have?

2). Although he lost weight, what was the nutritional impact?

a reply to: scorpio84

His toilet paper use most certainly went up when eating sugary junk food.

I rode a bicycle from Florida to Wisconsin in 2011 and always kept some of this junk food on hand because it stores and transports well and there wasn't always a place to buy better food during the day or a place to stop for long enough to eat a proper meal and still stay on schedule.

I lost weight because I was burning more than I took in and my appetite was huge and I ate a lot whenever I could.

Every health issue I had corrected itself because my body either had to deal with my using it and fix itself, which it does whether a doctor will admit he doesn't really have so much an effect on our health or not, which ultimately they don't, or I would have died.

Almost anything that is used to generate profit is tainted, effectively nullifying most of the benefit that can be gained from it, including food when ingredients or materials are changed simply to save money on production of whatever it may be.

I don't see much of a future for the human race if business is allowed to make all of the decisions for us and poison us with non-food ingredients and additives or useless junk that collapses under it's own weight like cars do.

I was seriously eyeballing roadkill several times on that bike trip.

originally posted by: Revolution9
a reply to: scorpio84

Are fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables still readily available to people in U.S? I would be interested to know. I mean are there shops nearby for everybody where the raw ingredients can be purchased?

Yep. We can even grow some of our own food here, like my Mom & sister do at their homes (urban gardens). And the same grocery stores that sell processed foods also sell the raw ingredients too.

So this is really about people's purchasing habits, not about the availability of food, real food, healthy food, or unprocessed food.

Edit: There are also farmer's markets, independent/outside vendors, & specialty shops that sell even more foods. I like going to international markets just to get an even wider variety of real foods.

2nd Edit : Some cities & communities do have rules & regulations which limit the sizes of gardens, limit what kind of livestock or pets you can have, etc. On the other hand, there are also different co-ops which can allow entire communities to purchase raw ingredients in bulk & at wholesale prices. Ok, I'll stop now lol

a reply to: paraphi

Cooking from scratch sounds like the solution to all the processed food, until you read the labels on all the necessary ingredients for whatever you might want to cook.

Need to buy some frozen chicken breasts? They're injected with water and salt and probably were fed hormone laced feed before they became frozen parts. Spices? They have food colorants, anti caking ingredients and preservatives. Flour for your own bread? Some has been bleached before being packaged, along with the other additives and vitamins.

Mr. Cheddarhead has had some recent serious health issues and we're reading the labels closely now. There seems to be no escaping processed food, short of growing your own or buying from a farmer's market.

originally posted by: Revolution9
a reply to: scorpio84

Are fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables still readily available to people in U.S? I would be interested to know. I mean are there shops nearby for everybody where the raw ingredients can be purchased?

In large portions of the US, fresh fruits and vegetables are only available with neurotoxic pesticides added. Some people believe that rinsing off the outside somehow pulls the pesticides out of the food, but they're wrong.

Thankfully, I live in an area where there are plenty of organic options. I defray the additional cost by growing what I can on my own.

originally posted by: scorpio84
a reply to: rickymouse

Thank you for sharing that - feel free to post more like that here. From my research into the matter regarding sodium benzoate, it is when it is combined with ascorbic acid that a reaction can take place leading to benzene. To be fair, the amount of benzene produced does not exceed FDA limits (which, according to the FDA at least, are far below that which would be harmful). Still, I don't know of any studies regarding the long-term effect of benzene build-up in the body.

Studying the properties of food and additives is not an easy task, food has many different food chemistries in it. Our genetics knows how to moderate these chemistries over generations but altering the food chemistry changes the balance and this can lead to problems

I like that you pointed this out. A truly accurate understanding of what something could do to the body would require a knowledge of all the various interactions. A simple example of this is looking at something that seems to be high in sodium. However, if the same product provides an adequate amount of potassium, the effects of sodium will be mitigated (I still wouldn't say you should go looking for foods that are high in sodium!)

If you are starting to get run down and getting yucky, maybe a pickle with alum will stimulate your body to fight a bug that you should be fighting.

...and yet, aluminum is implicated as a cause of Alzheimer's disease and possibly breast cancer. I guess it's a matter of know what your body needs.

Then again, most of us aren't experts in this field - and researching the various chemistries to have a fully informed opinion is made even more un-appealing when a nice juicy burger and fries off the grill are waiting for us. Of course, thanks to my work, I will now be thinking of HCAs and PAHs every time I have something off the grill.

They used conditioning to teach us to eat more foods containing benzoates. It seems that consuming benzoates in a higher amount kills Tuberculosis. It also kills a lot of other microbes and might actually unbalance the microbes. But TB is a bad disease and changing the diet so that people wouldn't get it was necessary. They start pushing orange juice and tomato products and the disease slowly disappeared. They treated the patients with a benzene containing medicine and they got better. There is good and bad to upping the intake.

I know first hand what benzene poisoning does. I was siphoning gas out of my car to fill the lawnmower back in the seventies and the person Who had came to visit told a joke and I swallowed a few mouthfuls before I knew it. I went to the Nurse at Kohler where I worked because I was puking and it tasted terrible. They called the poison control center and got me a glass of milk. The benzene made my face and scalp break out in sort of blisters and around my lips and in my groin and my feet did the same thing. It took about a day for that to occur but within a few more days it was all out of my system. I noticed I get the same reaction if I eat a lot of tomatoes or orange juice, but not from eating cinnamon rolls or toast. So you may be right, the abscorbic acid or vitamin c in the OJ or tomatoes may be causing benzene to be formed in the body.

When the kidneys sense glucose and some glucose compounds in the body, it triggers them to retain sodium. So if you want to lower sodium retention, cut back on the sugar. I pee out all my salt, because of my temporal lobe epilepsy I don't eat much sugars and I have to eat more salt. I have three gene variant combos that make me excrete sodium. They call those gene snps good but they are nuts. I don't like eating lots of salt and since I lowered sugar consumption because it makes my epilepsy worse, I wind up weak if I do not eat salt all the time. I guess one of the genetic traits lowers risk of the salt messing up organs so I do have a plus with the mix.

I also have low blood volume, I have always had this problem since I was a kid and cannot donate blood or plasma because of it. Maybe it is low because I excrete too much salt all the time. The hypovalemia is probably what causes my tachychardia, I usually have a heart rate of between one ten and one twenty and if it goes below a hundred, I get circulation problems. No more beta blockers for me. Because my volume is low and my heart rate is high, my blood presure has always been over 140/80. That is normal for me, the doctors told me that long ago. So restricting salt is not an option for me or some of the relatives of mine. Moderating sugar consumption is preferred to balance excretion.

There are some protection chemicals formed in food cooked on a fire. We have been consuming fire cooked food for hundreds of generations and our body knows how to handle them. Now cooking on propane does increase some bad chemistry compared to cooking over maple or charcoal. And of course, not cooking things till black is a lot better. The char created on a fire does contain active carbons which can bind to toxins created. As long as you only eat BBQ food occasionally and make sure to eat some bread, corn, or potatoes with it you should be ok. These three do contain chemistry that can help neutralize some of the bad stuff too.

Our ancestors sensed the cure for things. Now they tell us it is bad to eat some of the antidotes or companion foods. This is a problem, the people saying this stuff do not have a clue as to the complexity of food chemistry. Another thing, salt is needed in the process of burning fats in the diet but not in burning sugars. It is also necessary for transporting toxins out of cells to the kidneys. Now if the kidneys are not working right, the sodium and chloride and the toxins they are bound to are not secreted. Many foods do slow down excretion of the kidneys. We can also sweat these out if we do not put crap on our skin that plumps the cells so they cannot excrete this stuff. This crap also swells the end of the lymph duct and we do not excrete the toxins from the lymph nodes. This stuff needs to be excreted. The liver and kidneys were not designed to get rid of all of these fluids, our skin is important also.

Everything is so messed up I am amazed that Americans are not a lot sicker than we are.

You cannot properly take the energy out of bacon if it does not have salt in it. That is why our ancestors started salting some things. Like rolling the butter in salt to make sure everyone could utilize the energy it gives us.

a reply to: Domo1

I bet we hear a few anecdotes about people that now raise and eat all of their own food (they don't, they have a small spice garden)

So these Anecdotation people have now been confirmed by your spyglass that they only have a "small spice garden". Is that "people" (plural) that have 1 small spice garden each or between them.
Please, do tell!

a reply to: rickymouse

Star for you work and info....

I buy my beef at a 1/2 cow at a time pasture raised, Veggies, fruits are the real thing too, so is our rice. I think the problem is people make up 100% of their diet with process foods. I know kids that would not eat anything but McD because that was the only thing that they liked, and most likely feed they whole child life. Kids that take coke and Monster drinks to school and drink them all day etc. My kids do eat crap now and then but moderation is the key.

a reply to: smirkley

When you have pull dates of three years, or more, they are, to all intents and purposes, meaningless. Those are, of course, things like canned green beans, or cranberrys...

Perishables, such as milk, bread, other dairy products...those pull dates are much more important.

Canned stuff, if they remain undamaged, will last at least a few years past that date. I've never tested it, but I've no reason to disbelieve that.

a reply to: scorpio84

This is why you "LTC, lol" also known as learn to cook.

If you are making most of it yourself from scratch, then you have no one but yourself to blame if the food has crap in it.

You either make it yourself or do a little finger walking on your keyboard and figure out who does the cooking locally and buy it from them.

Or you read the ingredients on the labels and make informed choices. For example, I don't make my own peanut butter and jelly, but the ones I buy have all of 6 ingredients between them.

a reply to: rickymouse

The liver and kidneys were not designed to get rid of all of these fluids, our skin is important also.

This is an interesting point. So, it isn't just the foods we eat affecting us, but also cosmetics - things like skin lotions, make-up, etc.

I thought salt was first used as a preservative to make food not go bad.

originally posted by: Revolution9
a reply to: scorpio84

Are fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables still readily available to people in U.S? I would be interested to know. I mean are there shops nearby for everybody where the raw ingredients can be purchased?

Yep. Factory farmed, fattened with corn, grown in depleted soils covered with pesticides, devoid of nutrients, improper omega balance , and just on and on and on.

I don't know that ive ever seen food in my life. Just things reminiscent of what people used to eat for thousands of years.

And it shows.

originally posted by: scorpio84
a reply to: rickymouse

The liver and kidneys were not designed to get rid of all of these fluids, our skin is important also.

This is an interesting point. So, it isn't just the foods we eat affecting us, but also cosmetics - things like skin lotions, make-up, etc.

I thought salt was first used as a preservative to make food not go bad.

That is the biggest misconception ever told us. If your sodium or chloride levels get too low, you need to go to the hospital. They give you an IV with either sodium chloride or sodium acetate in it. Electrolytes are very important in the body and sodium and chloride are necessary for taking metabolic toxins out of the cells and hauling it to the kidneys for disposal.

How many people have you known that wound up in the hospital on an IV. Dehydration is caused by low electrolytes, the main one being sodium and chlorides. When a doctor says it would be beneficial to reduce salt, he assumes you eat a lot of prepared foods. There are a lot of different reasons people can retain water, high salt can drain cells and load up the intercellular fluids if your kidneys do not remove it, and too little salt can cause swelling of the cells, including the brain cells and nerve cells and this can do a lot of damage..

a reply to: rickymouse

Yes, of course you can't let levels get too low - but the dangers of excessive sodium levels shouldn't be understated or ignored, either.

a reply to: paraphi

There are regulations in place that prevent you from raising or growing some of the food you need to survive, so that you forcibly have to buy it from regulated markets and distributors. You can try but you probably end up in trouble, check about raising illegal backyard chickens for example, or front/side vegetable gardens, which in several places are against city code.

"how do you get fat, sugar and salt to taste nice", well... "add some of this and that"!

So true lol