Does anyone else remember DuPont Chemical's slogan "Better Living Through Chemistry"?

Lest you think that I am some anti-technology zealot, you should know that I minored in chemistry in college. That's the one subject whose material I use every single day, because I cook. In fact, we used to refer to a lot of our experiments in chemistry classes as "cooking." There are a great many similarities.

The benefits of technology and modern tinkering are a two-edged sword. I am aware that I sit here writing this because some drug company came up with a drug called idarubicin that cured my leukemia. Not all strides in technology and medicine are bad. However, just because you can doesn't mean you should. That applies most particularly to our food supply.

I had an interesting conversation about GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) with some friends of mine a while ago. One of them said something to the effect that "humans have been genetically modifying food for thousands of years now, by breeding for certain characteristics." Well, not exactly. There is a big difference between applying selective pressure to a strain of tomatoes to breed for the biggest and juciest ones and actually going in at the molecular level and tinkering with that tomato's genes—or inserting genes not found in tomatoes in nature at all—to get that tomato to do something it wasn't programmed to do.

The most important thing to remember in all of this is that the structure of our commercial food supply is driven by one thing: money—making more of it. You don't make money if your crop fails. You don't make money if the tomatoes arrive at the market all mushy. You don't make money if the steak is tough.

Tom Naugton, the creator of the Fathead movie I mentioned in yesterday's post, has a great blog. I spent some time over there this morning and ran across two very interesting things I hadn't known before:

Interesting Tidbt #1. Naughton reviews a recently-released book called Wheat Belly, by Dr. Wiliam Davis (which I plan to read), and takes the following excerpt from that book:

Analyses of proteins expressed by a wheat hybrid compared to its two parent strains have demonstrated that while approximately 95 percent of the proteins expressed in the offspring are the same, five percent are unique, found in neither parent. Wheat gluten proteins, in particular, undergo considerable structural change with hybridization. In one hybridization experiment, fourteen new gluten proteins were identified in the offspring that were not present in either parent plant. Moreover, when compared to century-old stains of wheat, modern strains of Triticum aestivum express a higher quantity of genes for gluten proteins that are associated with celiac disease.

Naughton points out, "Like Dr. Frankenstein, the scientists who created today’s wheat had good intentions: the goal was to produce more wheat per acre in a shorter span of time, thus vastly increasing yields and preventing worldwide starvation as the planet’s population swelled. To that extent, they succeeded. Geneticist Dr. Norman Borlaug, who created the short, stocky, fast-growing “dwarf” wheat most of us consume today, is credited with saving perhaps a billion people from starvation.

"The problem is that dwarf wheat varieties were developed through a combination of cross-breeding and gene splicing. The result is a mutant plant with a genetic code that never existed in nature before. In fact, today’s wheat literally can’t survive in a natural setting. Take away the modern pesticides and fertilizers and it’s (pardon the pun) toast."

Wow. Not your grandmother's wheat, indeed. And I have to wonder if perhaps the reason my FIL tested positive for an allergy to beef is because most of the beef we all eat has been grain-fattened. We know he is gluten-intolerant. It's not such a stretch to wonder if the meat from cattle who were fed grain all their lives has somehow been affected by their diet.

Interesting Tidbit #2. Naughton's brother (who guest blogs on occasion) posted about visiting a local farm where he spent some time talking with a beekeeper there. The beekeeper mentioned that commercial beekeeping operations feed their bees—get this—high fructose corn syrup. Okay, this is second-hand anecdotal evidence, so I went looking for some proof, and I found it. The following is an interview on the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education website:

“Commercial beekeepers use high fructose corn syrup to feed bee colonies during the winter months. It’s inexpensive, easy to obtain, and can be bought in small quantities because of its long shelf life,” said Harris. “However, it’s been suggested that high fructose corn syrup makes bees more susceptible to Nosema, an illness that affects the bee’s digestive tract. It’s like dysentery in people.”

SARE is sponsoring research to determine what the different kinds of feed (HFCS, liquid sucrose, and blends) have on the survival rates and health of commercial beekeeping operations. They should have results next spring, and it will be interesting to see what they find out.

I've made no bones about the fact that I think HFCS is horrible stuff. Here is a wonderful, succinct article about the corn industry—make sure you take a look at the graph in the middle of the page. HFCS is in everything, and I spend a fair bit of time when shopping reading labels to make sure I don't buy products with added HFCS, most of which has been added gratuitously (please tell me why white kidney beans need HFCS added to them?). Those products touted as "low-fat" are some of the worst offenders. If you take out the fat/flavor, you have to replace it with something, and most "low-fat" products have replaced the fat with sweetener of some sort. Ick ick ick.

Of course, the medical establishment and Big Pharma are complicit in all of this. Companies only make money if there is someone to buy the products they are producing, and much of what we call marketing is designed to convince people that they need what a particular company is selling, even if they don't. This was taken to ridiculous extremes a few years ago when one of the drug companies began running a series of ads touting the need for a new drug to manage the side effects of another drug. Seriously?!?!?!?! As I recall, there was some backlash and that series of ads didn't run for long. Yes, I need the thyroid medication that I take every day (without it, I die), but there are a lot of people out there on anti-hypertensives, statins, and diabetes drugs that could probably do without them if they were more selective about what they ate.

Please don't think that I am advocating one form of eating—Paloe, vegetarian, whatever—over another. I firmly believe there is no "one-size-fits-all" diet that fits everyone. I just want people to be aware that there are strong market forces behind what shows up in their grocery stores and those market forces are driven by money, not altruism. And this push for "heart-healthy low-fat diets" has its roots in some very suspicious data. Be skeptical, be vigilant, and don't believe everything you're being told.

I wanted to take a picture of my breakfast today, but I was hungry and I ate it. I shredded some zucchini and green peppers from the garden, mixed them with some eggs and herbs, then dumped the whole thing into a big buttered frying pan and cooked it on low heat until the eggs were set. It was yummy.

If you stayed with me this far, thanks. I'll return to blogging about other stuff later this week.