New study links ultraprocessed foods to premature deaths. But.. what about water?
It’s all about synthetic ingredients replacing natural ones, as BigFood strives to create new and addictive foods to titillate the jaded palates of the Western world.
The Jama study looked at food habits in Brazil, and discovered that people with higher consumption of these ‘Frankenfoods’ accounted for more than 10 per cent of all-cause, preventable premature deaths. And it also found that Brazilians intake FAR less Frankenfoods than countries like Australia, America and the UK.
Scientists involved already understood the effect of sodium, trans fats and sugar, particularly in sugar-saturated drinks. What they wanted to know was whether these ultra-processed Frankenfoods also contributed to the death toll, and by how much.
Across all groups studied, Frankenfoods constituted from 13 to 21 % of dietary intake. It found that 57,000 deaths in the year of the study could be directly attributable to these foods.
But.. in more developed countries these foods comprise around HALF their total food intake. The scientists involved made the specific point that these foods replaced the traditional local foods - in Brazil’s case, rice and beans.
The usual list of bad boys by the scientists include prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza, ready-to-eat meals, hot dogs, sausages, sodas, icecreams, store-bought cookies, cakes candies and doughnuts.
Ian: OK, we agree that we allow chemical additives to our food in the name of convenience. Many of us make the decision - for convenience - to accept that it might - but hopefully won’t - negatively affect our health. But this study isn’t talking about merely affecting our health. It’s talking about killing us!
I can’t help compare the ideas in this study to the water we drink. Given that we are basically a skinbag full of (mainly) water, it would, to my mind, follow that if we want to positively affect our health, we should think very carefully about what it is that needs our support.. and if we are mostly water, that body component needs our support as much as or more than anything else!
When i look at our history in terms of the development of a metabolic template that most efficiently ‘manages’ our outer world, I have to conclude that our metabolism developed and DECIDED as part of that development, to make water the predominant component of that template. And I think I can say with some certainty that the water our ancestors drank was NOTHING like the chemically altered water we have spouting forth from our taps every day.
How on earth can we expect our bodies to accept this water, with its (at latest count) up to 600 known and unresearched toxic chemical contaminants? No, we may not die tomorrow but to me, death comes from a cumulative effect of ignoring the natural demands of our body; the things it has always asked for to survive and thrive.
Some people regard a good water filter as some sort of luxury. But when i take the longview of my health strategy it’s very hard to ratinalise this idea. Drinking poisonous water every day.. must have a cumulative effect, especially now that we’ve identified a new and pervasive group of contaminants that are- basically - everywhere (PFAs and PFOAs) And yet they can be removed from our water, along with literally hundreds more nasties, for mere cents a day.
Learn more about what I drink every day here