Hidden Secrets of Processed Food

Here’s a good, hard look at what’s on our plates today, and why the powers that be are profiting from our bad habit—our addiction to processed food.

Americans are eating far too much of it, and the younger generations are paying the price. Kids, from toddlers on up, are consuming more processed foods than ever before, foods like macaroni and cheese, frozen dinners, breakfast cereals, energy drinks, energy bars, frozen entrees, salty or sweet snacks, soda, fruit drinks and fast foods.

Ingredient Crackdown: What’s at Stake?

These foods can have large amounts of altered fats like trans fat and trans fatty acid, hydrogenated oils, sodium and saturated fat. One of the worst offenders is high-fructose corn syrup. The consumption of this sweetener adds to the risk of developing metabolic syndrome (a collection of risk factors that set you up for disease) and type 2 diabetes. Because most processed foods are calorie-dense, they often replace the much more healthy foods that people can and should consume. The consumption of these foods typically goes from occasional to frequent in a short period of time. The normal, healthier alternatives are now being squeezed out for the fast, convenient, tasty, cheap and readily available processed foods we have come to rely on.

From a nutritional perspective, these foods are high in calories but low in nutritional value. They can spike blood sugar and insulin secretion that often leads to large increases in body fat accumulation, insulin resistance, high blood pressure and metabolic disturbances that can occur before the age of 10. In fact, a diet staple of processed foods for children is the root cause of excess weight and obesity in America today.

Quite often the metabolic changes that have occurred as a result of this type of diet during childhood and adolescence persist through adulthood which influences their individual risk factors throughout their lives.

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