Industrial foods? The disease is served. When the price is paid with your health

When we enter a supermarket and with a huge empty cart we are getting ready to start our 'tour' through the shelves, we perceive a feeling of plenty and well being, and we have the obvious impression of having an infinite freedom of choice: all kinds of The product is waiting there, on its shelf, just take it.

While on the one hand it is true that over time, the number and variety of products have increased dramatically and you have an enormous choice, on the other hand, our freedom is close to zero if we think not of the number and variety of products but of the quality of the food they are made of.

Not that there are no genuine and nutritious products, but these are dramatically few, and above all, we must know how to locate them, even by selecting the stores where we can supply them, or by turning them directly to the manufacturers.

In addition, critical consideration requires a fundamental prerequisite: the real awareness that the food system that is offered to us daily by the giants of the agri-food industry, and hence by the media, is failing. More precisely, it is unbalanced, and responsible for this so-called 'disease of well-being': cardiovascular problems, heart attacks, tumors, diabetes, hypertension, obesity.

Many populations have survived for centuries by eating only two or three foods for the rest of their lives. Few dishes but healthy and complete. For example, Asians have always been fed with rice and soy:

Japanese with fish.

Latin American people of manioc.

North African legumes and cereals.

cretes of fruit, vegetables and olive oil.

Cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, do not even know what they are. On the contrary, the Western world is afflicted with these diseases in a worrying way, so that obesity in the US has long been considered a national emergency that is being considered to cope with a 'war' that is comparable to The one undertaken against smoking.

The West has not been able to protect its health: On the one hand, the invasion of the food market with products of poor quality, but still inviting because they are packaged in a practical, ready-made, even cooked and take-away manner, on the other hand, there is no adequate information to warn the consumer of the risks of a food based on packaged products.

These two factors have led the people, unknowingly, enthused by advertising and strong in growing purchasing power, to buy almost everything that was offered to them. A mechanism that has been in place for decades and is now reproaching at lightning speed in developing countries where the general rise in per capita income and the massive migration to cities allow people, lived up to yesterday Of agriculture in their village, to buy large quantities of food, poor and cheap, in supermarkets in the metropolis.

But why are industrial foods under health accusation? Simple: they are on average too rich in fat, especially of animal origin (saturated fat), and sugars; Scarce instead of unsaturated fibers, vitamins, minerals and fats.

Supermarket sweets are rich in fats that serve to make them tasty, or better to mask the lack of flavor of the dough, made with poor ingredients. Fats and sugars are often overwhelming in these confectionery products because they have the 'merit' of giving a pleasing taste to any 'base'. And, above all, they are very cheap as they are derived from the production chain of animal products and the more they are as cheap as they will be closer to the 'waste' of this supply chain.

It results in hypercalories but with little nutrition. In developing countries, low income people are suddenly having access to this cheap and cheap food, and they do not hesitate to abuse it, as long as the portfolio allows it, attracted by the novelty of flavors, the convenience of ready-made foods, and perhaps by A desire to redeem it with respect to the previously suffered confinements.

The result? Obese people in these countries seem to have reached very high rates, close to those in the US! In 2016, the WHO registered that more than 75% of women were overweight in 20 countries; In the list, in addition to the US, there appeared South Africa, Jamaica, Jordan and Nicaragua.

The phenomenon that is occurring is precisely the increase in obesity in countries with low levels of education. "Annual sales of processed products in middle-low-income countries increase by 30% annually. Ready meals, carbonated drinks, burgers, and pre-packaged desserts are the protagonists of an unstoppable rise in sales in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia.

In the absence of sufficient income to buy fruit and vegetables, the more modest families are fueling sugars, carbohydrates, oils and other processed foods that are very energy-efficient and cheap. The fat satsy the stomach at a low price.

Even canteens, both school and business, are no exception: companies win the contract for the provision of meals based on the most advantageous price and the imperative is to cut costs. So over-abundance of oils, butter and other fats to disguise otherwise insipid foods, flavorless vegetables, eggs, cheeses and meats from hyper-intensive and inhumane farming, with obvious quality repercussions.

But how they can produce meat, eggs and healthy milk animals kept in scary conditions, in cages where they are even prevented from turning around, where forced growth by hormone sounds breaks their bones, where they get ill by the insane air of Where they are crammed, where are they bombarded with drugs and antibiotics?

Their flesh and derivative products are intrinsic to suffering, stress, toxic substances and hell that they lived during their existence, not animals, but 'meat machines'. The palate is therefore deceived and is satisfied with the flavor of fat, not realizing that what is below is poor food. The portfolio also remains satisfied with the often striking savings: tarts and biscuits packets and snacks at 1$, chicken at 2$, eggs and meat getting cheaper. The consumer, in short, seems to have sold his health in exchange for a little savings on spending.