Industrialized Diet

The industrialized diet is very different from the natural foods and Paleolithic diets. By industrialized, I am referring not to the foods eaten by people who work in industry but to the trend of our times toward mass production and factory processing.

The industrialized diet contains a large proportion of refined foods. Many of the basic grains and sugar containing plants are stripped of their fiber and nutrients, leaving the concentrated sweet or starch powder that can be used to make or flavor other foods. Refined white flour and white sugar are the two basic components.

These "new" foods often have additives and preservatives to allow for packaging, shipping, and %u201Cshelf life.%u201D They fit in with the mass production ideology and fast-paced lifestyles of not only the American culture but many other technological and urban cultures of the world. Rural peoples still tend to eat more basically and naturally.

An interesting fact is that when the industrial or refined foods diet was introduced to different tribal cultures throughout the world, a general degradation of their health followed, usually within one generation. Tooth decay and diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer increased to levels that correlated with those in industrialized societies.

One of the people who had observed and described this phenomenon was Dr. Weston Price, a dentist, who studied native cultures eating such diets and compared them to like tribes who were still eating their classical diet. Dr. Price has reported on the descriptions of the tribal people themselves regarding the changes they have experienced, as well as his own observations.

This whole story is contained in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive Diets and Their Effects (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, 1948). Modern medicine and technology have made some fantastic advances that have affected the lives of almost every being on Earth, but the greatest dilemma now is how to balance these industrial changes with a healthier diet.

The refined and fast food diet has been one of the greatest economic supporters of our currently expensive medical system and has made medical doctors one of the richest professions because of all the acute and chronic disease that this technological diet generates. And herein, I believe, lies the dilemma. The Western economic structure is dependent on mass production, corporations, fast food restaurant chains, and refined, packaged foods.

The American consumer must consume them in even greater quantities, as more are being produced all the time. It is very possible that if more people cultivate foods and go back (or ahead) to eating more natural, chemical-free foods, it will either bankrupt or totally transform our current big business economy and health care system, instead of so many farms going bankrupt. But there is a lot of resistance and dollars preventing that from happening.

Billions are poured into advertising to brainwash people into buying and eating these nonfoods. Also, sweet and salty flavors are addicting, making it harder for the people eating all those pre-made snack foods to eat more naturally and enjoy it.

I do not have the answer to this dilemma (maybe more advertising for apples and sunflower seeds) other than writing this book. Time will tell. Change is usually slow, and adaptability and survival are timeless.

It is ultimately an individual choice. As more of us choose to eat more healthfully, more new and natural products will be developed and made available.