Toxins in Food Are Killing People
It's Absolutely Essential to Know What One is Eating and Drinking
Nov 8, 2008
People are now assaulted with toxins more than at any other time in history. Besides air and water pollution, one is bombarded with a continuous flow of electromagnetic waves, including very low frequency ones. Some toxic items are basically unavoidable, but others are well within a person's control.
The Dangers of Sodas
Of all the items people consume, sodas may well be the very worst and the easiest to avoid. It doesn’t matter if these drinks are diet, caffeine free, or the regular. All of them are lethal.
Diet sodas contain aspartame. There is now irrefutable evidence that this substance causes cancer. According to Dr. Russell Blaylock, a former brain surgeon who has witnessed first hand what chemicals can do to the brain, aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde and formic acid, which attaches to DNA and then causes multiple breaks in DNA.
Studies that Dr. Blaylock refers to show that leukemia and lymphoma increase with exposure to aspartame, as do breast cancer and brain cancers. In addition, aspartame is a proven addictive substance.
Sugared sodas are dangerous also as it is well known that cancers thrive on sugar.
MSG and Excitotoxins
Another additive that is an extremely toxic substance is MSG, which is a deadly excitotoxin. While most people are aware that MSG is not a healthy additive and try to avoid it, many do not know that it is often called something other than MSG when it is added to food:
- Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
- Caseinate (also calcium caseinate)
- Autolyzed yeast extract
- Beef or chicken broth
- Natural flavoring
One will notice that at least one of these labels appears on most store bought foods:
- Most salad dressings
- Catsup
- Coffee creamers
- Some cake mixes
- Doritos (and many other chip/snack foods)
- Many canned goods
- Almost all pre-packaged, boxed foods and frozen foods
The issue with MSG is that it is an excitotoxin. These excitotoxins are added liberally to pre-packaged, or pre-prepared foods, including baby foods. When neurons in the brain are exposed to these excitotoxins they become very agitated and excited, firing off until they reach a state of exhaustion and then dying. Essentially, these substances cause brain damage. One may ask, could these substances be causing the increase in brain tumors, brain cancers and Alzheimer disease?
Toxins in Wrappings
Most consumers are now aware of BPA in plastic bottles, but many may not be aware of PFOs (perfluoroctane sulfonates) and PFOA (perfluoroctanoic acid), classified together as PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals) that are present in the packaging of food which leaks into the food itself. These chemicals are in almost every person’s blood now and are linked to increased rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and impaired fetal development. They also adversely affect the liver, thyroid gland and immune system.
Avoid Soy Extracts
According to Dr. Blaylock, America’s love affair with soy and soy products is also extremely hazardous to one’s health. The glutamate level in soy products is even higher than that found in MSG products. A study confirmed that those who consumed the most soybean products had the highest occurrence of dementia and brain atrophy.
Dr. Blaylock is not alone in his denunciation of soy. Elaine Hollingsworth, author of Take Control of Your Health and Escape the Sickness Industry (Empowerment Press International, Ninth Edition, 2003) writes extensively of the negative effects of soy and says, "No less an authority than the US Department of Energy Health Risk Laboratory has published research showing that isoflavones in soy act in the same way as the outlawed insecticide DDT to cause breast cancer cells to multiply. In 1988 a Taiwan University team led by Dr. Theodore Kay remarked that for more than half a century soy has been known to cause thyroid enlargement, especially in women and children" (p. 125).
Hollingsworth continues, "...the ingestion of soy causes cancer and countless other life-threatening illnesses, destroys bone, creates havoc with the hormonal systems of humans and animals alike, represses the sex drive and, even if elimated from our diets overnight, is so entrenched in the food chain and the bodies of everyone who has ever ingested it, that its adverse effects would still plague the health of generations yet unborn" (p. 120).
Soy's adverse affects on thyroid has been well documented by many others. "Health and nutrition magazines tout the benefits of soy as a cure-all for women's health, hormonal problems, cancer prevention, weight loss, and many other problems. The reality, however, is that promotion of soy may be more a matter of business and marketing, rather than recommendations based on sound scientific evidence," according to Mary Shomon in Soy's Thyroid Dangers. Shomon is the author of a number of books on thyroid disease and considered to be an expert in this area.
Unfortunately, genetically modified soy is present in the majority of processed foods, so it is very difficult to avoid. Surely the debate over the health benefits of soy will continue, as the soy industry has a great deal at stake.
Eating Healthfully
The necessity of choosing natural, unadulterated foods is increasingly obvious. Many health issues such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, cancer and diabetes can be directly linked to the ingestion of toxic chemicals that most people ignore or assume are not dangerous because the FDA has allowed them to be marketed. It becomes necessary, unfortunately, to follow the money in many cases to understand why these substances are on the market at all.
 |
