Fed Up: Is What We're Eating Healthy?
As a college student, going grocery shopping is an everyday activity. I try to buy the healthiest products I can find, but when I see something that might look healthy, because replaced with words such as "light" or "zero" or because of the images of fresh products on the container, when I check the ingredients, I can't recognize one of them.
This might be because of years spent not paying attention in chemistry class, but am I the only one?
No. Recently, I stumbled upon Fed Up, a documentary on processed foods and obesity, that also addresses the problem with "light" and "zero" products. It explains the issue started when the McGovern report was introduced, a plan for healthier lifestyles for Americans in 1977. However, since then obesity has reached outstanding and worrying numbers.
So, how is this possible?
What are we not seeing?
Fed Up investigates within 35 years of a phenomenon that keeps confusing people still today. The problem? Big companies. When "light" products became an ongoing trend within the food business, big companies such as Coca Cola and Kelloggs simply substituted the fat within their product, with sugar.
So all of the products that contains ingredients that you don't recognize...are all sugar. In forms of anything that someone like me can't understand. So, what are we really eating? We can't call a hamburger meat, we can't say light products are light.
The solution is buying fresh, organic products that can cost less than fast foods. Which I agree with. Lots of families prefer buying fast food products because of the price or velocity, when in reality supermarkets have a wide range of fresh organic food. Taking a step further in my research of the definition of healthy, I couldn't help but notice how many doctors and nutritionists encourage becoming vegetarian or vegan.
"Vegetables" is the not-so-new black. Besides being a college student I am Italian, and part of the culture that has been embedded in me for the last twenty years still can't say no to meat. On the other hand, there are people that have always been vegetarians, and I think one of the reasons trying something so different, and that one has voluntarily avoided for a great part of one's life is a process that requires time and true dedication. A very close friend of mine is a vegetarian: she has been for 4 years, and she became a vegetarian to protect animals and their rights. A large part of vegetarians give up eating meat because of the animals themselves, but it is not the only reason.
One could decide to become a vegetarian to cleanse and detox from food impurities, for intestinal problems or to reduce one's carbon footprint. There are also different kinds of vegetarians: a true vegetarian eats no meat, including chicken and fish. They rely on eggs for their protein intake. A lacto-ovo-vegetarian eats dairy products and eggs, but can't eat meat or fish. A lacto-vegetarian eats dairy products, but doesn't eat eggs, whereas an ovo-vegetarian eats eggs, but no dairy products.
Veganism is a more restricted form of vegetarianism, excluding dairy products, meat, eggs, gelatin, honey and all animal products. Although veganism might not sound appealing, it is an on going trend lots of people experiment. I have tried vegan food and personally I do not enjoy it, but this could be because I am not used to such foods. I also don't find the food to be very filling, which is also because I am used to heavy, sugary and fat foods.
(Photo credit: Atlas Films)
Besides the special attention vegetarianism and veganism are getting from doctors and nutrionists all around the globe, are they healthy for our bodies, diets that allow people to only eat vegetables? Thanks to the abundance of scientific research that proves it, going vegetarian has incredible health benefits. An article on the Vegetarian Times states that "An estimated 70 percent of all diseases, including one third of all cancers, are related to diet.
A vegetarian diet reduces the risk of chronic degenerative diseases such as obesity, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain types of cancer including colon, breast, prostate, stomach, lung and esophageal cancer.". Vegetarian diets are lower in saturated fats, cholesterol and animal proteins, and are therefore less exposed to diseases. No matter what we eat, globalization along with industry monopolies have made choosing wisely food in supermarkets a tough task. Eating in a responsible and healthy way is our duty to our bodies, and I believe the governments owe it to their citizens. The market would be terribly affected if junk food stopped being purchased, and consumers started preferring organic, real foods. It is however, an issue that is gradually and effectively reaching more and more homes. For now, I can adapt a more in depth approach to my research, becoming a vegetarian for a week or two to really understand what it means, where to eat, how one feels when eating only veggies.
Wish me luck!
