Talking to people is frustrating, complacency will be the death of society

I deal with it every day. EVERY DAY! I say something to people and they look at me as though I am from outer space. If they come to my booth, I tell them how my products don't contain toxins common to processed food, and they stare at me as if I'm a circus clown. If I'm with friends, I roll my eyes when they ask me if I want pizza, meat sandwiches, soda, donuts, or just a long list of crap that I won't eat. I tell them that all the time, and they still expect me to try eating the stuff just because they eat it and believe it to be healthy, nutritious and wondrous just like advertised. No amount of evidence to the contrary will elicit any sort of response from most people. It's as if I am banging my head against a brick wall. Complacency is indeed the most common attribute of the American Public. It can be seen by anyone that looks, at election time admitted criminals that take bribes and kickbacks from big businesses in one form or another, generally as campaign contributions, get reelected. Processed and FAST foods are THE largest source of caloric intake by the vast majority of the populace. The mass media give us shows like Big Brother, they idolize the Kardasians and they become popular because there is no thinking required. Well, from my perspective, no thinking is possible, but that's another concept for another day. It is as if no one cares what is happening in America, big business has indeed created a Zombie culture of mindless drones, eat this, watch this, think this, elect who pays us the most and you will be rewarded with life where you don't have to think. But just to make sure the populace is complacent, we give you an illusion that you are living in a democracy and that you matter.

Maybe it's the food they feed us, the soylent green of scifi with complacency drugs added.

I don't know, I don't believe in conspiracies, I think it's just that so much of the foundation of processed food is based on untested and/or poorly tested chemical additives and that for the most part, all of the big processors use them so that we really can't know the real effects. And the true damages they might cause. The FDA in America is overworked, understaffed and relies heavily on the testing done by the producers of the drugs, additives and food products themselves to interpret the data they are given before approval of new products that the likelihood of a lot of the additives and drugs having long term toxic properties is huge. We see this all the time in the pharmaceutical industry, drug companies test their new drugs short term, conclude it's safe, petition for approval then make billions only to recall the drug because it isn't safe. That's where all the attention is focused, food additives don't get much press. Probably because no one is out there spending the money to determine if any additive does in fact have long term toxicity. There's no money it it to prove something someone else makes money on is in fact bad. 

However, the thing is that these big food processors lie to us. They do it all the time. Brominated Vegetable Oil or commonly called BVO. Realistically, any bromine that is introduced into the human system can displace the element Iodine, which is one of the necessary trace elements critical for good health. BVO was

introduced into the food industry in the sixties as an off-shoot of it's main function of being a flame retardant. The stuff was approved by the FDA and a few years later was reviewed again by the FDA (lots of complaints) and limits were added for use in food products. There have been a whole bunch of internet scares and crazy stories about Mountain Dew and how it can cause so many problems, specifically because of the use of this one ingredient, BVO. You can read about it all at the Snopes website here, (SNOPES)  Some of it is true, well, a lot of it is true. As usual, the FDA has neither the funding, manpower or even the mandate to protect consumers, and so it has refused to do any further reviews of the additive. Back in May of last year Pepsico announced they would remove BVO from their products and it would be done by the end of 2014. Here is a picture of the ingredient list for Mountain Dew directly off the Pepsico website. Second to last ingredient, right above the date is BVO. 

I wrote about how bad bromine is for humans and you can read all that here at (Bromine)
Let's forget about BVO for a moment. Look at the number 2 ingredient, High Fructose Corn Syrup. If you have been living the complacent lifestyle and are totally unaware of how BAD all HFCS is for you, then please look at this very simple and basic article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (HFCS)  This label tells us that this one 20 ounce bottle has 26% of the carbohydrate that a human should consume daily. That's twenty-six percent, and all of it with no other discernible nutrients. NONE. What it does have is salt, and a lot it, that makes you thirsty, and a desire for more. It has caffeine, with no FDA requirement to let you know just how much caffeine it contains. It has sodium benzoate, which is a probable carcinogen and known long term damage to reproductive and the central nervous system (MSDS for sodium benzoate)  Lastly is the food dye (or die) Yellow Number 5. This is just one of the family of artificial dyes aptly named "Coal Tar Dyes" because fifty years ago chemists were playing around with coal byproducts and were able to isolate various colorants. They just felt they were cool enough to use them to make human food a whole lot prettier. Most have been banned in the rest of the world, but not for Americans. I know it's hard to believe that the FDA would allow such known carcinogens into our food, but they do. Even the TV quack Dr. Oz did a segment on how bad they are, here (Dr Oz on tar dyes)

All in all, Mountain Dew is not anything that could in anyway be construed as being healthy, or in any way good for you. Yet, the sidewalks are littered with the empties of our generation. It's as popular as ever, and friends offer it to me frequently. 

It's like I'm banging my head on that brick wall.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to look at common food items that people eat all the time. And review just what it is that all those ingredients mean. Keep coming back and reading, or watch the TV show Big Brother, they drink Mtn Dew all the time on it.