Each year Americans consume an estimated 1,500 pounds of food per person. With more than two out of every three Americans overweight, it means we consume more food than we should, which requires more fossil fuels to make and transport our food, and our bodies around, and it creates an enormous amount of bodily waste. The World Health Organization reports that there are more than a billion people worldwide who are overweight, more than 300 million of whom are considered obese and these figures should be compared to the 800 million who do not have enough to eat.
Michael Pollan, bestselling author of In Defense of Food, explains that we are now facing an unfamiliar dilemma in America; we are the human beings who manage to be both overfed and undernourished. Today, Americans spend more than half of their food dollars on meals prepared outside the home while consuming a diet of which half is mostly sugars in one form or another.
Many of our holiday ‘traditions’ revolve around the North American custom of gorging ourselves. In fact, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and our birthday celebrations, all involve the ritual of overconsuming, and wasting, a lot of food. Often, North Americans will stuff themselves at holiday meals until they feel ill, have distended bellies, need to take digestive aids or even vomit. Some individuals experience food hangovers for several days after the holidays have finished. The overconsumption of food is an intrinsic, yet disturbing, part of many North American’s holiday experiences.
The overconsumption is one problem, but the fact that many of the festive foods North Americans consume are so unhealthy, so lacking in nutrients, that their poor quality is actually a major contributing factor to the holiday eating disorder we have.
These unhealthy foods include vegetables grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers; factory farmed meat and poultry fed on a diet of genetically modified corn and soy and antibiotics to stave off infections from their unhealthy diet; sugary sodas, cakes and candies filled with toxic dyes, chemicals, cheap corn syrup and genetically modified ingredients; chocolate grown with pesticides and farmed by slave labour.
Vegetables
Unless your vegetables are labelled organic, they were probably grown using pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Although global figures are hard to come by, industry reports suggest an estimated 1.5 - 2.5 million tons of pesticides are used annually. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that infants and children may be especially sensitive to health risks posed by pesticide because their internal organs are still developing and maturing; and due to the quantities absorbed in relation to their body weight, infants and children eat and drink more than adults, possibly increasing their exposure to pesticides in food and water.
Factory Farmed Meat
Americans, as some of the largest consumers of meat, also practice some of the cruellest factory farming methods in the world. Unfortunately, as so much of the cruelty happens behind closed doors, the consumer is unaware of the reality of factory farming.
The David Suzuki Foundation explains, “Factory farming, whether it's for pork, beef, chicken or salmon, treats animals like raw materials that are processed and turned into an end product — meat. Animals in these systems are literally treated like inert matter. Little thought is given to their welfare”.
Currently, more than 60% of America’s industrially grown and heavily subsidized corn crop is fed to the country’s 100 million beef cattle. For example, a beef animal is raised on a bulking diet of corn, coupled with strict confinement to prevent movement, making the cattle fatten as quickly and economically as possible. The result is weak, sickly animals. Corn produces an acidic stomach that requires the use of ‘preventative’ measures, mainly the use of antibiotics, and livestock now consume more than 70% of the antibiotics in the USA.
Sugar
Most candies, cakes, sodas and other sweets contain corn and/or soy products (read the labels) in one form or another. Unfortunately, more than 85% of the soy crop and 60% of the corn crop are genetically modified (Frankenfoods) in North America. In fact, Roundup Ready Soybeans account for 90% of all the soybeans grown in the USA. These soybeans, manufactured by biotech giant Monsanto, are genetically engineered to resist the pesticide Roundup (the world’s best selling herbicide – also owned by Monsanto). Parents will be hard pressed to find one conventional candy, soda or sugary treat made in America that doesn’t contain soy or corn based ingredients.
The Economic Research Service of the USDA reports that, “…U.S. sugar consumption declined between 1974 and 1986 as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) replaced sugar in most sweetened liquid products. U.S. consumption of all caloric sweeteners has risen from 127 pounds per capita in 1986, to 153 pounds in 1996, a 20% increase in 10 years”.
Chocolate
Sweet chocolate has a bitter side. Chocolate is grown with heavy applications of pesticides and harvested in slave labour conditions by children in a distant developing nation. The International Labor Rights’ Fund (ILRF) reports that much of the world’s cocoa production includes child labor and starvation level wages for farmers. ILRF reports that children work long hours, face frequent exposure to pesticides; and child labor slaves face physical beatings and other cruel treatment. Many children working on cocoa farms never eat a chocolate bar in their lifetimes.
No wonder so many people feel nauseous, not just from the enormous portions they eat during the holidays, but also from the unhealthy holiday foods they are consuming. It is hard to feel good about the festive foods when everything we put in our mouths is filled with pesticides, toxic chemicals, Frankenfoods, cruelty or exploitation.
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