THE POWER OF WORDS: THE LIE I ONCE BELIEVED
If you are my age, you probably grew up believing the primary purpose of government is to protect us, rather than to promote the self-interests of politicians and lobbyists. As a result, we accepted things like vaccines, a plethora of regulations, and the Canadian Food Guide. It never occurred to us that any of these things might not be in our best interests.
Now we need to question everything. Is a recommended or mandated vaccine actually safe? Is it even truly a vaccine? Is a particular requirement or regulation such as social distancing and wearing masks an effective safeguard, or just a way of exercising control? Might the Carbon Tax be totally ineffective in fighting climate change but be crippling our economy? Does the Food and Drug Administration enforce the standards it is supposed to establish for the safety and nutritional quality of products sold in Canada?
From the 1930s to the 1950s tobacco companies went to great lengths to convince doctors to prescribe cigarettes. They bribed doctors with money and cigarettes; hosted doctors at dinners and gave out free cigarettes at conventions; ran ads in medical journals that featured doctors writing prescriptions for their cigarettes; hired models dressed in white coats to explain that cigarettes weren’t harmful and that dust, germs, or lack of menthols were to blame for illnesses. Tobacco companies made false claims abut the healthiness of their cigarettes, and recruited doctors to defend those claims. They knew that many doctors were addicted to cigarettes and tobacco products, and that most still doubted the connection between smoking and disease.
Fast forward to the OxyContin crisis of more recent years. When Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin in 1996, it was aggressively marketed and highly promoted. Sales grew from $48 million in 1996 to almost $1.1 billion in 2000. Even though the Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics concluded in 2001 that oxycodone offered no advantage over appropriate doses of other potent opioids, by 2004 OxyContin had become a leading drug of abuse in the United States and Canada. One of the cornerstones of Purdue’s marketing plan was to create a database identifying physicians with large numbers of chronic-pain patients, as well as the most frequent and in some cases the least discriminate prescribers of opioids. They then used sophisticated marketing methods and techniques to influence these physicians’ prescribing habits. As portrayed in movies and documentaries, these and other tactics were used without restraint. The resulting high availability of OxyContin correlated with increased abuse, diversion, and addiction. Yet, in 2015 the FDA in both Canada and the US approved OxyContin for children of ages 11 to 16!
How many of us knew the Canadian Food Guide displayed in schools, appearing in text-books, and taught to us in health class was based on experiments conducted on Indigenous children and adults in the 1940s and 1950s without their consent? These experiments involved testing nutritional supplements and fortified foods, and often led to negative health effects. The guide has also been criticized for being influenced by food industry groups. Some say that agricultural industries have lobbied for certain foods to be prioritized. Experts have said the guide’s classification system is nonsensical, equating fruit juice with real fruit, deli meat with chicken breast, and whole grains with sugary cereal. Others say the guide overlooks those who cannot afford to follow its suggestions, which push for more expensive plants and less cheap processed foods. The 2019 version replaced the rainbow model with a plate model and decreased the number of food groups from four to three. Canadians are advised to fill half their plate with fruits and vegetables, a quarter with starches or grains and a quarter with protein. Conspicuous by their absence are dairy products. Since the food guide was first published in 1942 Canadians have been encouraged to eat or drink several servings a day. Now milk and cheese are lumped in with other proteins. Many of us recall being forced to consume large quantities of lumpy milk made from powder. We are now led to believe dairy products are somewhat unnecessary! I, for one, will give up neither fresh, whole milk nor cheese.
I tell you all of this to explain why my husband and I are now attempting to eat only whole food – foods that have not been processed. When food is processed, fat, sugar and salt are usually added and important nutrients, such as fiber, are usually removed. Too much saturated fat, added sugar or sodium can cause obesity and increase your risk of developing a chronic disease such as diabetes. Like a reformed smoker, I catch myself looking critically at people in the grocery store loading their cart with sugary drinks and unhealthy snacks. I need to remind myself that was me not so very long ago.
Foregoing processed foods is a challenge, to be sure. You’ve probably seen that viral video of a baby eating ice cream for the first time. The joy does not diminish as we age. Even as adults, how many of us continue to love the foods we enjoyed as children, including sugary cereal? I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for a person who has a job outside the home, to feed their family using only whole foods. Pizza delivery was frequently my go-to when I was a working mom, but now I have no excuse. We still sometimes give into ice cream and pizza cravings, but my husband Gary and I are always on the look-out for meals that do not include any processed foods. He recently shared a video of a woman making a Waffle Breakfast Sandwich, and I immediately went on the hunt for a waffle maker and the recipes shown below. Delicious!
