Eat Your Heart Out, Felicity Lawrence expose on breakfast cereals and
other major junk food scams by global corporations, The Guardian, UK:
Murray 2008.07.05
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Saturday, July 5, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1548
__________________________________________________ _


http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts...285846,00.html

This is an edited extract from Eat Your Heart Out:
Why The Food Business Is Bad For The Planet And Your Health,
by Felicity Lawrence, to be published on June 26 by Penguin.
To order a copy for £ 8.99, with free UK p&p, call 0870 836 0875
or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop

Drop that spoon!

Britain is one of the world's largest consumers of puffed, flaked and
sugared breakfast cereals. How did that happen when many were said to
contain less nutrition than the boxes they come in?

Felicity Lawrence investigates

Saturday June 14, 2008, The Guardian

Cornflakes in a bowl with a spoon
Cornflakes with spoon: J Garcia/Corbis [ photo ]

How did it all begin? It was one of those things that crept up on us
and we still can't quite believe happened. Looking back, we'd been in
denial for some time. Then a friend who hadn't seen the family for a
while blurted out the bald truth. "God, Dodi's got rather fat. In
fact, you know, I think that might count as obese."

Once said, it had to be admitted. If you looked at Dodi from behind
when he was sitting down, you could see a substantial spare tyre
around his 13-year-old middle. It bulged out from his hips and flopped
down like a muffin rising out over its baking case. He had become
quite lazy, too, preferring to lounge in front of the fire rather than
play in the garden as he used to. His excess weight was slowing him
down. His joints seemed stiff as he climbed the stairs.

He had been hooked on a particular brand of instant meal for ages.
Guaranteed real tuna, the packaging said. Enriched with omega-3 and 6
fats! What was inside, however, did not have much to do with tuna --
10% minimum, according to the small print.

It was largely rendered poultry meal mixed with corn gluten meal,
ground rice, soya oil and dried beet pulp.

Dodi is our cat, and we know cats do not normally eat carbohydrates
such as ground rice or sugar, nor corn, nor vegetable oils.
Nevertheless, that's what we had been feeding him. It said on the
packet that it was "scientifically formulated", after all.

The absurdity of feeding an animal something that it never evolved to
eat and that actually makes it fat and sick ought to be easy enough to
see.

But we had not been alone in our blindness, apparently -- feline
diabetes has risen dramatically in the past few years in the UK.

Where the human diet is concerned, a similar myopia seems to have
descended upon the British. Instead of relying on a food culture
developed over centuries, we have come to defer to the pseudo-
scientific instructions of professionals.

Where did it all go wrong?

The rise of breakfast cereal makes a revealing case study of the
evolutionary process behind the modern diet. One of the earliest
convenience foods, processed cereals represent a triumph of marketing,
packaging and US economic policy. They are the epitome of cheap
commodity converted by manufacturing to higher-value goods; of
agricultural surplus turned into profitable export. Somehow, they have
wormed into our confused consciousness as intrinsically healthy, when,
by and large, they are degraded foods that have to have any goodness
artificially restored.

When the first National Food Survey was conducted in 1863, it
questioned 370 families of the "labouring poor" and found that
breakfast consisted variously of tea kettle broth (bread soaked in hot
milk and salt), bread and butter, bread and cheese, milk gruel, bread
and water, and oatmeal and milk porridge. Today, however, the British
and the Irish are the largest eaters of puffed, flaked, flavoured,
shaped, sugared, salted and extruded cereals in the world. We munch an
average of 6.7kg of the dehydrated stuff per person per year in the
UK, and 8.4kg each in Ireland.

The Mediterraneans, generally credited with a healthy diet, have so
far kept this form of instant breakfast down to an average 1 kg per
person per year. The eastern Europeans, deprived of marketing until
the fall of communism, consume only a few grams each a year. Yet the
British have succumbed almost entirely to this American invention,
with the result that 97% of households today have at least one packet
of cereal in their cupboards.

How can such a radical change have come about? Was there something
peculiarly susceptible about the British that led to it? To find out,
I went to the US, to the midwest states that are the heartland of
industrial corn production and to the home of the first cornflakes.

Prepackaged and ready-to-eat breakfast cereals began with the American
temperance movement in the 19th century. In the 1830s, the Reverend
Sylvester Graham preached the virtues of a vegetarian diet to his
congregation, and in particular the importance of wholemeal flour.
Meat-eating, he said, excited the carnal passions. Granula, considered
the first ready-to-eat breakfast cereal, was developed from his
"Graham flour" by one of his followers, James Caleb Jackson. It was a
baked lump of slow-cooked wheat and water that had to be soaked
overnight to make it soft enough to be edible. It was sold at 10 times
the cost of its ingredients. The business motive for proselytising by
breakfast cereal was established.

After Jackson's invention, the Seventh-Day Adventists took up the
mission. A colony of them had set up in a small town called Battle
Creek near the American Great Lakes in Michigan. There, in 1866, they
established the Western Health Reform Institute to cure hog-guzzling
Americans of their dyspepsia and vices. John Harvey Kellogg turned it
into the famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, where he set about devising
cures for what he believed were the common ills of the day, in
particular constipation and masturbation. In Kellogg's mind, the two
were closely linked, the common cause being a lack of fibre, both
dietary and moral.

Kellogg experimented in the sanitarium kitchen to produce an easily
digested form of cereal. Together with his wife and his younger
brother, William Keith, he came up with his own highly profitable
Granula, but was promptly sued by Jackson, the original maker of
Granula, and had to change the name to Granola.

Around the same time, an entrepreneur called Henry Perky had also
invented a way of passing steamed wheat through rollers to form
strands that could be pressed into biscuits to make the first shredded
wheat. JH Kellogg experimented further with his team, and eventually
they found a way of rolling cooked wheat to make flakes that could
then be baked. Cornflakes followed when the Kelloggs worked out how to
use cheap American corn instead of wheat, although initially they had
problems keeping them crisp and preventing them from going rancid.
This great leap forward is of a piece with other major developments in
the industrialisation of our diets: it is usually the combination of
technological advances and the right economic conditions that lead to
major changes in what we eat.

It was a chronically dyspeptic businessman and former patient of
Kellogg's at the sanitarium who unleashed the power of marketing on
breakfast. Charles Post set up the rival La Vita Inn in Battle Creek
and developed his own versions of precooked cereals. "The sunshine
that makes a business plant grow is advertising," he declared,
promoting his cereals with paid-for testimonials from apparently
genuine happy eaters. He also cheerfully invented diseases that his
products could cure. Grape Nuts were miraculously marketed at the time
both as "brain food" and also as a cure for consumption and malaria.
They were even, despite their enamel-cracking hardness, said to be an
antidote to loose teeth.

By 1903, Battle Creek had turned into a cereal Klondike. At one point
there were more than 100 cereal factories operating in the town, many
making fabulously exaggerated claims about the health benefits of
their products. The symbiotic relationship between sales, health
claims and the promotion of packaged breakfast cereals has continued
ever since.

The Kelloggs had tried unsuccessfully to protect their flaking process
with patents. When William Keith saw how much others were making from
the new foods, he launched his own advertising campaign, giving away
free samples and putting ads in newspapers.

Global expansion quickly followed. Britain saw its first cornflakes in
1924, when the company set up offices in London and used unemployed
men and Scouts to act as a sales force for the imported cereal. By
1936 UK sales topped £ 1m, and Kellogg's was ready to open its first
British manufacturing plant in Manchester in 1938.

The technology used to make industrial quantities of breakfast cereal
today is essentially the same as that developed from the kitchen
experiments of those fundamentalist healers, although new ways have
been found to add the sugar, salt and flavourings. Flavour and
vitamins lost in processing may be put back during processing or
sprayed on to the finished cereal product.

Worries about the nutritional value of such highly processed grains
surfaced early. Post's company was one of the first to begin the heavy-
duty presweetening of cereals with sugar coating in the late 40s. The
sales were enviable. The Kellogg company, however, held back. The
charitable Kellogg Foundation, which by then had been set up to
promote children's health and education, was a major shareholder and
was, it is said, concerned that flogging sugar coatings to the young
may not be compatible with its purpose.

Many of the health benefits claimed for breakfast cereals depended on
fortification rather than on micronutrients from the raw ingredients,
most of which were either destroyed by the process or stripped away
before it. The earliest fortification was with vitamin D, the so-
called sunshine vitamin, and acted as a marketing tool. Today, a new
wave of fortification is coming.

Inulin, a form of fibre from plants, known to the food industry until
recently as a cheap bulking agent, thanks to its ability to retain
water and mimic the "mouthfeel" of fats, is now added as a
"prebiotic". What this means is that it resists digestion in the upper
gastrointestinal tract and reaches the large intestine almost intact,
where it is fermented by bacteria, encouraging the production of
friendly microflora. The inulin, in other words, does what the fibre
naturally occurring in wholegrains would do if it hadn't been stripped
out by overprocessing.

Companies are also looking at adding omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA.
There are technical difficulties with this, however, not least that
since the DHA tends to come from fish, it makes things taste fishy.

All the technology at their disposal has not helped the manufacturers
deal with one serious problem, though.

Industrial cereal processing produces acrylamide, a chemical compound
that is known to cause cancer in animals and was classified as a
probable human carcinogen in 1994. The trade magazine Food Manufacture
wrote nervously in 2006 that acrylamide could be "the next food scare
round the corner". Since then, further research has confirmed a link
between acrylamide intake from food and cancer.

Those eating 40 micrograms of acrylamide a day were twice as likely to
get cancer of the ovary or womb as those who had low intakes.

Some other processed foods contain much higher doses of acrylamide,
but even so, tests by the UK's Food Standards Agency a few years ago
suggested that a serving of breakfast cereal could contribute about
nine micrograms.

The FSA's advice to consumers on processed foods was blandly
reassuring -- no need to change their diet, the industry would be
working to reduce the formation of acrylamide. The European food and
drink industry association, the CIAA, has compiled a toolbox on
acrylamide for manufacturers, and from it you get a sense of the huge
effort that is going into industrial pilots to see how acrylamide
levels could be reduced. But there are no easy answers, and sometimes
the toolbox makes clear that the ways of lowering acrylamide may just
be incompatible with making these types of products.

That processed cereals had become little more than sugary junk with
milk and vitamins added was an accusation made as long ago as 1970,
when Robert Choate, an adviser to President Nixon on nutrition, told a
congressional hearing into breakfast cereals that the majority "fatten
but do little to prevent malnutrition". Choate was outraged at the
aggressive targeting of children in breakfast cereal advertising. He
analysed 60 well-known cereal brands and concluded that two-thirds
offered "empty calories, a term thus far applied to alcohol and
sugar".

Rats fed a diet of ground-up cereal boxes with sugar, milk and raisins
were healthier than rats fed the cereals themselves, he testified to
senators.

Battle Creek today is a backwater in Michigan, three hours' drive from
Chicago. There is not much sign now of the cereal gold rush that
changed the British palate, and the flake factories have mostly gone.
But the legacy lives on. In their place alongside Kellogg airport and
the Kellogg Foundation is Kellogg's Cereal City. Built in the shape of
an old grain store, the museum is a testament to the power of
marketing that so maddened Choate. Walking through the collection, I
was struck by how much our breakfast today is the child of
advertising.

One of my favourite sections was the cabinet of boxes and pamphlets
recording the original health claims that anticipate today's
persuasive messages. "Keeps the blood cool!" "Makes red blood redder!"
Then there were the cereals that echoed today's claims for prebiotics:
"Will correct stomach troubles!" or indeed mirrored claims made on my
cat food: "The most scientific food in the world!"

Getting children hooked, making them associate breakfast cereal with
fun and entertainment, were among the main aims of competing
manufacturers from the early days. Kellogg's sponsored a children's
programme called The Singing Lady. In 1931, the artist Vernon Grant
heard the programme and was inspired to draw the Kellogg's Rice
Krispies ad characters Snap, Crackle and Pop. His cartoon characters
were used in ad campaigns that catapulted Rice Krispies sales up into
the league of the more established cornflakes brands.

Cereal advertising likewise helped shape early television. Using
"motivational research" to work out how to appeal to women and
children with different kinds of packaging, Kellogg's broadcast the
first colour TV programmes and commercials for children. The result
was that by the mid-50s the company had captured nearly half the US
processed cereal market and was in a prime position to build its
empire in Europe.

The UK market for cereal was worth more than £ 1.27 bn in 2005. It,
too, has been created and maintained by advertising. Kellogg's has
consistently been the largest advertiser of cereal in this country,
spending roughly £ 50 m a year in recent years, about twice as much as
its rival, Cereal Partners (a joint venture with Nestlé). Without
advertising, we might never know we needed processed cereal and revert
to porridge or bread instead. Or, as Kellogg's European president Tim
Mobsby put it to MPs conducting an inquiry into obesity in 2004, "If
we were not to have that capability [of TV advertising], there is a
probability that the consumption of cereals would actually drop."

The following spring I was one of a handful of reporters flown in a
private jet by Kellogg's to its Old Trafford cornflakes factory, as
part of its campaign to protect its portfolio and its ability to
market it, particularly to children. The ostensible reason for the
trip was that Kellogg's was launching a new product in the UK --
Kashi, a brand of mixed-grain puffed cereal free of all additives. But
criticism of the food industry for selling products high in fat, salt
and sugar had reached a head, and the cereal manufacturers were the
subject of unwelcome attention.

Before touring the factory, we were ushered past a giant Tony the
Tiger cutout and into the strategic planning department for a
presentation on nutrition policy and labelling. Here, the company
nutritionist explained how, in response to pressure from the FSA, the
Association of Cereal Food Manufacturers had reduced salt by a quarter
in five years. Cornflakes were even tastier than before because you
could taste the corn more now. So why was there so much salt in the
first place, we asked. The managing director of Kellogg's Europe, Tony
Palmer, confessed that "if we'd known you could take out 25 % of the
salt and make cornflakes taste even better, we would have done it
earlier. But it's also about the interaction with the sugar -- as you
take the salt out, you've got to reduce the sugar because it starts to
taste sweeter."

But isn't the target to reduce sugar consumption, too? Why not just
cut down on salt and sugar, we wondered. Well, sugar helps keep the
crispness and is part of the bulk, so that would be difficult, we were
told. Palmer's eyebrows started working furiously as he answered: "And
the risk is, if you take the salt out, you might be better off eating
the cardboard carton for taste."

The public relations team moved us rapidly on from this unfortunate
echo of Senator Choate's observations about rats to a presentation on
the Kashi Way. "We hold the spirit of health in all we do," one of
them explained, echoing this time the quasi-religious marketing babble
of the founding cereal makers. Since this was a puffed cereal, what
levels of acrylamide did it contain, I wondered. No one was sure, but
they'd come back to me, they said. They never did. Perhaps they
thought I had lost interest.

The industry is adamant that its products are a healthy way to start
the day, and has recruited Professor Tom Sanders, head of the
nutrition department at King's College London, to defend "breakfast
cereals served with semi-skimmed milk" as "low-energy meals that
provide about one fifth of the micronutrients of children".

However, Cereal Reoffenders, a survey published by the consumer
watchdog Which?, took a rather different view. When it analysed 275
big-name breakfast cereals from leading manufacturers on sale in UK
supermarkets in 2006, it found that 75% had high levels of sugar while
almost a fifth had high levels of salt, according to criteria drawn up
by the Food Standards Agency for its traffic-light nutritional labels.
Several cereals making claims to be good for you got a red light, too.
All-Bran was high in salt; Special K got a red for sugar and salt.
Some high-fibre bran cereals were giving you more salt per serving
than a bag of crisps. Some products may have been reformulated since
the report to reduce salt and sugar.

Back at Battle Creek's museum, you can see Kellogg's vision for the
future. Before exiting the exhibition into the shop, where visitors
enter into the spirit by sporting strings of Fruit Loops as headbands,
I passed a section on "global expansion". As well as advertising in
new markets, it revealed, Kellogg's has been sponsoring school
nutrition programmes and health symposia for professionals. This
activity is part of a "massive programme of nutrition education
directed at improving the world's eating habits".

With 90 % of breakfast cereal consumed in just a handful of countries,
the company that helped to transform the British diet "has rededicated
itself to reaching 1.5 billion new cereal customers around the world
in the next decade".

Improving the world's eating habits has the attraction, as the 19th-
century American entrepreneurs discovered, of being what economic
analysts call a "high-margin-to-cost business". The raw materials of
breakfast cereals, commodity grains, have been kept cheap for decades
thanks to government subsidies (although biofuels, a new focus for
support, has changed the equation recently).

US agricultural subsidies totalled $ 165 bn (£ 83.75 bn) in the years
between 1995 and 2005. Just five crops accounted for 90 % of the money
- corn, rice, wheat, soya beans and cotton. If you want to understand
why all those commodities, cotton aside, make it in to most of the
processed foods, this is where you have to start.

One of the biggest costs in cereal manufacture is not the value of the
ingredients nor the cost of production, but the marketing.

About a quarter of the money you spend on breakfast cereal goes on the
cost of persuading you to buy it.

That still leaves room for gross profit margins on processed cereals
that are 40 % to 45 %.

Start selling this kind of processed diet to new consumers in China
and India, and your profits -- and those of the country that has
dominated grain exports and trading, the US -- will soar.


http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/...289278,00.html

Fred Pearce is the author of Confessions of an Eco Sinner (Eden
Project Books).

Politics, philosophy and society

Fat cats in our kitchen

Fred Pearce gets a glimpse inside the secretive world of the global
food industry

Saturday July 5, 2008, The Guardian

Eat Your Heart Out, by Felicity Lawrence, 352 p, Penguin, £ 8.99

With her last book, Not on the Label, the investigative journalist
Felicity Lawrence turned our stomachs: many people haven't eaten the
same since.

Now she wants to exercise our frontal lobes by taking us on a journey
to find out who decides what we eat, and how they manage to foist so
much rubbish on us in the name of choice, health and, increasingly,
the environment.

It is a restless snap-crackle-and-pop ride, jaunty in places, rarely
preachy, always engaging. Lawrence is a guide we can trust, whether
she is in the Amazon soya fields or grabbing organic tucker at the
local farmers' market.

Defying the conventional boundaries of her trade, she is both sensible
and readable on everything from your bodily functions to Britain's
archipelago of tax havens, from American industrial history to the
living conditions of Italy's migrant workers (Médecins sans Frontières
says these conditions wouldn't be allowed in African refugee camps).

British businesses such as Tate & Lyle and Unilever feature
frequently.

But three American combines turn up in every chapter. Cargill, the
world's largest privately owned corporation, Archer Daniels Midland
and Bunge sit like giant spiders in a web, brokering grain, soya,
animal feed, cocoa, biofuel, palm oil and chickens -- not to mention
fertiliser, seeds and cotton.

They provide the feedstock for the human race, and quality control is
not their strong point. They have, for instance, transformed the fats
we eat, with results we are still guessing about. The chemistry of the
nerve cells in our brains -- our fattiest organ, apparently -- is
being reconfigured by these godfathers of our industrialised diet.

Lawrence offers some good history, too. We learn how John Harvey
Kellogg's evangelical obsessions with constipation and masturbation,
combined with a keen commercial eye and Uncle Sam's Marshall Plan,
brought cornflakes to the masses. How margarine began as an adjunct to
the soap industry, moved on to waste beef tallow, then whale blubber
and the products of King Leopold's genocidal tyranny in the Congo --
all thanks to the British and Dutch companies that eventually combined
to form Unilever.

Then there is the story of how Kurt Berger, a British food
technologist who once employed Margaret Thatcher as an ice-cream
innovator, went on to persuade food manufacturers to put palm oil into
almost every product you eat. Goodbye, southeast Asia's rainforests.
Persuasion is the name of the game. Lawrence's dissection of the
marketing of "probiotic" yoghurt drinks is superb, revealing as dodgy
a wheeze for extracting maximum "added value" from milk as anything
dreamed up by Kellogg.

Why do we buy this rubbish? Are we forced to? The supermarkets and
food combines insist we have never had so much choice, but the trouble
is that our senses of smell and taste and sight -- which have evolved
to allow us to decide what we eat -- are being deliberately confused
and titillated by modern processing and packaging.

Lawrence gives us some great journalistic set pieces. She spends a day
with Cow 777, a 10,000-litres-a-year milk-making machine in the
Cotswolds. She joins Polish peasant farmers waking up to the fact that
joining the EU means having an American industrial pig farm in your
backyard. She tours Midwestern cornfields in the wake of combine
harvesters yoked one minute to the world breakfast cereal business and
the next to biofuels -- but always to the task of turning a cheap
commodity into a high-value must-have product. She meets African
migrants queuing for work in the tomato fields of southern Italy. And
she joins campaigners against a giant soya shipping terminal in the
Amazon that is speeding the destruction of the jungle in order to feed
Europe's chickens.

I would have liked to hear more from the people in the fields of the
world. The people who feed us, like the fruit farmers of Chile or the
bean-growers of Kenya. Not least because one of the subtexts of a book
like this is that we should go back to eating simple and eating local
-- and cutting these people and their products out of our lives.

But there is much to feast on as Lawrence journeys from her own fat
cat (page one finds her musing on the girth of her moggy) to find the
fat cats of the food business, laying bare mind-boggling madnesses,
such as the global pandemic of addiction -- there is no other sensible
world for it -- to sugar.

"The genius of globalised capitalism," Lawrence concludes, "is not
just to give consumers what they want, but to make them want what it
has to sell." If this book has a fault it is that it does not get
close enough to this genius. But sadly this is a reclusive world.
Lawrence never got through the doors of Cargill, which has its
European headquarters at Cobham in Surrey.

We all of us eat the products supplied by such companies every day of
our lives. Most of the molecules in our bodies come from them, but
they won't even talk to us about it.


http://www.whale.to/a/sanders_h.html

Professor Tom Sanders

[ T. A. B. Sanders BSc, PhD, DSc (London), Professor of Nutrition &
Dietetics, King's College London (University of London).

An 'expert' promoting aspartame.

This was in the end paragraph, called 'The Verdict', to an article
looking at aspartame. See: Dr Vincent Marks, who promotes sugar. ]

"The key point is that we can help people to live healthier lives if
they can reduce their calorie intake. Sweeteners (aspartame) have a
valuable role to play in the fight against obesity." -- Prof Tom
Sanders, head of nutritional science at King's College, London (Daily
Mail Oct 12, 2004).

A real expert:

"How silly of you to think that Nutrasweet replaced sugar -- it
didn't. It increased the craving for sugar and the percentage of
people overweight also has increased. That couldn't be Nutrasweet's
fault, could it? -- BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt

Artificial Sweeteners Once Again Linked to Weight Gain -- Ditching
your diet foods could be one of the best weight loss moves you make.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/35570.aspx

http://www.whale.to/a/experts.html list of corporate "experts"

http://www.whale.to/a/medical_industry.html
The Medical Industry (aka Big Pharma, Medical Industrial Complex)

http://www.whale.to/ [ one-sided, but informative, rather conspiracy
minded ]
;

http://www.whale.to/v/stitt_b.html

BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS
by Paul A. Stitt, Natural Ovens Bakery
4300 County Highway CR, Manitowoc, WI 54220
920-758-2500 800-558-3535

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, FOREWORD & INTRODUCTION
1. THE FIGHT BEGINS
2. INSIDE A FOOD GIANT
3. EXPERIMENT
4. "CAN'T EAT JUST ONE" SYNDROME
5. THE NATURAL REVOLUTION
6. HELPING YOURSELF
7. TEN EASY STEPS TO BETTER HEALTH.
8. BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS
9. RECIPES
APPENDIX 1
Why all bakers should make bread like Natural Ovens
Food, Teens & Behaviour
Why George Should Eat Broccoli
Why Calories Don't Count!
APPENDIX 2: [Media Oct 2005] Addiction Coke
APPENDIX 3: [Media Aug 2005] OREO. Craving the cookie

Ever wonder why you often don't feel good, can't think, can't
remember, can't sleep and don't feel like working either. If you want
the answer, just read "Beating the Food Giants." Paul Stitt gives a
first hand account of the inside workings of the giant food companies
of America. He tells how they program you to crave certain foods, to
overeat every day, to make you feel stuffed but hungry, and how this
"mad energy" of the food industry is destroying you and what you can
do about it.

Stitt tells how you can feel 10 years younger, how you can restart
your life and slowly by example of his own life, how you might be able
to start your own business and help other people at the same time.

According to the Wall Street Journal (April 21. 1993), the president
of Coca-Cola makes $4,051,000 a year and the president of Pepsi-Cola
makes $11,136,000 by making a fool of you. Topping that, the president
of Nabisco makes $3,061,000 for making products like Oreo cookies that
you can't stop eating and Ritz Crackers (more fat per ounce than pork
chops). The man who gets the best grade of all in fooling people is
the president of Budweiser. He makes over $16,000,000 for making
products that relieve your inhibitions, then makes you fall asleep
even while driving a car at high speeds. Do you really want to keep
these men living in the style in which they are accustomed? If not,
read this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul A. Stitt was born on a farm near Verona, Illinois, Oct. 10, 1940,
and has devoted his entire life to human nutrition. From gathering
eggs and feeding pigs as a boy, to his four years as a food scientist
for Tenneco Corporation and the Quaker Oats Company, to his
development of three patented protein-synthesis techniques, and
finally to the establishment of his nationally recognized bakery,
Natural Ovens of Manitowoc, Paul has been working to produce better
foods and to inform the world about the dangers of our processed
diets.

He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Beloit College in
1962, and his Master of Science Degree in bio*chemistry from the
University of Wiscon*sin at Madison in 1968. From 1968 to 1970 he
worked in protein research for Tenneco. Paul then did exploratory re*
search for Quaker until he was fired for insubordination in 1972. As a
food scientist he learned that the American food industry was out to
deceive the public. It was his constant insistence that the Food
Giants produce nutritious, non-addictive foods that irritated his
employer and led to his eventual termination.

Paul spent the following three and a half years in independent
research, and in 1976 founded Natural Ovens of Manitowoc Bakery to
prove that commercial production of nutritious foods is feasible.
Today Natural Ovens is one of the nation's largest and fastest growing
distributors of whole-grain breads and natural foods.

http://www.whale.to/v/stitt_h.html

http://www.naturalovens.com

Quotes
"I would drink chlorinated water only if the alternative was no water
at all."

"How silly of you to think that Nutrasweet replaced sugar -- it
didn't. It increased the craving for sugar and the percentage of
people overweight also has increased. That couldn't be Nutrasweet's
fault, could it?" -- BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt

The swelling ranks of diabetics can consider themselves victims of the
Food Giants. BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt

"There is a force in this country that's out to poison your food, to
make it addictive, to manipulate your very body chemistry. This
conspiracy wants to keep you overfed but undernourished. Who's behind
this conspiracy? The food giants."-- Paul Stitt

The public knows very little about nutrition. Instead, it pays
attention to the advertisements of the Food Giants. People buy what
the food conglomerates make them want. More than 70 % of weekday food
advertisements time is spent in hawking garbage. To the Food Giants,
sales are more important than nutrition. Mean*while, the customers are
being brainwashed -- lulled into thinking that because we have a
Department of Health and Human Services that approves these processed
foods, they must be good to eat. They're tragically mistaken. The time
has come for people to start reading labels and paying attention to
what they put in their bodies. BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A.
Stitt

In his fascinating book, "Paradox of Plenty," Harvey Wallenstein give
a detailed explanation of the philosophy and growth of the food
industry from 1930 to 1990. He lays out in explicit detail the corrupt
thinking and proves with thousands of referenced articles how the
American food industry has put packaging, flavor, advertising
gimmicks, clowns, etc., ahead of the all important reason for eating
food -- nutrition. "Paradox of Plenty" is a scholarly work that fully
indicates the food industry as the super cause of American obesity and
runaway sickness costs. I recommend it as a "must read." BEATING THE
FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt

We'd shown that protein could be made from natural gas, that it could
be done successfully on a large scale, and that it could be done
cheaply (a pound would cost about 11 cents to produce, and would
provide eight people with 100 % of their protein needs for a day). And
we had done it in one year -- half the time we'd been allotted for
completion! ......
When we were called into the vice president's office on the
afternoon of New Year's Eve, we expected a raise and a pat on the
back. ...... "Gentlemen," he said nonchalantly, "the Board of
Directors has decided to terminate your project, effective
immediately." ........They were actually firing us! .......Finally,
when I could stand it no longer, I marshalled my courage and called
the president of Tenneco. How could they do this senseless thing?
"Friend," he told me, "if I had a whole mountain of protein, I
wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. Who's gonna buy
something like that?"
I was dumb struck. What about the starving millions? Was the
profit motive all that counted for anything? I told myself that it
could not be so, that somewhere there must be a company which would
embrace the project and develop it to full potential. But I was still
naive, and I still believed that the best way to make money was to
make things people really needed.
BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS by Paul A. Stitt

[2003] The Real Cause of Heart Disease Is Not Cholesterol by Paul
Stitt
http://www.realcauseofheartdisease.com/aboutbook.htm

http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bi...tt_062504.aspx

... Paul says that is possible because the American food industry
deliberately makes food that does not satisfy. "It's hollow food, food
that has no substance to it," he says. That's why one feels hungry
soon after eating it. In their processing, the food companies take out
the nutrients, and add artificial flavorings and lots of sugar. They
add stimulants that create cravings. In the film Paul says Morgan eats
5,000 calories per day! People can eat that many calories per day and
still be hungry soon after because the food is specially designed to
do that. That seems to be shortsighted on the part of the industry.
Paul says they think in terms of making as much money as they can
today, not thinking about the long-term effects of what they are
doing.

Paul knows this subject firsthand because he worked for several major
food companies years ago and became alarmed at what he saw as
unhealthy food practices. Scientifically, he knew this was not the
best way to process food. When he voiced his concerns, he was ignored
at best, called a crazy radical at worst. He says they tried to ban
him from speaking in the media and on TV, but they could not since
there is free speech in America.

He started his own company in 1976. "I predicted this epidemic of
obesity 25 years ago," he says. "Now that there is an epidemic of
obesity, many call me now to speak at their conferences."

TRIED AND TRUE

In his film Morgan crosses the country talking to fast food customers,
visiting schools, and interviewing many experts. Paul says he came to
Morgan's attention when Morgan did a Web search to find a healthy
school lunch program. He found only one, which was the one in
Wisconsin's Appleton School District. In the movie Morgan shows what
happens when things are done right. This bright spot is the Peak
Performance school lunch program created by Paul and his wife,
Barbara, which is now in its sixth year. "I am delighted to be part of
Super Size Me," he says. "Morgan has humorously depicted in 96 minutes
what has taken me 20 years to research."

Morgan highlighted an Illinois school lunch program where a plate of
french fries or a slice of pizza are daily fare -- much like the rest
of the nation's. Contrast that to Paul's program where burgers and
soda machines are out and salad bars and energy drinks are in. After
removing every vending machine, the school hired two cooks to prepare
meals based on fresh produce, whole grains, and energy drinks. School
officials noted a decided change in the students' behavior -- they are
able to better focus in class and they feel better.

"Kids are bombarded with fast food -- even in school," Paul says, "but
I've proven if you give them healthy alternatives, they'll make the
right choice and life-changing results will follow." Parents and
educators need to accept responsibility for our exploding childhood
obesity problem. "So many kids are suffering because they are obese
and unhealthy," he says. In 1997 the Stitts underwrote the $100,000
five-year program in Appleton's Central Alternative High School for
students identified as at-risk or with discipline problems. The school
district has plans to expand the program to its 25 schools that serve
15,000 students.

VALUE

When asked if eating healthy costs too much, Paul puts this in
perspective. A loaf of whole grain bread averages $ 2.00 per loaf.
Because this bread feeds and satisfies the body, one slice per meal is
enough. Three slices per day (a loaf and a half) equals $ 3.00 per
week, which totals $ 150 per year. Whole grain bread provides 50
percent of all the nutrients you need. Add some turnip greens, apples,
bananas, chicken, or fish, and you have a healthy, satisfying meal.
Contrast that to spending at McDonald's (per the movie) $ 27 per day
on average -- that is $9 per meal -- and staying hungry. That totals $
850 per month. Paul says fast food gives you the perception of being
cheap, but it's not. To eat well you have to think ahead and plan. To
enjoy a healthy pot of beans, you have to start them the day before.

This is not high tech, he says, not gourmet, but just fresh fruits,
vegetables, and whole grains. Paul says the Lord put in food all we
need to stay healthy. We have to be wise in eating it.

Paul says he would like to encourage young people to start companies.
Look at the long-term benefits. All Natural Ovens' products are
certified Kosher Pareve by the Chicago Rabbinical Council Pas Yisroel.


http://clearingatkings.org/schools/b.../tsanders.html

Professor Tom AB Sanders BSc PhD DSc RPHNutr
Professor Tom Sanders Lecturer in Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College/
Kings College London 1982- 1991
Reader in Nutrition, Kings College London 1991- 1994
Professor of Nutrition & Dietetics (established chair), Kings College
London October 1994-present

Head of the Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, Kings College London
1995- 2000
Head of Nutritional Sciences Division 2003-present
Tel: 44 (0)20 7848 4273, Fax: 44 (0)20 7848 4171,
E-mail: ;
Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street,
London SE1 9NH

Current Research Interests

The main focus of our research is on the mechanisms by which diet
influences risk of cardiovascular disease. Much of our research has
been involved with differentiating the effects of different types of
fatty acids (trans fatty acids, omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated
fatty acids, oleic acid, and different chain length saturated fatty
acids) as well as the relative proportions of fat and type of
carbohydrate on cardiovascular risk factors.

In addition to the work on dietary lipids and carbohydrates we have an
interest in the biologically active components in plant foods such as
isoflavones and flavonoids.

Wherever possible, we try to take a holistic view with regard to
dietary intake and are interested in the effects of overall dietary
patterns.

We have a long-standing interest in comparing the health of vegans
with vegetarians, who consume milk and eggs, and omnivores, who eat
meat/or fish in addition to milk and eggs.

We also have an interest in the acute effects resulting from the
consumption of certain foods as well as the longer term effects.

Our group has specific expertise in the measurement of polyunsaturated
fatty acids and other lipids including eicosanoids.

Perhaps what differentiates the work of our group from other groups
working on dietary lipids is that we have tended to focus on the
interaction between the effects of dietary lipids and changes in
haemostasis.

Our work was among the first to show that meals high in fat induce
activation of clotting factor VII and impair endothelial function.

Our most recent work in this area indicates that meals high in oleic
acid may have adverse effects on procoagulant activity and endothelial
function compared with meals containing stearic acid.

We endeavour to foster cross-disciplinary research and seek to work
with people with expertise that complements our own. We have much
experience in the design and execution of controlled dietary
intervention trials.

Recently completed research includes OPTILIP which was a six-months
dietary intervention in 258 older men and women which compared the
effects of long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids versus linolenic
acid on cardiovascular risk factors.

We also have an active programme of research investigating vegetarian
sources of long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids derived from
algae.

We are currently running two large dietary intervention trials. The
RISCK study is evaluating the effects of different levels of fat
intake and changes in the glycaemic index on insulin resistance and
features of the metabolic syndrome including vascular function.

DRFRUITNVEG study is a randomized controlled trial evaluating the
effects of increasing intakes of fruit and vegetable intake versus
increased potassium citrate intake on blood pressure and vascular
function.

Most recent publications:

1. Sanders,T.A., Lewis,F., Slaughter,S., Griffin,B.A., Griffin,M.,
Davies,I., Millward,D.J., Cooper,J.A., & Miller,G.J. (2006)
Effect of varying the ratio of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids by increasing
the dietary intake of {alpha}-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic and
docosahexaenoic acid, or both on fibrinogen and clotting factors VII
and XII in persons aged 45-70 y: the OPTILIP Study.
Am J Clin Nutr, 84, 513-522.

2. Sanders,T.A., Gleason,K., Griffin,B., & Miller,G.J. (2006)
Influence of an algal triacylglycerol containing docosahexaenoic acid
(22 : 6n-3) and docosapentaenoic acid (22 : 5n-6) on cardiovascular
risk factors in healthy men and women.
Br.J.Nutr., 95, 525-531.

3. Morkbak,A.L., Hvas,A.M., Lloyd-Wright,Z., Sanders,T.A., Bleie,O.,
Refsum,H., Nygaard,O.K., & Nexo,E. (2006)
Effect of vitamin B12 treatment on haptocorrin.
Clin Chem., 52, 1104-1111.

4. Sanders,T.A. & Berry,S.E. (2005)
Influence of stearic acid on postprandial lipemia and hemostatic
function.
Lipids, 40, 1221-1227.

5. O'Neill,F.H., Sanders,T.A., & Thompson,G.R. (2005)
Comparison of efficacy of plant stanol ester and sterol ester: short-
term and longer-term studies.
Am J Cardiol., 96, 29D-36D

6. Rosell,M.S., Lloyd-Wright,Z., Appleby,P.N., Sanders,T.A.,
Allen,N.E., & Key,T.J. (2005)
Long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in plasma in British meat-
eating, vegetarian, and vegan men.
Am.J.Clin.Nutr., 82, 327-334.
__________________________________________________ _



re "A Few too Many", Joan Acocella, The New Yorker,
long review of hangover research 2008.05.26 -- same levels of
formaldehyde and formic acid in FEMA trailers and other sources
(aspartame, dark wines and liquors, tobacco smoke):
Murray 2008.06.05
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.htm
Thursday, June 5, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1541

[ See also:
There really is no controversy, Adrienne Samuels PhD, letter re
evident toxicity of aspartame EJCN 2008.06.11:
Murray 2008.06.30
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.htm
Monday, June 30, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1546

former key Hillary Clinton staff Mark Penn and Patti Solis Doyle
use much neurotoxic aspartame Diet Coke -- also many other
politicians: Murray 2008.06.30
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.htm
Monday, June 30, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1545 ]


formaldehyde and formic acid in FEMA trailers and other sources
(aspartame, dark wines and liquors, tobacco smoke):
Murray 2008.01.30
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.htm
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1508

The FEMA trailers give about the same amount of formaldehyde
and formic acid daily as from a quart of dark wine or liquor,
or two quarts (6 12-oz cans) of aspartame diet soda,
from their over 1 tenth gram methanol impurity
(one part in 10,000), which the body quickly makes into
formaldehyde and then formic acid -- enough to be the major cause
of "morning after" alcohol hangovers.

Methanol and formaldehyde and formic acid also result from
many fruits and vegetables, tobacco and wood smoke, heater
and vehicle exhaust, household chemicals and cleaners, cosmetics,
and new cars, drapes, carpets, furniture, particleboard,
mobile homes, buildings, leather... so all these sources add up
and interact with many other toxic chemicals.

methanol impurity in alcohol drinks [ and aspartame ] is turned into
neurotoxic formic acid, prevented by folic acid, re Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome, BM Kapur, DC Lehotay, PL Carlen at U. Toronto,
Alc Clin Exp Res 2007 Dec. plain text: detailed biochemistry,
CL Nie et al. 2007.07.18: Murray 2008.02.24
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.htm
Sunday, February 24, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1524
__________________________________________________ _


"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to enjoy peace,
joy, and love by helping to find, quickly share, and positively act
upon evidence about healthy and safe food, drink, and
environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://RMForAll.blogspot.com new primary archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 126 members, 1,548 posts in a public archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartame/messages
group with 1,121 members, 22,783 posts in public archive
__________________________________________________ _


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

Annals Of Drinking
A Few Too Many
Is there any hope for the hung over?
by Joan Acocella May 26, 2008

"Wayne Jones, of the Swedish National Laboratory
of Forensic Medicine"
[ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1469
highly toxic formaldehyde, the cause of alcohol hangovers, is
made by the body from 100 mg doses of methanol from
dark wines and liquors, dimethyl dicarbonate, and aspartame:
Murray 2007.08.31 ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1286
methanol products (formaldehyde and formic acid) are main cause
of alcohol hangover symptoms [same as from similar amounts of
methanol, the 11% part of aspartame]: YS Woo et al, 2005 Dec:
Murray 2006.01.20

Addict Biol. 2005 Dec;10(4): 351-5.
Concentration changes of methanol in blood samples during
an experimentally induced alcohol hangover state.
Woo YS, Yoon SJ, Lee HK, Lee CU, Chae JH, Lee CT, Kim DJ.
Chuncheon National Hospital, Department of Psychiatry,
The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
__________________________________________________ _

"white, fat and fugly" > wrote in message
...
On Jul 5, 11:34 pm, Rich Murray > wrote:
[snip]


so, in SHORT... what the truth is...


ANYTHING processed is unhealthy.


DING!


thus, this long ass breather here was unessesary.

processed diets are killer diets.



eat natural.


**** organic, because you want organic.. grow your own... the rest
is a scam.

and of course... get off your ass and know when to put down the fork.

elvira
--
Why are you quoting that nut Rich Murray?

http://www.aspartame.net/rumors/Aspa...e_Internet.asp

Robert

On Jul 14, 8:12*pm, "Robert Miles" >
wrote:
> "white, fat and fugly" > wrote in ...
> On Jul 5, 11:34 pm, Rich Murray > wrote:
> [snip]
>
> so, in SHORT... what the truth is...
>
> ANYTHING processed is unhealthy.
>
> DING!
>
> thus, *this long ass breather here was unessesary.
>
> processed diets are killer diets.
>
> eat natural.
>
> **** organic, *because you want organic.. *grow your own... *the rest
> is a scam.
>
> and of course... get off your ass and know when to put down the fork.
>
> elvira
> --
> Why are you quoting that nut Rich Murray?
>
> http://www.aspartame.net/rumors/Aspa...e_Internet.asp
>
> Robert



because this shit has to be indicated.




today i just talked to someone who thinks yogurt is healthy.





processed food diets are a scam.... crap and why they're getting away
with murder is of course.. simply put... who's going to
question yogurt?



it's SHIT!


eat your yogurt and put on 20lbs. a year.. and get gurd and whatever
else if your system is sensitive to it other than the constipation and
bloated belly from it.



it's easy to marker me off as a fruit in a situation like this.



but why folks take that shit i quoted seriously.... it's all under the
same scam...





instead.. eat pure.




and good luck on that.. i even hear that seeds from mass production
veggies is hard to get the shit out of.

ug!



maybe we should wish for the mushrooms now!

(as in clouds)

white, fat and fugly > wrote:

> today i just talked to someone who thinks yogurt is healthy.

Isn't it? Actually, yogurt is neither healthy nor unhealthy - just the
people who eat it. Some will be, some won't be. It's a milk product,
with fairly high carbohydrate, so obviously for a diabetic, it's not to
be eaten too casually. It seems reasonable food to me, if it's well
made and eaten appropriately

> processed food diets are a scam.... crap and why they're getting away
> with murder is of course.. simply put... who's going to
> question yogurt?

I eat lots of processed food - meat, which has been processed by a
butcher, then further processed by me by cooking, a fair amount of
tomato juice, smaller amount of fruit juice, which are obviously highly
processed, muesli which, again, is very highly processed, coffee,
sometimes beer (the best there is in the world, brewed to Bavarian purity
laws), .... Heck, it's difficult to think of anything I eat which isn't
processed food. Even the water I drink out the tap is (thankfully)
processed.

> it's SHIT!

> eat your yogurt and put on 20lbs. a year.. and get gurd and whatever
> else if your system is sensitive to it other than the constipation and
> bloated belly from it.

How about eating yogurt, and thereby maintaining a healthy weight, and
having energy available for one's daily business?

> it's easy to marker me off as a fruit in a situation like this.

Processed fruit or unprocessed?

> but why folks take that shit i quoted seriously.... it's all under the
> same scam...

> instead.. eat pure.

Eat pure what?

> and good luck on that.. i even hear that seeds from mass production
> veggies is hard to get the shit out of.

You have got some issues with shit, haven't you?

> ug!

> maybe we should wish for the mushrooms now!

> (as in clouds)

Oh dear!

--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

On Jul 15, 5:09*pm, Alan Mackenzie > wrote:
> white, fat and fugly > wrote:
>
> > today i just talked to someone who thinks yogurt is healthy.
>
> Isn't it? *Actually, yogurt is neither healthy nor unhealthy - just the
> people who eat it. *Some will be, some won't be. *It's a milk product,
> with fairly high carbohydrate, so obviously for a diabetic, it's not to
> be eaten too casually. *It seems reasonable food to me, if it's well
> made and eaten appropriately
>
> > processed food diets are a scam.... crap and why they're getting away
> > with murder is of course.. * * simply put... * *who's going to
> > question yogurt?
>
> I eat lots of processed food - meat, which has been processed by a
> butcher, then further processed by me by cooking, a fair amount of
> tomato juice, smaller amount of fruit juice, which are obviously highly
> processed, muesli which, again, is very highly processed, coffee,
> sometimes beer (the best there is in the world, brewed to Bavarian purity
> laws), .... *Heck, it's difficult to think of anything I eat which isn't
> processed food. *Even the water I drink out the tap is (thankfully)
> processed.
>
> > it's SHIT!
> > eat your yogurt and put on 20lbs. a year.. and get gurd and whatever
> > else if your system is sensitive to it other than the constipation and
> > bloated belly from it.
>
> How about eating yogurt, and thereby maintaining a healthy weight, and
> having energy available for one's daily business?
>
> > it's easy to marker me off as a fruit in a situation like this.
>
> Processed fruit or unprocessed?
>
> > but why folks take that shit i quoted seriously.... it's all under the
> > same scam...
> > instead.. eat pure.
>
> Eat pure what?
>
> > and good luck on that.. i even hear that seeds from mass production
> > veggies is hard to get the shit out of.
>
> You have got some issues with shit, haven't you?
>
> > ug!
> > maybe we should wish for the mushrooms now!
> > (as in clouds)
>
> Oh dear!
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).



garden.. grow one.


seeds from a local farm.


(no, i'm not a yuppy wannabe who is pretending that i can make a
garden grow)

many years tilling dirt, seeding dirt and hulling, husking, blanching,
churning, canning, weeding, re-seeding so on blah blah.


the fresher the better. folks are plastic now because of "shelf
life".