These days you can’t turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, log onto Facebook, read a blog without someone or some organization pointing fingers at the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, the healthcare industry or the FDA. A lot of inflammatory rhetoric is aimed at these industries and, in my opinion, while the rhetoric can be fun and leave one with a sense of feeling empowered, it ultimately is often misdirected.
Here’s the problem: there really is no conspiracy. These industries are not conspiring to make you unhealthy; they’re conspiring to sell their products. These industries are doing their job, which is, plain and simple, to make money. The industries do that by filling demand. The demand is created by you, me and the rest of us. Some would argue they create the demand with marketing, and that is likely partially true, but it’s up to us to be smart enough to see through their messaging and evaluate if what they’re saying works for us or not. If we didn’t drink caffeinated beverages by the gallon, the food industry wouldn’t produce them. If we didn’t take Lipitor like it was candy, the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t manufacture it. If we didn’t look to the medical community as being more responsible for our health than ourselves, there wouldn’t be such a long wait in the doctor’s office.
The fact is we have collectively created the problem. We have not been very smart with our choices as consumers and we blindly go on our way thinking the FDA protects us from any and every possible negative effect from a new chemical, food substance, etc. The fact is that’s not the FDA’s job. The FDA has to balance the safety of consumers with the economics of our world.
The other fundamental problem the FDA has is explained with the concept of “total load”. Let me explain; if you consume one beverage per month containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and the rest of the time you consume water and fresh fruits and vegetables, it’s unlikely that you will suffer any ill consequences of consuming the one beverage containing HFCS. If, however, you consume two of those beverages per day, along with a side of French fries, a chocolate shake (ice cream sweetened likely with HFCS), OJ for breakfast (concentrated sugar) and you don’t exercise….. Well – you get the picture.
The FDA tests in a silo. They have no way of testing the additive effects of a single product on your physiology because we are all different, so it’s tested by itself. The interaction of that new product with the other toxins in your body is never tested and therefore, the possible additive effects are not known. For the most part, the chemicals, additives, synthetic substances that we consume and are exposed to won’t by themselves, in small doses, have substantial negative effect but the additive effects are mostly unknown. Yes, sometimes the FDA makes a mistake and a product makes it to market that shouldn’t, but that’s fairly rare. In addition, it’s very difficult to understand the toxic effects of something over time, say 10 to 20 years. It’s almost impossible to control variables in human subjects and frankly animal subjects over an extended timeframe. There is no process in place or known scientific methodology that allows for the testing of additive effects inside of a human over time because it’s too complex and the variables cannot be properly controlled.
Therefore, it is up to us individually. They are not going to stop selling HFCS sweetened products if we continue to buy them. If you sit down at night to a plate full of food that came out of cardboard boxes, cans or plastic bottles – YOU are creating the problem. If your meal came through the driver’s window – YOU are creating the problem. If your plate doesn’t contain something green classified as a vegetable – YOU are creating the problem. If the liquid in your glass is fizzing instead of clear and without bubbles – YOU are creating the problem.
Yes, all of those industries work to recruit you as their customer; that’s their job. They work to create and then fill a demand that increases their profit. They are not going to change until we demand they change with our dollars. They only produce products we buy; that is the nature of capitalism. WE need to stop buying them. It’s not their job to keep you healthy; that’s your job. That is all good news because YOU get to make the choice and they can’t stop you.
