Friday, October 21, 2016

Health horrors

1824: 

Surely the Western educated and well-informed person has twigged by now that the decline in people's state of general health is related to the ready availability of tempting food items that are disastrous for health. If it's finger-lickin' good you can be sure that's as good as it gets. Fast foods are conventional animal-based foods notched up for taste. They've become a daily assault on the body, and represent today's worst eating habits. Consequently, we are far less healthy and far fatter than we need to be.

Surely the connection is obvious, between the large numbers of sick humans and the animal-based foods being eaten. The meats and dairy-egg products come from unhealthy animals, pumped with dangerous chemicals and largely fed on unnatural foods. Because the consequences of our food choices are not immediately evident, our bodies seem to tolerate chemical abuse over many years. The progressive effect on the body is slow enough for us not to notice the tell-tale, incremental changes, and since people become addicted to these foods they don't want to notice. They think they've 'got away with it'. Throughout childhood and on into adulthood, we prize our freedom to choose what we eat. We continue eating the same foods for many decades, until the body starts to show the accumulated effects of those thousands of meals and snacks we've consumed. But by then it's too late to undo the damage.

If we realise anything at all, it is that we've been manipulated, tempted, addicted and numbed to the cruelty behind our food. It's a case of ethics and health being sacrificed for free-willed decision making.


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