Health, Taken Seriously

It’s not very often that I read a book that I think everyone needs to read.  In fact, since I started this blog almost two years ago, it’s only happened once with In Defense of Food.  However, I just finished reading The Unhealthy Truth, which came out last month, and I think that every parent should read it.

The Unhealthy Truth is written by a mother of four.  Her youngest child had a severe allergic reaction to eggs and it started her on a search for answers that she documents in her book–why are so many children developing allergies these days, what has happened to our food supply in the last few decades, and why is American food not as safe as that found in other countries like Japan, Australia, and those in Europe?  At first, I was hesitant to read a book written by “just a mom.”  What were her qualifications?  I’d much rather read a book by a scientist, doctor, or some other highly educated, qualified person.  But I have to say that the author’s role as a mother made her book very accessible and easy to read.  It was also great to relate to her as a parent.  And in the end, I think more people will enjoy a book like this than books written by Ph.D.s and MDs, as I, a recovering scientist, do.  After all, this book is about as close to a page-turner as you can get while still delivering as much information as it does.  I honestly read the first half of it in about 24 hours.

Here are some startling statistics found in the book:

• The most recent statistic on the number of Americans affected by food allergies is from 2002, when an estimated 7 million Americans suffered from them.  The author, Robyn O’Brien, says that this is part of the problem.  Virtually no research is being done on how much food allergies are increasing in the U.S. or why or how we can prevent it.
• The prevalence of peanut allergies among children doubled between 1997 and 2002.  In that 5 year period, allergies increased 20% each year.  Wouldn’t it be nice to know what’s happened in the last seven years?!
• The only food allergy study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the last eight years shows a 265% increase in the number of hospitalizations related to food allergies.
• Asthma is also on the rise in the U.S.  A 2005 report from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology found that approximately 20 million Americans, or about 10% of the population, has asthma.  One in eight children in the U.S. suffer from asthma.
• According to author Joel Fuhrman, MD, about 80% of the calories in a typical American’s diet comes from white flour, sugar, and oil, while about 60% of calories come from processed foods.  Only 4% of the average American diet consists of “real food,” which includes vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, beans, etc.

Robyn O’Brien believes there are four major reasons for why immunological disorders, like food allergies and asthma, are on the rise.  One, our environment has shifted from natural to more industrialized.  Two, we are exposed to excessive amounts of antibiotics, both from prescriptions and increased consumption of antibiotic-laden meat, dairy, poultry, and eggs.  Three, we have recently experienced a rise in pollutants and environmental toxins.  And lastly, our tendency to eat more processed foods filled with chemical additives and preservatives, while eating fewer natural whole foods.

After O’Brien elaborates on the rise in allergies and what may be contributing to it, she goes on to examine other problems in our food supply–specifically the prevalence of soy and the health problems it may cause, the abundance of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in our dairy and meat,  the problems with food corporations like Monsanto and the disturbing connections they have with regulatory agencies like the FDA, how common genetically modified (GM) foods are in our food supply (corn, soy, and potatoes, unless organic, are most likely genetically engineered), and probably most upsetting to me, how other industrialized nations are exposed to much fewer additives, preservatives, and GM foods than we are in the U.S.  It’s alarming to read that major corporations have taking food colors and aspartame out of European versions of their products, but left them in the ones sold in the U.S.  In Europe, any food containing more than 0.9% GM ingredients must be labeled so.  In the U.S., we only label organic foods and non-rBGH foods (to say that there’s no difference between rBGH treated cows and those without artificial growth hormones).  By the end of chapter 7, it’s evident that our food supply is unhealthy and that our regulatory agencies are failing the American people.  Why are foods deemed dangerous in other countries readily available in American grocery stores, and without proper labeling so that we can avoid them if we choose to?  As an American, I’m insulted and angry!

O’Brien points out that many of the countries with stronger regulations and more responsive corporations have government-provided health care.  This means that the government is more interested in keeping their people healthy as they will foot the bill for any illness that arises from poor quality food.  In the U.S., no one is really motivated to keep Americans healthy–not the food industry that wants to make food as quickly and cheaply as possible, no matter what the hidden costs, not the drug companies that benefit when more people need allergy medication or EpiPens, not the government that is so clearly entangled with the food and drug companies, and not the scientists and doctors whose research is often funded by the corporations who need certain results (O’Brien notes that 100% of industry funded studies on aspartame found it safe, while 92% of non-industry studies raised safety concerns.)  The American public has a hard time knowing which studies to be concerned about as funding isn’t often fully disclosed.  Our opinion on things like food colors, aspartame, and GM foods is more gray because the research seems inconclusive.  But if we knew who funded what studies, perhaps we’d see that the research without food industry ties was finding some of our food unsafe, and then we’d be able to react to it.  Then maybe the food corporations would listen and respond to us, as they have done in other countries.

The section on GM foods is especially important for Americans to read.  We have a right to know what’s happening to our food supply and how a single corporation, Monsanto, is benefiting while we may be suffering.  I would like to include many of the startling facts from the book here, but I think you’re better off checking the book out yourself and reading it in its entirety.  O’Brien quotes a prominent European scientist, Arpad Pusztai, who researched GM foods as saying “the situation is like the tobacco industry.  They knew about it but they suppressed information.  They created misleading evidence that showed that the problem wasn’t so serious.  And all the time they knew how bad it was.  Tobacco is bad enough…. The size of genetic modification and problems it may cause us are tremendous.”  O’Brien also raises an important question for American parents to address:  “If Europeans are still hesitant to put GM seeds in their soil or feed GM crops to their cows, and if they continue to insist on labeling GM ingredients at levels of less than 1%, then what in the world are we doing here in the United States feeding unlabeled genetically engineered foods to our children?”

Unfortunately, the strength of the book dissipates by the final chapter, at least in my opinion.  In chapter 8, O’Brien discusses how parents can make changes in their children’s diet.  After all the alarming information she shares in the previous seven chapters, I was discouraged to see how weak her recommendations were.  I realize that she believes parents are too busy, or can’t afford, to make the changes necessary, but I wish she has set the bar a little higher.  For example, she recommends replacing Cheetos with Fritos, Diet soda with regular soda, strawberry ice cream with vanilla ice cream (apparently to avoid the food coloring, but what about the rBGH-laden milk and cream, or non-organic ingredients in vanilla ice cream?).  I find many of her recommendations don’t jive with the rest of her book and her repeated comments on how organic was just too expensive for her family was frustrating.  After all she had said about genetically engineered foods, I would have expected a full endorsement of organic products, since organic foods by law may not be genetically modified and since organic farmers do not represent or support the monstrous corporations that produce typical industrialized food.  In all fairness, she does offer an appendix on organic foods.  But it would have been nice if her convincing arguments in chapters 1-7 were followed by some advice for serious change, not minimally inconvenient, affordable, time-saving change.  It was as if she failed to realize that the American demand for fast, convenient, cheap food that our picky children would eat was exactly what got us into a place where corporations were genetically modifying our food, then adding preservatives, colors, and other synthetic additives to keep it fresher longer, cheaper, and more appealing.  Healthy, wholesome, and nutritious are not usually synonymous with quick, easy, and convenient.  Maybe that’s why Europeans have a safer, healthier food supply than we do.  Not just because their government is organized differently and they have less confusing research taking place, but because they have an innately different relationship to food than we do.

But I don’t want that final chapter to overshadow how wonderful the rest of the book is.  Americans have the right to know what’s happening to our food supply.  We have a right to know who is funding the research that shows these chemicals in our food are safe and muddles the true, unbiased results that beg to be heard.  We deserve to know that the corn and soy and potatoes we eat now contain pesticide genes in them, thanks to genetic engineering, and that one of the only human trials on GM foods found that this DNA never seen in food before may be transfering to our guts.  We deserve to know that our doctors, who may be downplaying the importance of information like that found in this book, have their research funded by the maker of EpiPens, or companies  that make pharmaceuticals for allergies, or companies that fund genetic engineering or biotech corporations.  Americans should get full disclosure!  We need to demand it.  And this book will do a great job of showing you how you are being lied to, how you are being manipulated, how corruption is prevalent in the agencies we trust to protect us, and how knowledge is power.  Read this book.  Ignorance is bliss, but at what ultimate cost?

Filed under: Book recommendation, Children, Food and Nutrition, Genetic Modification on June 10th, 2009