If you stop and think about it even for a minute, you will realize that 99% of the products you buy and love, are manufactured with a veritable cornucopia of chemicals which the manufacturer has to infuse in order for the product to have an extended shelf life. Now, I realize that the wonder of modern technology has given us the ability to buy products that we don't need to use immediately before it spoils, which makes life easier, saves us money, and even makes certain things safer. But modern science has also created more research into these products, and it seems to me that the more research there is on what makes up the things we love, the more evidence there is that the things we love contain things that can do us harm.
The best example I can think of is High Fructose Corn Syrup. By itself, HFCS may not be such a bad ingredient. You've all seen the commercials (funded by the Corn Refiner's Association, and other HFCS manufacturing organizations) that claim it's not dangerous, it's made from corn, it's just as safe as sugar, etc et etc. While this may be true to a certain extent, the fact that manufacturers put it in EVERYTHING, sort of cancels out any argument that it might be good for us. I dare you to open your refrigerator or cabinets and look at the list of ingredients on some of the items in there. Here's a hint as to where to start: Ketchup, Barbeque sauce, spaghetti sauce, juice, canned fruit, soda.
I don't want to waste this entire post on HFCS alone though. The whole reason I got inspired to write this in the first place was because I read an article someone shared on FB about "flame retardant" being one of the ingredients in Gatorade.
You can read the article here:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/01/26/theres-flame-retardant-my-gatorade
What pisses me off is that these companies answer the call of consumers who want chemicals removed from their drinks, by researching ways to add DIFFERENT chemicals in order to fool consumers again.
The bottom line to me, is that I feel like I get lied to everyday by product manufacturers. Through their use of keywords like "natural" or "organic" or even by using seemingly honest phrases like "nutrient-rich" or "heart healthy", they try to fool me into believing the superficial words they plaster on the front of their product labels. They are hoping I don't turn the box/bottle/can/etc around and look at the ingredients that the product is made of. Even more, they hope that I don't do an internet search to learn more about WHAT the ingredients are. You can do this on your own, I don't have the energy to list some of these ingredients and what they are (maybe later).
This just goes to show that we need to stop buying this crap. The only way we're going to send a real
message to these companies is if no one buys from them anymore.
Think about the affect that lying has on you, when it comes to people you know. When you discover that someone has been lying to you over and over again, you stop trusting that person right? So why do we seem to make an exception for companies we buy products from? When we discover that PepsiCo dupes us time and time again into believing that products like Gatorade are good for restoring our electrolytes, when actually it is doing more harm than good, why would we continue to trust them by buying their products? Is it an issue of laziness on our part? i.e. "convenience", Is it our own ignorance? Is it that we just don't know what our alternatives are?
It takes a lot of research, but it's not hard to do, just search online using "DIY" or "homemade" and chances are you will learn how to make A LOT of the products you love, yourself. And the best part is, they are not only cheaper (if you break down the cost of the ingredients and the number of "servings" you can get out of them), but they do NOT have all the nasties in them that the store bought products have.
I can go on and on about this for hours especially because i've been learning so much about this stuff recently, but i'll let you do some research for yourself. I just wanted to rant about the lies.
No comments:
Post a Comment