False Simplicity is a Food Marketing Ploy

Health education and guidelines are rampant with over simplistic wording and over simplistic terminology. This simplicity was originally created by people who were trying to make their junk food products appear healthy.

Carb Quality:

One such industry is the sugar industry. This manipulation has been going on for over 60 years. The companies have funded an untold number of studies showing that processed sugar is the same as fruit sugar, and the same as honey, and the same as an actual piece of fresh fruit.

But this isn't actually true. When doing much of this research, they isolate parts of processed sugar, and isolate parts of a piece of fruit, and say, "See, look, they're both sugar!" But there are a number of misleading things going on in this. For one, they are LOOKING for some particular form of sugar. And they are not looking for anything else.

Also, they've processed the fruit to extract the sugar, and they're only looking for that same form of sugar. Then they say, "Hey, look, it does the same thing to the body, in the same way." But, to do this, they had to extract the sugar from the fruit, then compare it that way. They didn't test a spoonful of processed sugar against a whole apple, eaten as part of a healthy meal.

The whole process is skewed so now they can market processed sugar and say it's the same as fruit.

This skewed research is so deeply ingrained in our culture, even beyond a laboratory setting, that most people think that fruit causes the same problems as processed sugar for things like diabetes and cancer.

The new low carb movement has even gone so far as to say that many vegetables, which are technically a carb, are just as bad as processed sugar. This is ludicrous. And it would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that this has caused untold damage to millions of people. The ridiculousness of this skewed thinking is completely lost on most of our western culture. Many simply can't see how insane this kind of thinking is.

This same thinking has led many to believe that a piece of bread is just as healthy as an apple, or a strawberry. Or that you can substitute a cookie for a banana, as long as the carb count is the same.

Many have gotten to the point that all they can see is carb = carb.

Fat Quality:

The same thing has occurred regarding fats.

First of all, people think fat makes you fat. Research has shown since the late 60's that that's not true. Processed sugar and processed grains make you fat. And things like processed polyunsaturated fats and trans fats give you heart disease and cause heart attacks.

Secondly, people think fat is fat. Many think they're all the same and that all fat is bad. It's just now starting to come to light that this isn't true, but it's certainly not main stream thinking yet.

People were also lead to believe that saturated fat is bad, causes high cholesterol, that high cholesterol is bad, and that high cholesterol causes heart attacks. But this whole like of thinking is incorrect. And the worst part is that this whole train of thought was disproven in the 50s / 60s, as invalid. But the original scientist who had this theory had clout, and simply refused to acknowledge the actual research that disproved his theory. And he spent the rest of his life promoting this myth.

It's became a part of our so called common knowledge. It has played a big part in the eating guidelines for many countries around the world. To the devestation of the people.

For many, the fear of fat has become pathalogical. For example, many people won't eat an avocado, because it's high in fat. That's ludicrous. For many people, if they do choose to eat fat, they think that a high fat candy bar, made with ultra processed fats is the same as an avocado.

They too only see fat = fat.

Protein Quality:

And finally let's look at protein. Again, we are lead to believe that all protein is the same.

One of the first big industries to use skewed methods of promoting this falacy was the soy industry.

The soy industry wanted to be able to grow. They were starting to produce soy oil, and had the waste material from that oil production, and were trying to find a way to use it, and expand their market.

They took this waste sludge, and tore it apart, to see how they could use it. A big part of this waste material is protein. They did a ton of research, whose sole purpose was to prove their product was the same or better than meat protein, and would provide suitable nutrition. The same methodology was used as for the sugar industry. They extracted parts of various protein sources, and looked for specific things that were the same, and said, "Hey, look, it's the same! It's healthy."

There are a number of things that are still not very widely known about soy that makes is a terrible food.

Soy is an estrogen mimicker. Due to this, men should not be eating this. Men do not need any extra estrogen. Soy has played a part in the absolutely devastating destruction of male hormone health. Many do not know, for example, that the fertility rate in western civilizations has plumeted. It's not just a couple percentage points. It's dropped by 2/3 in just the last few decades. I do acknowledge that it's not just soy, but soy has contributed to this.

Some people claim that soy is only a weak estrogen mimicker. For a woman, who is super healthy, and has properly balanced hormones, then this will not be an issue. But the sad fact is that well over half of women have some form of hormone imbalance. Thus an estrogen mimicker will not be good for her.

Soy also contains forms of MSG. And the processing of soy can create additional forms of msg, that are widely used in processed food. MSG is an excitotoxin. This basically means that it messes with your brain, and causes damage.

But when people hear of soy, many still think, "Well, it's just a better form of protein, it's better than meat." This simplistic thinking of all protein being the same has had devastating effects on the health of many western countries.

Again, people see protein = protein.

Solutions - How to Override False Simplicity:

Now you can see where this form of simplistic thinking is not serving us well. It has simplified things that aren't simple.

Though it's a change of habit to look more closely at the complexity of all our food, this allows us to properly assess what we eat. When we're fully informed, we can make wiser choices. When we're fully informed, we'll actually know why one food is better for us than another. We'll actually know how to properly prepare the foods we do choose to eat. And we'll know when it may not be a good idea to eat a food, even a food that technically is healthy.

When we choose to open ourselves to the complexity that is our food, it allows us to continue to learn about it, and to change our minds about whether we want to eat it any more or not. We can learn the intricate nuances of our food, and understand when it serves us, and when it doesn't. We'll be able to customize our diet, to our own body, in it's current state of disease or health.

Conclusion:

One trick to begin to counter some of this false simplistic thinking is to get away from processed food. Get back to basics and make your own food, from real, whole food ingredients. Many of the "false" simplistic foods simply don't exist in whole food, and can go a long way to avoiding this false simplicity.

Check out some of our Recipes to enjoy some whole, made from scratch food - you'll love it and your body will thank you!