14 DAY TRIAL // Filling the shopping cart has turned into an act of faith. But while buying food, you can be misled. Because many times you do not really know what you eat. I'm not referring to the mad cow disease or bird flu, which appear in all news and daily capture our attention, but on the way we are cheated by food producers.
In the case of the meat, many times it contains too much water. That's because of (usually) illegal chemicals employed for the artificial fattening of the livestock. Sometimes this can be due to overdoses of legal drugs. Pigs are prone to stress and heart attack, that's why tranquilizers are employed in pig farms.
The livestock is fattened with anti-thyroid agents, which can induce fetus lesion if ingested by a pregnant woman. The YY peptide is forbidden, but Resorcyclic Acid Lactones not and empties your pocket. Clenbuterol is legal as a drug, but it is illegally employed for fattening livestock. It accumulates in the animal's liver and it induces in the consumer arrhythmia, tachycardia, nauseas, cephalea and nerve damages.
Stilbenes, their derived compounds, salts and esters are also illegally used. Diethyl-Ethyl-Diestriol is employed for fattening cattle and induces in humans uterus cancer and hormonal diseases.
The meat also contains many drugs, the most frequent being Estradiol 17 Beta, testosterone, progesteron, trenbolone, antibiotics and anti-infectious chemicals. They can affect our nervous system.
The meat can contain heavy metals that are removed by cooking or frying it. But the water in which meat has been boiled must not be used, as metals pass into it.
Most of the meat 'frauds' occur in "anonymous" products, lacking origin denomination.
A common question is: why chicken meat does not have flavor? Artificial fodder and stress affect it. Farmed chicken meat is softer and lighter colored than courtyard birds.
Fish can contain repugnant parasites that can be confounded with their nerves or little veins, but can be inoffensive if correctly cooked. But fish can be rich in heavy metals, extremely toxic chemicals. Tuna and other marine predators contain high levels of arsenic and mercury (pikes, too, can contain a lot of mercury).
In fish, the fraud is more economic, as fillets belonging to cheaper species can be sold as coming from more expensive species. The greatest danger in fish is represented by a parasite worm, Anisakis,that produces an allergic disease when the fish is consumed poorly cooked or raw, like in sushi. To kill bacterial germs in fish, ultra-refrigeration is required, even if some vitamins are lost.
Fish, meat and dairy products can be rich in dioxins, teratogenic and carcinogenic molecules, which are fat-soluble and readily integrate into the food chain.
Fruit and vegetables can contain high amounts of pesticides, that's why they must pass a careful check. But fruit and vegetables can pass rapidly from "ripe" to "withered", as they pass suddenly from temperature and humidity conditions of their growth place to transportation and it depends also on how much time passes from picking to market.
Many fruit and vegetables lack flavor, due to the use of additives and phytosanitary products employed in their cultivation. Some chemicals induce flavor of "ripe" in "unripe" fruit and vegetables. Many times farmers apply overdoses of pesticides on their crops, overcoming the legal doses. Heavy metals, like Cadmium, are found in all types of fertilizers. Cadmium tends to accumulate in the liver and kidneys and its chronic intake can cause hypertension, bone and lung lesions.
Additives are used to deceive our taste. They can be discarded. Glucose added to sweets induces diabetes, allergies, hyperactivity and mood shifts, especially in children.
Colorants can be natural or artificial, but the first are not better than the artificial ones. They give color to the foods to make them more attractive. There's no utility and their use is not justified.
Preservatives are added to protect against fermentation, putrefaction or mildew. The use of nitrates and nitrits in minimal doses is justified in meat. But the sulfites used in alcoholic beverages are harmful for the asthma patients.
Antioxidants impede foods from getting oxidized and turning rancid. There are natural ones (vitamins C and E), which pose no problems and synthetic ones, not recommended for babies.
Emulsifiers, thickeners and stabilizers preserve the consistency of the product and in the case of "light" products, they replace calories with rich compounds (fats, starch, and sugars). They are also used to dissimulate the lack of basic ingredients, like oil in mayonnaise, or for introducing water and simulate more meat content (like in some York hams).
Artificial sweeteners are sweeter than any natural sugar, which they substitute or strengthen. Saccharin is the most known, but there are also cyclamates and sorbitol. They can cause problems, especially in children, but they are recommended for diabetics.
Flavor strengtheners, unlike spices, that induce another taste, strengthen or modify the original. The most known are the glutamates, naturally occurring in meat, sea fruits and mushrooms, to which they give a specific flavor.