Definition of FOOD according to the 1954 edition of the Library of Universal Knowledge, from the root meaning, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Swedish
Shepherd.
 

Is the power of your food keeping you safe from intruders, e.g. pathogens? Does it provide calmness & yet energy when you need it?

That would be a shepherd's rod & staff. The Rod for power, the Staff for bring you back to safety & balance. 

It's not yet widely known  but chemicals  in our ground & food have depleted the safe-guarding and health-promoting nutrients soil & food had 30 years ago. Even then vitmains & minerals were depleted.


You know about ads - they attack your senses to make you want tasty food products.
You need a skinny/voluptuous body & lips  -  certain cars to prove your sophistication  -  the latest & greatest electronic toys  -  the smells of scented plug-ins & cleaners.

Hopefully you'll change your mind a little after reading the paragraphs below. You Have Been Dooped!

Think about it a little - do you commonly find peace & contentment "out there"? Are people & pets healthy & friendly in the USA and industrialized nations who follow our diets & lifestyles?
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Excerpts from Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation

Fast food is now served at restaurants, stadiums, airports, zoos, schools and universities, on cruise ships, trains and aeroplanes, at supermarkets, petrol stations and even in hospital cafeterias. Americans now spend more money on fast food - $110bn last year - than they do on higher education. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music - combined.


I think people should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction. They should know what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns. As the old saying goes: You are what you eat.


Fast food has been carefully designed to taste good. The distinctive taste of a certain famous french fries doesn't stem from the type of potatoes they buy, the technology that processes them, or the restaurant equipment that fries them. Other chains buy french fries from the same large processing companies & use similar technology & equipment.


Amid a barrage of criticism over the amount of cholesterol in its fries they switched to pure vegetable in the 1990's. So how are they going to make their fries taste like the old ones?
At the end of the list of ingredients you'll fine "natural flavour." That's why most fast food - indeed, most of the food Americans eat today - tastes the way it does.


Look at the labels on your food. You'll find "natural flavour" or "artificial flavour" in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than their differences. Both are man-made additives that give most processed food its taste.


Few people, however, can name the companies that manufacture fast food's taste.
The fast-food chains, understandably, would like the public to believe that the flavours of their food somehow originate in their restaurant kitchens, not in distant factories run by other firms.


The New Jersey Turnpike runs through the heart of the flavour industry, an industrial corridor dotted with refineries and chemical plants. International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), the world's largest flavour company, has a manufacturing facility in Dayton, New Jersey. 

The plant is a huge, pale blue building with a modern office complex attached to the front. It sits in an industrial park, not far from a BASF plastics factory, a Jolly French Toast factory and a plant that manufactures Liz Claiborne cosmetics.

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The basic science behind the scent of your shaving cream is the same as that governing the flavour of your TV dinner  -  the manipulation of volatile chemicals create a particular smell or taste.

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I toured various laboratories and pilot kitchens, where the flavours of well-established brands are tested or adjusted, and where whole new flavours are created.
IFF's snack and savoury lab is responsible for the flavour of crisps, corn chips, breads, crackers, breakfast cereals and pet food. The confectionery lab devises the flavour for ice cream, biscuits, sweets, toothpastes, mouthwashes and antacids.


Everywhere I looked, I saw famous, widely-advertised products sitting on laboratory desks and tables. The beverage lab is full of brightly coloured liquids in clear bottles.
It comes up with the flavour for popular soft drinks, sport drinks, bottled teas and wine coolers, for all-natural juice drinks, organic soy drinks, beers and malt liquors.



A typical artificial strawberry flavour, such as that found in a Burger King strawberry shake, contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethlyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butonone (10% solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylactophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin and solvent.



Some strawberry yogurt gets its colour from carmine, and so do many frozen fruit bars, sweets and fruit fillings, and Ocean Spray pink-grapefruit juice drink.


Cochineal extract (also known as carmine or carminic acid) is made from the desiccated bodies of female Dactylopius coccus Costa, a small insect harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands. The bug feeds on red cactus beries, and colour from the berries accumulates in the females and their unhatched larvae. The insects are collected, dried, and ground into a pigment. It takes about 70,000 of them to produce a pound of carmine, which is used to make processed foods look pink, red, or purple
{I'd rather eat these than lab-produced pink chemicals!}


A firm called Red Arrow Products Company specialises in smoke flavour, which is added to barbecue sauces and processed meats. 

Red Arrow manufactures natural smoke flavour by charring sawdust and capturing the aroma chemicals released into the air. The smoke is captured in water and then bottled, so that other companies can sell food that seems to have been cooked over a fire.


All of the flavours being created through fermentation, enzyme reactions, fungal cultures and tissue cultures are considered natural flavours by the FDA & labeled GRAS - Generally Recognized as Safe.

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Research the company you want to buy from - it can make the difference between life and health, or slow-growing disease. - Mary

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