With all the recent controversy surrounding the horse meat scandal I thought it was the ideal time to write a short piece around this topic. My own personal reaction to the contaminated food scandal was one of no surprise and I am writing this blog to highlight a little truth as to what is happening with the food most people buy. After reading this I think you will find that a little horse meat is the least of your problems regarding the food on supermarket shelves today.
I have been a personal trainer for over 12 years now in Liverpool and during this time I have made it my responsibility to research heavily in the field of nutrition and human physiology. Without knowing these things I cannot help my clients other than telling them to do “3 more reps”. As I have never been a fan of just counting reps I am highly passionate about helping people hence my journey of education over the years. Once I discovered what was going on in the world regarding food and the impact it has on the body, it not only changed my own personal outlook on eating but also allowed me to help so many more people in my local community.
The information that I disclose is not one of personal opinion, it is one of fact. We now live in an information free world where there are no longer any secrets hence, the horse meat discovery, so you can find this information from any credible research source. A quick note on research, if you are looking at scientific papers then please make sure it comes from a non biased source as many companies and big organisations like to protect their profits by paying scientists to publish the safety of their products. Be warned! Read my previous blog - which has a reference to credible research sources.
So what is going on with our food?
I have been a personal trainer for over 12 years now in Liverpool and during this time I have made it my responsibility to research heavily in the field of nutrition and human physiology. Without knowing these things I cannot help my clients other than telling them to do “3 more reps”. As I have never been a fan of just counting reps I am highly passionate about helping people hence my journey of education over the years. Once I discovered what was going on in the world regarding food and the impact it has on the body, it not only changed my own personal outlook on eating but also allowed me to help so many more people in my local community.
The information that I disclose is not one of personal opinion, it is one of fact. We now live in an information free world where there are no longer any secrets hence, the horse meat discovery, so you can find this information from any credible research source. A quick note on research, if you are looking at scientific papers then please make sure it comes from a non biased source as many companies and big organisations like to protect their profits by paying scientists to publish the safety of their products. Be warned! Read my previous blog - which has a reference to credible research sources.
So what is going on with our food?
Rather than give you all of the boring scientific data that proves XYZ for just one small variable, I want to give you some very simple facts to allow you the reader to draw your own conclusions based on what I share with you. Should you not believe these facts or even have a sense of scepticism, you can simply look up the information for yourself.
Let’s take a look at the problems we have from a global perspective to help stimulate your thoughts.
Let’s take a look at the problems we have from a global perspective to help stimulate your thoughts.
1. Population – we currently have 7 billion people on the planet. That is a lot of hungry mouths to feed!
2. The western demands – the western society now wants it all, we want more choice of foods regardless of the seasons. If it’s winter and we want strawberries, we simply to go to the supermarkets and buy them. Fast food chain McDonalds sells over 45 million beef based hamburgers per week . That’s a lot of cows for just one fast food company. I wonder what the figure would be if you added all of the fast food chains put together?
3. Transportation of food – As you know a great deal of the food in the UK is important from all over the world. With this comes the preservation of food. It has to be preserved somehow in order to survive the changing conditions and environments of travelling and to stop it decaying before it reaches the shelves in the supermarkets. So what do they do to the food to preserve it?
4. The environment – With mass transportation comes mass pollution, along with the carbon effect within the atmosphere, the waste we discard into the sea’s and those little accidents we have such as spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the oceans.
5. Pesticides for farming – In order to keep up with demand farmers must spray all of their crops to keep off bacteria & parasites by using pesticides. Problem is, pesticides contain up to 30% carcinogens. If you do not know what a carcinogen is, basically an agent directly involved in causing cancer. The argument for its safe use on vegetables is that they are washed taking away the pesticides. However, if you want to nourish a plant you spray water on it and the plant absorbs the water. So are you telling me that vegetables somehow do not absorb the pesticides sprayed on them??
If I’m honest I could go on for a long time regarding our problems with food, too much for this blog. So now you have an insight to the problems we face I hope you can now see that a little horse meat does not even scratch the surface when looking at the bigger picture regarding what we have in our foods. The truth is, food is now mass produced in a way that is unsustainable so therefore man has taken a pragmatic approach to combat this at the cost of our own health. If you think about a cow for example who should not be slaughtered until approx 6 years old after living a healthy life in a field, they no longer live in a field or have a healthy life. Cows are now slaughtered after 6 months of living in an industrialised complex where they cannot exercise and are full of chemically enhanced foods to make them grow quickly. They are also full of antibiotics to stop them falling ill as this is bad for profits. Then after a short an unhealthy life, full of chemicals and toxins the cow is slaughtered and ends up on your plate with those very same chemicals still present – Yum?!
This is just my own personal view point now but, instead of spending so much money on cancer research and how we cure cancer, why don’t we just start looking at the things that are certainly contributing to cancer and maybe there might not be as much research needed to curing it? Just my own personal opinion but I personally think prevention is better than cure!
So what can you do about this?
Well there is nothing you can do to stop this problem however, there are simple things you can do to avoid eating contaminated food......eat organic. If you want to be sure of eating good clean healthy food, then eat organic. Yes I know it’s slightly more expensive but there are ways around this, limit the amount of money you spend on junk and you will find that by eating good organic food you will actually save a couple of pounds.
Take from this what you will but if you look into what I have just mentioned the truth awaits you. So my question to you is this, do you want to eat foods that are highly contaminated and full of harmful toxins or eat foods that are not full of harmful toxins.... the choice is yours, choose wisely.
If you want me to send you more information, tips, videos and podcasts then you can join the Elite Fitness Consultants members club. It is completely free and you will receive top quality health and fitness content. Just simply email me your full name on lewis@elitefitnessconsultants.co.uk If you liked this blog then why not share it on facebook or twitter!
Keep healthy