“Pizza a vegetable? Congress says yes.” This absurd headline caught my eye a few weeks back. Reading through the article, I learned that Congress declared tomato paste on pizza to be legally considered a serving of vegetables in school lunch.
I can imagine the dispute: “But what about all the bulbous children?” says Congress. “Fat kids shouldn’t eat pizza. And tomato paste contains but the most trifling nutrients.”
“But the food groups, Mr. Congressman, you don’t understand. Cheese for dairy, wheat for whole grains, and now vegetables. Our sauce makes it complete and delicious.”
Michelle Obama, our First Lady, is spearheading the ‘Let’s Move!’ campaign. While I agree that it is a great start to have organization at the top, I cannot help but be skeptical. Can we really trust her to nip this in the bud? The reason I question is because the politics of food involve a very intricate web of corporate and political tensions. U.S. agriculture can produce food cheaply and efficiently, but with risk – it is imperative they have and maintain credibility in order to make a sale.
I suggest that perhaps the dietary prescription for the U.S., viz. the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid, is influenced by politics. Given the corporate support of political campaigns, this is not hard to believe. It is fine if they work together, but a problem emerges when both parties value their profits over the well-being of their citizens. With cereal grain consumption in the U.S. quoted at 40 million tons per year, this is not a minor affair – there is much at stake.
My point is not to demonize ‘the system’, but rather to encourage anyone interested in this reality to peek at a growing body of research linking cereal grains to many (almost all, in fact) of our health ills. I wish I had the space to develop the claim, but it will suffice to say that the human body has not changed all that much in the last million years. However, our diet has changed immensely, the foods that now make up the majority of our diet are foods our bodies have never had to absorb. Those wishing to dive further can Google one of the following: %u2018metabolic syndrome’, ‘hyperinsulinism’ or ‘the deadly quartet’.
It is interesting to note that in the ’90s when this evidence began creeping out of the woodwork, the food industry began the ‘whole grains’ movement. I wish desperately that I could meet the guy behind this brilliance: “Well, ya see ‘Whole’, like whole and pure. ‘Hole’, like fillin’ a void. Ohh! And ‘holy’, because who would argue with that?”
It is also interesting to note that I brought this research to the attention of the nutrition chairwoman last year. She was quick to write this off as quackery. It is no surprise that the main funding of our new nutrition building came from General Mills.
I do not intend to present this as a conspiracy theory or to speak pretentiously from a high horse of understanding. I only suggest that it is important to be skeptical of health information that may only appear credible.
Pizza may be traced back to its vegetable roots, but I promise that it is far from anything our bodies were originally built to digest.