In alt.support.diet cguttman <4everclever4@web.de> wrote:

You have it correct.  People in the USA are fat because they eat
low-nutrient food.  We overeat because our bodies tell us that we haven't
satisified our nutritional requirements and so we eat more of the crummy
food.  To top it off, we sit all day at work or in front of the tv instead
of getting up and exercising.

However, the food is not nutrient-deficient because the soil is lacking,
but rather because people purposely remove the nutrients from the food.
Instead of eating wheat, we remove everything except the least nutritional
part, bleach and polish it, and make white bread.  Instead of vegetables
we eat french fries and potato chips.  Instead of eating fruit to satisfy
a sweet tooth, we eat sugar.  A recipe for disaster, and most people are
all too ready to disclaim responsibility for their health and blame it on
their genes.

--Scott

WHAT'S WRONG WITH FOOD IRRADIATION
February 2002

Irradiation damages the quality of food.
·    Irradiation damages food by breaking up molecules and creating free
radicals. The free radicals kill some bacteria, but not all! The free
radicals bounce around in the food, damage vitamins and enzymes, and
combine with existing chemicals (like pesticides) in the food to form
new chemicals, called unique radiolytic products (URPs).
·    Some of these URPs are known toxins (e.g., benzene, formaldehyde).
Some are unique to irradiated foods and never studied. In the approval
of irradiation, the long-term effect of these new chemicals in our diet
were never studied.
·    Irradiated foods lose 5%-80% of vitamins A, C, E, K or B complex.
That's a big range, but foods vary greatly. Different foods lose
different vitamins. Also, the amount of loss changes when the dose of
irradiation or storage time is changed.
·    Most of the food in the American diet is already approved for
irradiation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA): beef, pork,
lamb, poultry, wheat, wheat flour, vegetables, fruits, eggs in the
shell, seeds for sprouting, spices, herb teas. (Dairy is already
pasteurized). The FDA is currently considering a food industry petition
to irradiate luncheon meats, salad bar items, sprouts, fresh juices and
frozen foods. The USDA is considering irradiation for imported fruits
and vegetables.
·    Like cooking, irradiation damages the enzymes found in raw foods.
This means our bodies must work harder to digest them.
·    Irradiation by any source--electron beams, x-rays or nuclear gamma
rays-has the same effect on the food.

Science has not proved that a diet high in irradiated foods is safe in
the long term.
·    The longest human feeding study was 15 weeks, in China. The data is
not available in English. No one knows the health effects of a
life-long diet that includes a large number of foods that can already
be legally irradiated in the U.S., such as meat, chicken, vegetables,
fruits, salads, eggs and sprouts.
·    There are no studies on the effects of feeding normal babies or
children diets containing irradiated foods. A very small study from
India on malnourished children showed health effects.
·    Studies on animals fed irradiated foods have shown increased
tumors, reproductive failures and kidney damage. Some possible causes
are: irradiation-induced vitamin deficiencies, the inactivity of
enzymes in the food, DNA damage, and toxic radiolytic products in the
food.
·    The FDA based its approval of irradiation for poultry on only seven
of 441 animal-feeding studies submitted. Marcia van Gemert, Ph.D., the
toxicologist who chaired the FDA committee that approved irradiation,
later said, "These studies reviewed in the 1982 literature from the FDA
were not adequate by 1982 standards, and are even less accurate by 1993
standards to evaluate the safety of any product, especially a food
product such as irradiated food." The seven studies are not a good
basis for approval of irradiation for humans, because they showed
health effects on the animals or were conducted using irradiation at
lower energies than those the FDA eventually approved.
·    The FDA based its approval of irradiation for fruits and vegetables
on a theoretical calculation of the amount of URPs in the diet from one
7.5 oz. serving/day of irradiated food. Considering the different kinds
of foods approved for irradiation, this quantity is too small and the
calculation is irrelevant.
·    Even with current labeling requirements, people cannot avoid eating
irradiated food. That means there is no control group, and
epidemiologists will never be able to determine if irradiated food has
any health effects.

Irradiation covers up problems that the meat and poultry industry
should solve
·    Irradiation covers up the increased fecal contamination that
results from speeded up slaughter and decreased federal inspection.
Prodded by the industry, the USDA has allowed a transfer of inspection
to company inspectors. Where government inspectors remain, they are not
allowed to condemn meat and poultry now that they condemned 20 years
ago.
·    Because of this deregulation, the meat and poultry industry since
the '90s has lost money and suffered bad publicity from
food-poisoning lawsuits and expensive product recalls. Irradiation is a
"magic bullet" that will enable them to say that the product was
"clean" when it left the packing plant. (Irradiation, however, does
not sterilize food, and any bacteria that remain can multiply to toxic
proportions if the food is not properly stored and handled.)

Labeling is necessary to inform people so they can choose to avoid
irradiated foods.
·    Because irradiated foods have not been proven safe for human health
in the long term, prominent, conspicuous and truthful labels are
necessary for all irradiated foods. Consumers should be able to easily
determine if their food has been irradiated. Labels should also be
required for irradiated ingredients of compound foods, and for
restaurant and institutional foods.
·    Because irradiation depletes vitamins, labels should state the
amount of vitamin loss after irradiation, especially for fresh foods
that are usually eaten fresh. Consumers have the right to know if they
are buying nutritionally impaired foods.
·    Current US labels are not sufficient to enable consumers to avoid
irradiated food. Foods are labeled only to the first purchaser.
Irradiated spices, herb teas and supplement ingredients, foods that are
served in restaurants, schools, etc., or receive further processing, do
not bear consumer labels. Labels are required only for irradiated foods
sold whole (like a piece of fruit) or irradiated in the package (like
chicken breasts). A radura is required. The text with the declaration
of irradiation can be as small as the type face on the ingredient
label. The US Department of Agriculture requirements have one
difference: irradiated meat or poultry that is part of another food
(like a tv dinner) must be disclosed on the label.
·    The US Food and Drug Administration is currently rewriting the
regulation for minimum labeling, and will release it for public comment
in 2002. They may eliminate all required text labels. If they do retain
the labels, Congress has already told them to use an alternative term
instead of "irradiation."

Electron-beam irradiation today means nuclear irradiation tomorrow.
·    The original sponsor of food irradiation in the US was the
Department of Energy, which wanted to create a favorable image of
nuclear power as well as dispose of radioactive waste. These goals have
not changed.
·    Many foods cannot be irradiated using electron beams. E-beams only
penetrate 1-1.5 inches on each side, and are suitable only for flat,
evenly sized foods like patties. Large fruits, foods in boxes, and
irregularly shaped foods must be irradiated using x-rays or gamma rays
from nuclear materials.
·    Countries that lack a cheap and reliable source of electricity for
e-beams use nuclear materials. Opening U.S. markets to irradiated food
encourages the spread of nuclear irradiation worldwide for export
crops.

Irradiation using radioactive materials is an environmental hazard.
·    Nuclear irradiation facilities have already contaminated the
environment. For example, in the state of Georgia in 1988, radioactive
water escaped from an irradiation facility. The taxpayers were stuck
with $47 million in cleanup costs. Radioactivity was tracked into cars
and homes. In Hawaii in 1967 and New Jersey in 1982, radioactive water
was flushed into the public sewer system. Numerous worker exposures
have occurred in food irradiation facilities worldwide.

Irradiation doesn't provide clean food.
·    Because irradiation doesn't sterilize (kill all the bacteria in a
food), the ones that survive are by definition radiation-resistant.
These bacteria will multiply and eventually work their way back to the
'animal factories'. Eventually, the bacteria that contaminate the meat
will no longer be killed by currently approved doses of irradiation.
The technology will no longer be usable, while stronger bacteria
contaminate our food supply.
·    Irradiation doesn't kill all the bacteria in a food. In a few hours
at room temperature, the bacteria remaining in meat or poultry after
irradiation can multiply to the level existing before irradiation.
·    Some bacteria, like the one that causes botulism, as well as
viruses and prions (which are believed to cause Mad Cow Disease) are
not killed by current doses of irradiation or by doses that leave the
food palatable.

Irradiation does nothing to change the way food is grown and produced.
·    Irradiated foods can have longer shelf lives than nonirradiated
foods, which means they can be shipped further while appearing 'fresh.'
Food grown by giant farms far away may last longer than nonirradiated,
locally grown food, even if it is inferior in nutrition and taste.
Thus, irradiation encourages centralization and hurts small farmers.
·    The use of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and other
agrochemicals, as well as pollution and energy use, are not affected.
Irradiation is applied by the packer after harvest or slaughter.
·    Free-market economists say irradiation is 'efficient': it provides
the cheapest possible food for the least possible risk. But these
economists are not considering the impaired nutritional quality of the
food, the environmental effects of large-scale corporate farming, the
social costs of centralization of agriculture and loss of family farms,
the potential long-term damage to human health, and the possibility of
irradiation-resistant super-bacteria. All of these developments should
be (but are not) considered when regulators and public health officials
evaluate the benefits of food irradiation.

Brought to you by: Organic Consumers
Association    <http://www.organicconsumers.org/irradlink.html>
Office: 6114 Highway 61, Little Marais, MN 55614 (218) 226-4164, Fax:
(218)  226-4157.
OCA contact: danila@purefood.org

In 1936 the US Senate commissioned a study on the Dust Bowl and found that
if there aren't enough nutrients in the soil for the plants the result is
not that they produce food with lower nutrients.  The result is that the
plants don't grow.

Haven't you ever heard of fertilizer?

And Germany.

Plenty of skinny people in Australia, too.

In the US, fatness tends to run in families who *live* together. Ie,
shared habits rather than shared genes and shared micronutrient
profiles.

Chypho...

Hey, I don't think we can blame nutrients. Per capita caloric intake
for North Americans goes up every year.

People are getting fatter and fatter because they are living in cities,
living sedentary lives, watching the tube or on the computer, and
eating junk.

M.