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Toxic foods for your health

If you discover that all the foods you feed on are the result of artificial genetic manipulations, how would you react? What if we told you that these manipulations have given rise to toxic foods for the body that is the cause of many food-related diseases and new forms of cancer?

When we talk about toxic or dangerous food for your health, we do not mean to refer to foods that can harm in an acute way as soon as they are ingested. On the contrary, we refer to substances that ingested regularly over time, can cause eating disorders and other diseases.

Many habits are part of our food culture but not for this they are useful to our body. Stop and think about the characteristics of one of the basic foods like milk. A cow weaners its calves in 15 months, allowing them to increase their mass up to 300kg in just over a year. With these nutritional features, how can it continue to be an integral part of your diet and that of your children? This food will cause your body to store a lot of enzymes, proteins, hormones and growth factors that will eventually lead to nutritional imbalances. In fact, more and more people, having reached the age of majority, are no longer able to digest it, while most nutritionists strongly advise against the one of animal origin.

Healthy nutrition: what’s in the cart?

During the courses that our nutritionist Derry Procaccini performs at the University, one of the questions that are regularly asked the students is to perform a test of awareness with an apparently trivial exercise: choose what to put in the shopping cart. It will surprise you to discover that although most of the respondents already have a degree in Medicine and Surgery or Nutrition Biology, the percentage of “wrong carts” is very high. Although we refer to individuals whose culture of anatomy, physiology, physiopathology, and biology of the human organism is superior to that of the average population, they are not able to choose the best foods for a healthy diet. Can we blame them?

Of course not. Especially after the chain between producer and the final consumer has become increasingly opaque over the last fifty years. With the advent of globalization then, the multinationals and their advertising campaigns have managed to convince many people that the foods have remained genuine as they once were. Unfortunately, there are very few people who have a clear idea of what happens during the breeding process or in agriculture and what are the foods that come directly from the laboratories.

Many of you know that some health problems are due to technological development in the food sector during the 50s and 60s. The most informed and sensitive on this subject, however, will know that the process of innovation has never stopped and today we are talking more and more often about DNA modification and synthetic biology. The former, through substances such as radioactive cobalt and GMOs, has led to the cultivation of genetically modified wheat that is currently found in 98% of products on the market; while the second allows recreating the animal tissue in the laboratory. Perhaps some of you will remember that already in 2011, at the Medical University of South Carolina directed by Dr. Vladimir Mironov, researchers were able to create meat with the desired formula (amount of fat, amount of protein, etc.) directly in laboratory, without having to slaughter any animal (LINK: https://www.nature.com/news/2010/101208/full/468752a.html).

How to avoid contaminated food?

When fifty years ago, the most influential exponents of agricultural policies decided to genetically manipulate food, the end they wanted to pursue was apparently noble: to eliminate poverty and famine. To date, however, we have evidence to the contrary: more than a 1/3 of the population is affected by obesity and other eating disorders while 1/3 persists in absolute poverty, without the food and economic resources for their livelihood.

Unfortunately, we have not learned anything from this catastrophic experience of technological transition and even more worrying is the fact that few have paid attention to the spread of diseases related to nutrition. Therefore, given the constant increase in population, it was preferred to approve further techniques to increase crop productivity by hiding behind the mantra of the fight against hunger in the world. It would seem to have triggered a vicious circle of which our children will be to pay the consequences. Are there any valid alternatives to the current system?

There is another way and there are many who have chosen to go this route. To undertake it, it would be enough to pay more attention to what we put in our cart, replacing industrial products with the few foods not yet modified. The responsibility rests on all of us but if you are part of this slice of the population then continue to fight: opt for more informed choices and keep informed will always remain the most powerful defensive weapon. For our part, we will continue to be active both in the field of dissemination and in studying and proposing products that bring real benefits to your diet by guaranteeing quality, safety, and control of the entire food supply chain.