Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2011, as a news piece from that month: the Daily Mail report published today, the debate on taxing junk food and the Lancet research all date from then.
Since we published our article They’re poisoning us: the fraud of the fight against cancer, we’ve been paying a bit more attention to an industry that is starting to draw society’s gaze in many parts of the world. In some countries, the misleading advertising of certain brands is already being called out, especially brands aimed at children.
The Daily Mail published an exposé today on the blatant deception behind certain drinks for children, such as soft drinks and fruit juices, arguing that most of them don’t contain even 5% natural juice, and the rest practically none at all. Add to that the problem of added sugars, which are not at all beneficial if we want healthy children, and the lack of honesty in labelling is criticized as well. This industry knows perfectly well that if it wrote down what its foods contain, practically nobody would eat them, and much less would anyone risk giving them to their children. Remember the L. Casei Immunitas case.
Meanwhile, a debate is opening up about raising taxes on junk food, since obesity is now a concern for society. The BBC reported on it.
The Lancet also published research on the dangers of the foods we find on the market, in which several medical teams and laboratories called on their governments to force this industry to be fully transparent in its labelling in order to stop the problem of obesity and related conditions.
The problem we see is the focus of these complaints, because the problem itself isn’t obesity but what comes from eating the foods that cause obesity. The problem is called cancer, and that’s the word everyone wants to avoid.
Let’s remember that sugar is one of cancer cells’ favorite foods, just as we should remember that obesity clogs our arteries and prevents oxygen from reaching all our cells. Cancer reactivates in an environment that lacks oxygen, is rich in sugar and has an acid-base imbalance in the body.
The food industry already causes as many cases of cancer as the tobacco industry, and governments are being just as permissive as they were with tobacco. Nobody can, wants to or dares to prove this claim, despite the many studies that have been done and that show it.
P.S. Remember that during the housing boom there were voices warning that the bubble would burst. One economics and finance expert was even nicknamed Dr. Doom and called a pessimist and a conspiracy theorist. Today many voices are speaking out about the food industry, genetically modified foods, chemicals… and fortunately the international media are picking up these stories. The problem is that society pays little attention to them, just as a smoker ignores the warnings on cigarette packs. Still, the message is there.
Further reading
- Interview with a Nobel laureate on the business of the pharmaceutical industry
- The fraud of the fight against cancer
Featured image: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
