A Journey to Dietary Enlightenment
by Mark Plummer BSc / PGCE
Before late 2015 I had no real idea how nefarious the global processed food industry really is. Sure, I knew a bit about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s), a spectre I’ve been following since the mid-1990’s. Even so, I had no idea as to how the modern food business operates, not so 3 years later.
Having spent some time researching its machinations and objectives it is not hard to see why food manufacture in the modern age is so steeped in secrecy, double-speak and dis-information. It is also not hard to see why they want to keep it that way too. One thread of how this three book series came together takes me back to my late teens and early twenties.
Through my university days, I learned about organochlorine or halogenated hydrocarbon compounds. Perhaps the most infamous of these is the compound di-chloro di-phenyl tri-chloro-ethane (DDT) and a family of chemicals called poly-chlorinated bi-phenols (PCB’s). I learned about how they were used as pesticides and in industry respectively. I learned about their temporary success in pest control, but I also learned about their devastating long-term environmental impact. I learned of how insects evolved resistance to the poisons they were coming into contact with. I learned of how insect resistance is what drove the manufacture of ever more organochlorine pesticides.
To date, many hundreds of these compounds are cycling their way through the planet and its biosphere. These substances may well be chemically unique compounds, but they all have the same broad devastatingly irreversible environmental impacts, irreversibility being one fundamental reason to oppose GMO’s. If the chemical companies really cared about “the environment” such substances would not have been manufactured in anything like the quantity or varieties they have been. The same goes, but for different reasons for glyphosate (trade name Round-Up) and neonicotinoid (the bee-killing) pesticides.
DDT sprayed liberally in the 1950’s and 1960’s
Later in the mid-1990’s I read of GM soya being grown across the pond in the US and Brazil. I also saw how the industry was making inroads into the Far East, particularly in China. At home, here in the UK, I saw the flavr-savr tomato come onto the supermarket shelves and then within months I saw it come off them again! This was 1995-6 when the nascent new labour opposition headed by Tony Blair was successfully duping the country and its people (me included) into thinking it was some sort of alternative to the hated conservative party, headed by the equally loathsome John Major.
Anyway, Good old “bomber” Blair gets elected in 1997 and things were supposed “to get better” were they not? Clearly, they didn’t! For me the rot set in over the academy programme, university tuition fees and the continuation of privatisation along with a general realisation that New Labour was, in essence, the same as the conservatives. Simultaneously, I was not happy about British involvement in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Kosovo. At the time I was not in the least bit informed about any of this. I was far too busy enjoying myself! I knew there was more to what “I was being told” and I never lost sight of the environmental knowledge I gained at university. Yet, I was losing “the argument” on these and other matters because I just didn’t know the nuts and bolts of what I was talking about.
A set of circumstances I am pleased to say no longer exist, at least in the areas where I profess to “know my damned onions”. Yet, it still took Afghanistan and Iraq to really catalyse my thinking and catapult forwards to where I now politically, philosophically and ideologically reside.
I learned that Monsanto was involved in the production of compounds such as DDT and the other chemicals mentioned above. I learned of equivalent involvement in the production of Agent Orange and later how the British army also used in Malaya. I saw the clear ideological links between what was, and still is, going on in the Middle East and Central Asia and equally criminal imperial ventures such as South East Asia and Chechnya. On the back of Iraq and Afghanistan, I learned of the sordid history of Western and other forms of Imperialism. Plus, the totality of lies, deceit, hypocrisy and destruction that goes with it all. I was and still am appalled over the hypocrisy around Colonel Gadhafi’s Libya. For a time that particular dictator got his oil swap Lockerbie points. He also caused through arms sales from the UK (and other countries) untold suffering to people all over Western Africa. The list of crimes wrapped up in all of this and more is as endless as it is well documented, all the reader has to do is look.
Anyway, Good old “bomber” Blair gets elected in 1997 and things were supposed “to get better” were they not? Clearly, they didn’t! For me the rot set in over the academy programme, university tuition fees and the continuation of privatisation along with a general realisation that New Labour was, in essence, the same as the conservatives. Simultaneously, I was not happy about British involvement in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Kosovo. At the time I was not in the least bit informed about any of this. I was far too busy enjoying myself! I knew there was more to what “I was being told” and I never lost sight of the environmental knowledge I gained at university. Yet, I was losing “the argument” on these and other matters because I just didn’t know the nuts and bolts of what I was talking about.
A set of circumstances I am pleased to say no longer exist, at least in the areas where I profess to “know my damned onions”. Yet, it still took Afghanistan and Iraq to really catalyse my thinking and catapult forwards to where I now politically, philosophically and ideologically reside.
I learned that Monsanto was involved in the production of compounds such as DDT and the other chemicals mentioned above. I learned of equivalent involvement in the production of Agent Orange and later how the British army also used in Malaya. I saw the clear ideological links between what was, and still is, going on in the Middle East and Central Asia and equally criminal imperial ventures such as South East Asia and Chechnya. On the back of Iraq and Afghanistan, I learned of the sordid history of Western and other forms of Imperialism. Plus, the totality of lies, deceit, hypocrisy and destruction that goes with it all. I was and still am appalled over the hypocrisy around Colonel Gadhafi’s Libya. For a time that particular dictator got his oil swap Lockerbie points. He also caused through arms sales from the UK (and other countries) untold suffering to people all over Western Africa. The list of crimes wrapped up in all of this and more is as endless as it is well documented, all the reader has to do is look.
From the Horse’s mouth in 2001 – Nothing has changed since then!
The key point of this article is the realisation that the same companies and institutions that were pushing for war in the Middle East, were the same companies who made the types of chemicals mentioned above. They were also involved (and still are) in the drive to implement GMO’s in agriculture all over the world. A point outlined with Specific reference to Iraq in chapter 6 of the Introducing GMO's book.
For instance, here in the UK a company called Rothamsted Research is well embedded with various forms of GM crop, but also has a direct historical connection to developing poisons such as Agent Orange as weapons of war. And it was for reasons such as this that the fundraising job mentioned in chapter eight of the GMO book comes to its forte.
In 2003 ONE reason for opposing GMO’s in agriculture was realising that a company such as Monsanto, with its sordid history, really ought to have no business in telling the world what is good to eat and what is not. In 2018 nothing has changed! Exactly the same goes for ALL other transnational corporations involved in GMO’s. The "Introducing GMO's" book gives countless additional examples and provides links to plenty more.
For instance, here in the UK a company called Rothamsted Research is well embedded with various forms of GM crop, but also has a direct historical connection to developing poisons such as Agent Orange as weapons of war. And it was for reasons such as this that the fundraising job mentioned in chapter eight of the GMO book comes to its forte.
In 2003 ONE reason for opposing GMO’s in agriculture was realising that a company such as Monsanto, with its sordid history, really ought to have no business in telling the world what is good to eat and what is not. In 2018 nothing has changed! Exactly the same goes for ALL other transnational corporations involved in GMO’s. The "Introducing GMO's" book gives countless additional examples and provides links to plenty more.
The second book in the series concerns the mass production of bread here in the UK. It grew out of an original idea to look at additives and food processing in general. I soon realised that developing an “additives database” was a reinventing the wheel exercise. So I decided to focus on a staple of the British diet, the humble loaf of bread. What I found out in the course of putting that book together should put any rational human being off ever eating mass produced bread of any kind again.
Bread by definition is made by mixing flour, yeast and water together in the right proportions and then following the instructions for kneading, rising and finally baking into the final loaf. Bread produced through the Chorleywood process is not made in this way. All the reader has to do is look at the ingredients in any supermarket loaf. The how what and why of those ingredients form the bedrock of “The BIG Secret - What Happened To Our Bread?" book.
On the back of that writing, we have invested in a bread maker. We use a simple Panasonic SD2500 machine, with a recipe book, which right now is baking a 5 seeded granary loaf. It is made from flour, water, butter, yeast, sugar, the seeds and that is all.
Solely, from a bread perspective, if there is one thing the reader can do right now it would be to invest in a bread maker. For sure there is an initial outlay, which is going to be an issue if you’re on a budget. And finance is another point raised throughout the trilogy, it’s no good banging on about how terrible GMO’s and processed food is and then praising the virtues of whole or organic food if we have millions of people in the population who are barely getting by. However, our machine cost £100 and we spend on average about £15 per month on ingredients. The health, taste and nutritional benefits more than outweigh those costs. In any case, if you use your machine regularly and follow the recipes it will have paid for itself in about 2-3 months.
Another point is raised here and is made repeatedly throughout the writing. The ONLY reason people do not buy more fresh wholesome and the locally produced food is down to cost. In turn, the only reason proper food is so much more expensive is structural, i.e. mass produced food is cheaper than non-processed food.
The trilogy of writing uses examples from the real world to demonstrate this and chapter four in the “food additives” book uses examples from the life of yours truly. As with plastics and the processed food outlined in the third book, the only real answer is to overhaul how food and agriculture are organised all over the world. In many cases as with single-use plastic packaging and other items, the only REAL answer is to STOP making or producing it, a point raised in chapter 3 of the “Food Additives - The Truth” book.
This third volume also considers sweeteners in general and aspartame in particular. The same nefarious links mentioned above as regards GMO’s also apply to the most studied and arguably most controversial sweetener on the planet. As for sweeteners themselves, read the book, in fact, you can read that chapter first if you like, when you’re done if you keep ingesting sweeteners there really is nothing else I (or anyone else) can do.
Bread by definition is made by mixing flour, yeast and water together in the right proportions and then following the instructions for kneading, rising and finally baking into the final loaf. Bread produced through the Chorleywood process is not made in this way. All the reader has to do is look at the ingredients in any supermarket loaf. The how what and why of those ingredients form the bedrock of “The BIG Secret - What Happened To Our Bread?" book.
On the back of that writing, we have invested in a bread maker. We use a simple Panasonic SD2500 machine, with a recipe book, which right now is baking a 5 seeded granary loaf. It is made from flour, water, butter, yeast, sugar, the seeds and that is all.
Solely, from a bread perspective, if there is one thing the reader can do right now it would be to invest in a bread maker. For sure there is an initial outlay, which is going to be an issue if you’re on a budget. And finance is another point raised throughout the trilogy, it’s no good banging on about how terrible GMO’s and processed food is and then praising the virtues of whole or organic food if we have millions of people in the population who are barely getting by. However, our machine cost £100 and we spend on average about £15 per month on ingredients. The health, taste and nutritional benefits more than outweigh those costs. In any case, if you use your machine regularly and follow the recipes it will have paid for itself in about 2-3 months.
Another point is raised here and is made repeatedly throughout the writing. The ONLY reason people do not buy more fresh wholesome and the locally produced food is down to cost. In turn, the only reason proper food is so much more expensive is structural, i.e. mass produced food is cheaper than non-processed food.
The trilogy of writing uses examples from the real world to demonstrate this and chapter four in the “food additives” book uses examples from the life of yours truly. As with plastics and the processed food outlined in the third book, the only real answer is to overhaul how food and agriculture are organised all over the world. In many cases as with single-use plastic packaging and other items, the only REAL answer is to STOP making or producing it, a point raised in chapter 3 of the “Food Additives - The Truth” book.
This third volume also considers sweeteners in general and aspartame in particular. The same nefarious links mentioned above as regards GMO’s also apply to the most studied and arguably most controversial sweetener on the planet. As for sweeteners themselves, read the book, in fact, you can read that chapter first if you like, when you’re done if you keep ingesting sweeteners there really is nothing else I (or anyone else) can do.
Bread from the bread machine
Prior to 2015, I had no idea as to the depth of knowledge and research there is tied up under the word “nutrition”. I truly believed it was wishy-washy whimsical nonsense and certainly not as important as the global issues I constantly bang on about. Read the books to see what they are! I am pleased to inform the reader that I see how wrong I was. The domain of food and nutrition is just as hard in the science and politics department as the big self-inflicted problems we need to fix if we are to survive on this Earth.
Now in May 2018 I truly do understand what is meant by the term “you are what you eat”. Since 2015 we have made as many individual choices as we can. We have cut out as much processed food as we can and we have almost completely removed meat and fish from our diet. We have taken to using more pulses, beans, nuts and grains in our cooking. We cook from scratch as much as possible too and that is another action the reader can take. Get a cookbook, the best IMO, are the traditional farmhouse type. They have better recipes, better instructions and are more fun to use in the long run.
The only fly in the ointment here is single-use plastic. We pretty much get everything we buy in glass or metal containers. Another way to significantly reduce your plastic footprint is to stop eating meat and fish. Even so, our much re-used black bin bag becomes filled with various wrappers of grains, pulses, seeds, and other single-use packaging materials. Such is one consequence of living in a food desert!
About a month of single-use plastic in the bin bag!
So here we are then, this is the broad strokes as to where the box set comes from. My hope is that the reader will see the processed food industry and the drivers behind GMO’s for what they truly are. As a construct, it has no interest in promoting healthy eating, sustainable agriculture or nutrition. All it cares about is making cash at all costs, to the detriment of you and yours, everyone else and the planet itself. My hope is the reader will become empowered by knowledge and begin to explore and act upon the issues raised further.
