America’s food system has been hijacked – and 55% of what we eat isn’t actually food

(NaturalHealth365)  A just-published report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has exposed the stunning truth about what Americans consume: more than half of our calories – 55% to be exact – now come from ultra-processed industrial products that barely qualify as food.

These aren’t just “processed” foods.  We’re talking about laboratory-created edible substances packed with chemical additives, artificial colors, and preservatives that never existed in nature.  And worst of all, research directly links these fake foods to cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, and premature death.

Our children are being fed a chemical experiment

The data becomes even more disturbing when you consider the impact on kids.  American youth are consuming a staggering 61.9% of their calories from ultra-processed junk – nearly two-thirds of everything they eat comes from factories instead of farms.

The CDC tracked eating patterns from August 2021 through August 2023, and what they found should concern every parent in America.  We’re raising an entire generation on industrial food products designed in laboratories, not kitchens.

Think about that for a moment.  The majority of what we’re feeding our children contains ingredients that didn’t exist when their grandparents were growing up.  We’ve essentially turned our kids into test subjects for a massive food chemistry experiment.

The younger they are, the more poisoned they become

Here’s where the data gets truly shocking: the youngest kids eat better than older ones, but only slightly.  Children ages 1-5 get 56% of their calories from processed garbage, but once they hit elementary school, that number explodes to nearly 65%.

It’s like watching kids get systematically poisoned as they grow up.  Maybe it’s the school lunch programs pushing industrial slop.  Maybe it’s peer pressure from other kids hooked on chemical-laden snacks.  Whatever’s happening, we’re programming children to crave fake food from an early age.

For adults, the pattern flips – older people eat less processed junk than younger ones.  People over 60 consume about 52% fake food, while adults in their 20s and 30s hit 54%.  But here’s the problem: even the “best” group is still getting more than half its calories from industrial products.

The big five killers hiding in plain sight

So what exactly is destroying American health?  The biggest culprits will shock you with their ordinariness: sandwiches (including fast food burgers), sweet baked goods, chips and snacks, pizza, and sugary drinks.

For kids, sandwiches alone account for over 7% of all their calories.  When you add in cookies, cakes, chips, pizza, and soda, you’re looking at about 27% of everything children eat coming from just these five ultra-processed categories.

Adults follow the same deadly pattern, with sandwiches contributing nearly 9% of total calories.  These aren’t the sandwiches your grandmother made – these are industrial assemblages of processed meat, chemical-laden bread, and artificial condiments designed to maximize profit, not nutrition.

There’s one tiny ray of hope in this disaster

Buried in all this alarming data is one small piece of good news: consumption is actually dropping, slowly.  Teen intake of processed foods fell from 66% in 2017-2018 to 62% recently.  Adults went from 56% down to 53%.

It’s not much, but it proves that when people wake up to what’s happening, they can fight back.  Perhaps the numerous warnings about industrial food are finally piercing the marketing fog that surrounds us.

How to escape the chemical food trap

The good news is that your body can recover from this industrial food assault faster than you might think.  But you need to take action:

Become a food detective.  If you can’t pronounce the ingredients on a label, don’t put it in your body.  Real food doesn’t require a chemistry degree to understand.

Shop like your ancestors did.  Stick to the outer edges of grocery stores where real food lives – organic produce, grass-fed meat, wild fish, and organic (raw) dairy.  The inner aisles are where they keep the industrial creations.

Reclaim your kitchen.  Even basic home cooking beats almost any packaged alternative.  You control exactly what goes into your body instead of trusting corporate chemists.

Start with the worst offenders.  Replace sugary drinks with water.  Swap packaged snacks for nuts or fruit.  Every fake food you eliminate is a victory against the industrial system.

The battle for our bodies is real

This isn’t about being perfect.  This is about recognizing that we’re living through the largest uncontrolled experiment in human history.  We’ve replaced real food with industrial products, and we’re just starting to understand the consequences.

The fact that consumption is beginning to drop gives some hope.  People are waking up to the reality that what we eat matters more than the food industry wants us to believe.  But we need a revolution, not just minor improvements.

Every time you choose real food over industrial products, you’re fighting back against a system designed to keep you addicted to profitable fake food.  Your body – and your children’s bodies – are worth that fight.

If you’re concerned about the impact of decades of industrial food consumption on your liver, get access to Jonathan Landsman’s Fatty Liver Docu-Class, which offers 23 eye-opening presentations from doctors and researchers who’ve dedicated their careers to understanding how modern food processing harms liver function.  Discover natural strategies they use to reverse damage and restore health. Start undoing the damage today.

Sources for this article include:

CDC.gov
Childrenshealthdefense.org

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