By: Roy P. Williams
Over the last century, modern food production and preservation were developed, which prevented mass starvation. Those productive methods led to ultra-processed, nutrient-poor food that allowed the United States to feed most of humanity while at the same time creating a disease burden that we are suffering from today.
The World Health Organization reports that noncommunicable diseases caused at least 43 million deaths in 2021, representing 75% of all non-pandemic deaths worldwide. Noncommunicable and non-pandemic, simply means diseases that are not contagious. In other words, people world wide didn’t starve to death, they died due to a food supply that is terribly lacking in the nutrients necessary to sustain a long healthy life.
That included approximately:
· 19 million cardiovascular deaths
· 10 million cancer deaths
· 4 million chronic respiratory deaths
· More than 2 million deaths from diabetes and diabetic kidney disease
Unhealthy diet, inactivity, tobacco, alcohol, and air pollution are major drivers. Elevated blood pressure alone is attributed to about 25% of global noncommunicable-disease deaths.
A major Global Burden of Disease analysis estimated that poor diet was associated with approximately 11 million deaths in 2017 alone, principally from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Importantly, much of that burden came from inadequate consumption of protective foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains, not merely from eating too much.
In America, the CDC states directly that most chronic diseases are caused by a short list of factors including poor nutrition, inactivity, smoking, and excessive alcohol use. Chronic deficiency diseases are now the leading causes of American illness, disability, and death.
Therefore, modern food production solved one enormous problem but helped construct another. Was the original transformation worth it? Absolutely. Allowing hundreds of millions to starve would not have been morally acceptable.
Was the present system worth it? No. Once humanity possessed the ability to produce, preserve, and transport enough food, there was no necessity to turn most of that food into refined starch, sugar, industrial fat, artificial flavoring, and nutritionally incomplete calories.
The intelligent path would have been to produce food abundantly, preserve it safely, and replace the nutrients that were destroyed through processing. The food production companies completed the first two steps and then allowed profit, convenience, and appetite engineering to override the replacement of the nutrients.
So, the final judgment is obvious. Yes, modern farming techniques, food processing, refrigeration, and shipping kept millions of people worldwide from starving but neglected to replace the nutrients lost from those same processes. Another way to say it is, modern ultra-processing kept people alive long enough to develop diseases produced by the food environment itself. At the same time those
deficiencies fuel the sick care system we have today. Almost everything from arthritis to cancer and everything in between can be associated with deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.
Thankfully, more and more people are learning that to be able to live a long healthy and productive life, you must account for the deficiencies by supplementing the standard American diet with the nutrients that simply aren’t in the food most of us consume today. It has been that way for about four decades now, and as a result, America is now recognized as a nation that takes more prescribed drugs than any other country on earth.
We are suffering from arthritis, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, heart disease, and cancer just to name a few of the disorders that are costing us trillions of dollars in sick care. The medical profession or the pharmaceutical industries refuse to even talk to their clients about nutritional deficiencies even though the WHO admits that all the major health issues could be prevented and, in many cases, reversed through proper supplementation.
Some of you might be thinking, how do I know which supplements I should be taking? Thanks to Herbs & More in Athens, NHC Herb Shop in Killen, and our parent company NEWtritional Health Care it is easy to learn just what you need. We have been supplying some of the highest quality, most effective nutritional supplements since 1999. We have formulated over 40 products that have proven to change people’s lives. We are a full-service company with several health enhancing systems such as Electro-Dermal-Testing, Bemer Matt, Massage Therapy, Whole Body Vibration, and free consultation. Come by to see us or check us out online at www.nhcherbs.com. You can also learn more by listening to Today’s Health Update on Rumble, online, or through the free Rumble app on your phone. Just type todayshealthupdate in the search bar and there we are.
Your friend in health,
Roy P. Williams
