16. Belldon Colme
The most disturbing answers to this question, at least in my view, concern foods that ought to be encouraged, and are banned in the US primarily in support of huge corporate food interests over and above the best interests of the public.
RAW FOODS Many raw foods, that is to say unprocessed, straight from the tree (or animal) foods.
Almonds, for instance, must be treated in California, and it is illegal to sell them raw, straight from the tree. Specifically, almonds must be pasteurized, or super-heated. This process helps huge almond growers to minimize contaminants caused mostly by sloppy handling of nuts, however it also kills essential nutrients found naturally in almonds and hurts small growers who serve mostly local individual buyers.
Many states have assaulted raw milk producers, usually at gunpoint, for selling raw milk to individuals who seek it out. There is no doubt at all that raw milk is much healthier for people than today’s ultra-pasteurized, separated and additive-ridden commercial product. Making it illegal is irresponsible (there are absolutely zero modern documented cased of illness outbreak attributable to small raw milk producers- the only outbreaks have been from huge commercial dairy farms with sloppy hygiene) yet again helping huge businesses at the expense of public health and small farm viability.
These examples are a small sampling of the widespread attack on real, honest, unprocessed foods in America by our government at the behest of Big Food lobbyists.
FOOD ADDITIVES I often hear the outcry, “Why are poisonous food additives legal in America while they are *illegal* in most of the remaining developed and developing world?” Well, in truth most of our food additives are NOT legal in America and folks ought to understand what is happening to their food supply and why.
In 1930 the US Congress enacted the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Safety Act, commonly known as the FDC or FD&C, in response to 100 deaths caused by a pharmaceutical additive. The Act provided tough criteria a proposed additive must meet or exceed in order to be approved for human use either orally or in products applied topically.
You can easily identify additives meeting FD&C requirements, because they are preceded by “FD&C”. For example, “FD&C yellow #5”. You do not see those letters often, though, do you? That is because the vast majority of our food, drug and cosmetic additives are NOT legal. By using an FDA bypass to the law known as GRAS (generally recognized as safe), Big Food, Pharma and Cosmetic concerns can simply hire a few “experts”, pay them to testify that an additive is GRAS and boom goes the dynamite, it is in your food.
A great example is a chemical known as Calcium Disodium EDTA. It sounds benign, unless maybe it is instead called Calcium Disodium Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, which sounds a lot scarier. And it should. This is a combination of sodium cyanide, formaldehyde and a heavy metals chelating agent. Far from being safe, it is on the FDA watch list for “further study”, having been directly linked to genetic mutation, birth defects, multi-generational DNA restructuring, cancer and countless other diseases and even death on numerous occasions.
The FDA advises limiting use to 1/10th of an ounce a day, and NEVER to use this poison for more than 5 consecutive days. Do we achieve that? Well, you be the judge. This poison is found in everything we use every day, including mayonnaise, creamy salad dressings, sports drinks, breads and cereals ‘fortified with iron’, sun screen, bath soaps, shampoo, moisturizers, foundations and blush, toothpaste, a host of drugs and so many other daily use items I cannot enumerate them here.
What foods are illegal in America? Almost everything that comes in a box, jar, bag or any other packaging. We just don’t know it.
