# Modern Food Processing Deadly? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 3, 2006, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095 "2006-10-03T12:53:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bongmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/1 "2006-10-03T12:53:05Z")
I was reading this article yesterday and was struck by some of the things the author is claiming: [http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html](http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html) He claims that modern processing of foods like milk, cereal, and even orange juice actually turn them poisonous. I found the rat experiments particularly interesting. The author claims that a rat fed a diet of cardboard actually lived longer than a rat that was fed the cereal inside the box. Can anyone weigh in on the credibility of that article? Those are some pretty big claims. I found it especially odd that the author keeps pointing out how no large scale experiments have been done to evaluate the toxicity of modern food processing techniques. In fact lots of points in there don’t ring true…anyone have the stright dope? ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/2 "2006-10-03T13:34:04Z")
It seems a bit ridiculous on first glance. “You can live forever on raw milk”? Pasteurization was created for a reason, you know. Also, if the problems described were real, don’t you think our life spans would be decreasing, not increasing as they have over the past century? I mean, food processing turns food into poison, and food processing is much more common than a hundred years ago, and yet we live longer than ever? There’s certainly a disconnect there. ---
**Author:** ![934spe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/90db22/32.png) [@934spe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/934spe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/3 "2006-10-03T14:05:47Z")
There is a huge difference between nutritional value and “being deadly” to eat. Being in the food manufacturing business, I can assure you that the food you eat today is much safer than it was 100 years ago on an magnitude of many degrees. Although there have been a few mishaps in the last 50 years (take the spinach and carrot juice stories that are in recent news), the food industry as a whole is highly regulated and a pretty safe bet. If you want to talk nutrition, I am not the guy to speak to, I just make sure it is safe to eat… ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/4 "2006-10-03T14:09:18Z")
Pure, unadulterated, bullshit. This part particularly gets me: > [@](#): > > Paul Stitt has tells us that the extrusion process used for these cereals destroys most of the nutrients in the grains. It destroys the fatty acids; it even destroys the chemical vitamins that are added at the end. The amino acids are rendered very toxic by this process. The amino acid lysine, a crucial nutrient, is especially denatured by extrusion. This is how all the boxed cereals are made, even the ones sold in the health food stores How does this destroy them? These things exist at the molecular level, so I fail to see how forcing something through a macroscopic hole can possibly have any effect on the fat and protein structures. Oh, and how convenient, the two studies done with cereal haven’t been published. I wonder why not? Could it be because the “evil government” is in league with the cereal industry to feed us poison? Er…no, I’m guessing that because this guy is a loon, no self-respecting journal of science would ever give him the time of day. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/5 "2006-10-03T14:32:15Z")
Mythbusters did a show on the [breakfast cereal vs. the box](http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/episode/episode.html?clik=fanmain_leftnav) legend. They found that the box did contain some nutritional value however the cereal contained much, much more. But in order to analyze the nutritional value of the cardboard they had to grind it into pulp and add water to make a paste out of it. They probably ruined all the vitamins when they did that 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bongmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/6 "2006-10-03T14:45:22Z")
Its good to see others are thinking the same thing…that article made some pretty wild claims. At the least you would think we’d see an epidimic of health problems if even some of that article was true, people would be dying younger not older. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/7 "2006-10-03T16:00:52Z")
I think it’s bunk. If there was any truth to the cereal thing, we’d all be dropping dead. I ate breakfast cereal almost every morning as a kid, how did I live to be age 30? And I regularly eat raisin bran, Special K, and corn flakes now, and I am perfectly healthy. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/8 "2006-10-03T19:05:57Z")
Pile of crap. I couldn’t read the whole thing, but I read about milk and cereal. Some parts are completely fictional, some parts are handy over-simplifications, the remainder is conjunctions, modifiers, and puncuation. Had anyone actually performed the rat experiments described, they likely would have been reprimanded by their institutions’ animal use committees, you can’t starve an animal to death for fun. This leads me to believe that the experiments were fabricated, or done in a ‘scientist’s’ basement with feeder animals. Disclaimer: I have only studied food for 9 years and am an active member of the EVIL FOOD COOPORATION OVERLORDS. Like **934spe** I work to assure that it is safe and wholesome. You can thank me later. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/9 "2006-10-03T19:20:40Z")
She just seems to assume that traditional, artisanal food processing is good, and modern, industrial food processing is bad. I’d say loon. ---
**Author:** ![934spe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/90db22/32.png) [@934spe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/934spe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/10 "2006-10-03T19:27:46Z")
What do you do for your EVIL FOOD CORP OVERLORDS **xbuckeye**? I don’t run across too many other food business people… ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/11 "2006-10-03T19:35:19Z")
There is a VALID concern about what gets put into processed food. take bread for example: most commercial bread is fortified with iron supplements, and has other ingredients (stabilizors, anti mold compounds). Also, the widespread use of fructose/corn syrup as a filler and binder-this stuff seems to be in everything! Corn syrup sweeteners have recently been theorized to be a major cause of obesity. I’ll stick with unprocessed foods, thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/12 "2006-10-03T19:38:19Z")
[QUOTE=Bongmaster] He claims that modern processing of foods like milk, cereal, and even orange juice actually turn them poisonous. [/QUOTE] Considering how many people (hundreds of millions) eat these foods every single day of their lives, I suspect they are not among the world’s more deadly poisons. Seriously, people who are reasonably selective about their eating habits, and exercise regularly, will be perfectly healthy, processed foods will not poison them. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/13 "2006-10-03T19:50:32Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] There is a VALID concern about what gets put into processed food. [/quote] Of course. But just because some claims of what gets put into processed foods are valid doesn’t mean they all are. Nor does it mean that stuff that is bad for you is found only in processed foods. For example, sugar is often found in processed foods, and there’s a lot of scientific evidence that eating a lot of it isn’t good for you. But it’s also found in unprocessed foods, or foods processed by “traditional” methods. ---
**Author:** ![934spe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/90db22/32.png) [@934spe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/934spe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/14 "2006-10-03T19:52:10Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] There is a VALID concern about what gets put into processed food. take bread for example: most commercial bread is fortified with iron supplements, and has other ingredients (stabilizors, anti mold compounds). Also, the widespread use of fructose/corn syrup as a filler and binder-this stuff seems to be in everything! Corn syrup sweeteners have recently been theorized to be a major cause of obesity. I’ll stick with unprocessed foods, thank you! [/QUOTE] Like I said earlier, the althought the total nutritional value of a processed food may be less than an unprocessed food, this does not make it toxic. It might not make it the healthiest thing to eat, but it won’t kill you.. unless you want to get into the eating it will cause heart disease, etc.. type argument… ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/15 "2006-10-03T20:48:51Z")
[QUOTE=934spe] What do you do for your EVIL FOOD CORP OVERLORDS **xbuckeye**? I don’t run across too many other food business people… [/QUOTE] QC for a dairy plant. We cook all the nutrients and enzymes out of milk, add bad synthetic vitamins that are toxic (they must be toxic, they are bright yellow), steal the cream from your milk and make it into (tasty) ice cream, add artificial colors and flavors to things, use corn syrup solids and nonfat dry milk in formulations. In short, we’re evil and trying to kill you, apparently. And you? I like to tell people all the natural, unprocessed things that are not good for you. You don’t like antifungal agents in your bread? OK, how would you like liver cancer. Aflatoxins are the most potent mutagens ever tested and are made by molds that commonly grow on bread You don’t want enzymes denatured in pasteurization? Fine, you can get tuburculosis or hemolytic uremic syndrome. No synthetic vitamins? Sure, but before we fortified grain foods, an astonishingly high number of people were nutrient deficient. I think it was WWII where they were rejecting about 1 in 20 applicants to armed forces for nutrient deficiency-related problems. No processed foods? Fine, but I don’t know what you are going to eat come winter unless you have stocked up on potatoes and turnips in your root cellar. We process food to ensure plenty of cheap, nutritious, safe food available at all times. Processing many foods actually makes them more nutritous by making the nutrients more available. What the food industry does _not_ do is add random chemicals for no good reason. All food ingredients (with exceptions for things that have a 60+ year history of safe use) have to be tested and proved safe and then have to be included only in approved food in highly regulated amounts. Additives have to be there for a reason and “hiding low quality” is not a reason. We have to prove that the food was high quality when received and that it was handled in a safe manner until such time as it was shipped to the consumer. Additives don’t make you fat, they don’t make your kids hyper or autistic, they don’t damage your kidneys, liver, intestines, or brain, they don’t cause diabetes. They don’t hide bad manufacturing processes, they don’t make food production cheaper or easier. There is no industry-wide cover-up, our industry is too big and widespread to have a conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/16 "2006-10-03T20:52:58Z")
I read the thread title and thought I might have to worry about my Cuisinart killing me in my sleep. It looks so sinister, sitting there on the countertop… ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/17 "2006-10-03T21:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=The Sausage Creature] I read the thread title and thought I might have to worry about my Cuisinart killing me in my sleep. It looks so sinister, sitting there on the countertop… [/QUOTE] Mr. Neville’s food processor (the one he owned before we were married) is trying to get me to kill myself. It is doing this by _never_ working when I assemble it. The knives, on the other hand, seem to be out for my blood in a more direct fashion. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/18 "2006-10-03T21:31:15Z")
[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca] I think it’s bunk. If there was any truth to the cereal thing, we’d all be dropping dead. I ate breakfast cereal almost every morning as a kid, how did I live to be age 30? [/QUOTE] Pact with Satan. Nyctea Scandiaca=Snowy Owl=Owl=Strega=Witch The accused admits to consorting with crows and ravens. Get the duck! Get the scales! ---
**Author:** ![934spe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/90db22/32.png) [@934spe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/934spe)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2006, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/19 "2006-10-04T11:42:28Z")
Sounds like fun **xbuckeye**. We make high calorie food for the military (MRE’s) that are still edible 7 years later… Umm… Nothing better than 7 year old clam chowder… I work in the thermal processing department; designing cooks and verifying lethality of our processes… ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095/20 "2006-10-04T21:18:08Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Corn syrup sweeteners have recently been theorized to be a major cause of obesity. [/QUOTE] Just because it’s written down, that doesn’t make it a theory. Besides, HFCS is nearly identical to traditional sugar: > [@](#): > > Whatever chemical differences there may be between fructose and glucose, the difference between HFCS and traditional sugar is slight. Both sweeteners contain both compounds, and in roughly similar amounts–table sugar is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose, whereas the most common form of HFCS is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. For what it’s worth, Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a frequent critic of the food industry, dismisses contentions that HFCS is uniquely to blame for the fact that we’re fat. The best explanation for fatness is that we do less physical labor, and food is freaking cheap. You know all those farm subsidies? Yep, those mean cheap food. Today, I got a 12-pack of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies for a dollar. I didn’t even pay sales tax, because they technically qualify as a “food item.” I even scanned one to **XJETGIRLX** as a full-color .jpg, so that she could enjoy one. It’s not HFCS that’s going to make me fatter, it’s the ogdamn price on those bloody things. Curse you, agricultural subsidies (if those things contain any agricultural products, which I really can’t be too certain of)!! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-food-processing-deadly/375095.md?page=2)