Food Regulations

I've been thinking again (someone really ought to stop me before I hurt myself)... I've recently been attempting to eat healthier by cutting out coke (my drink of choice), cutting out ground beef since it doesn't sit well with me, avoiding those quick and easy processed foods (KD, Mr. Noodles, etc) and trying to find ways to add more veggies to my diet. So, I've been traversing the web in hopes of discovering new recipes and ideas.

One of my searches led to an article that suggested that vitamin supplements are more harmful than not. Now, I haven't done a lot of research on this myself, but I did spend about a half-an-hour looking up the subject online. One of the concerns raised by the article was whether or not we, as a society, are usually supplements recklessly as a cure-all. Unless you're a doctor or have done loads of research, you probably don't know how the different vitamins work in your body or what happens when you mix them together or with medication.

Years ago, I suffered with severe acne and after trying everything my doctor suggested and prescribed (not all at once!), I was put on Accutane. I'm not sure if you're aware of the controversy surrounding Accutane, some law firms have been going after it for causing Crohns and other life-long diseases*, but at the time it was widely recommended and the only serious side-effect mentioned to me was the risk of suicide (which my doctor informed me was mostly likely because it's usually prescribed to young adults, who are prone to suicide anyway), and the only side-effect I noticed was dry skin.

Accutane is essentially a high dose of vitamin A. Vitamin A is fat soluble, like vitamins D, E and K, which means it is stored in your body and won't excrete in your urine. A high levels of vitamin A are toxic and every individual has a different level at which they are toxic, unborn fetuses can have heart, lung or nervous system defects because of it.

If you're taking a large number of vitamins for example a multi-vitamin, vitamin D, vitamin A and Omerga-3s, you don't know how they'll react with each other. If your multi-vitamin has vitamin A in it and you're tacking on more with another supplement, you could be poisoning yourself. Not only that, but each manufacturer has different levels of vitamins since it's not regulated. Heaven forbid if you're taking herbal supplements, since those have virtually no regulations. Therefore, it's recommended that you only take one kind of vitamin at a time unless you've talked about it with a doctor.

Another troubling no-regulation issue is GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). GMOs are generally plants that have had genes placed in them to make them more resistant to herbicides, insects or have a longer shelf-life. The issue with GMOs is that they haven't had a long-term testing them (they've only been on the market since 1995), yet we're eating them everyday.

GMOs are one thing, but what bothers me is the fact that they don't have to be labelled as such. An old science teacher once told me that because of these, all of us have become guinea pigs. It's not like a medication which you have an option to take or not, we are eating it everyday without knowing it. That's like a doctor putting you on Accutane and not telling you about it or it's side-effects. Sure, we can choose to eat organic, but it would be nice to know exactly what's in my Hamburger Helper or KD.

Think of the veggies you buy at the grocery store...they have GMOs in them to allow them to last longer or grow bigger and faster, etc. Same thing with rice, corn or wheat. Allergies could also be a problem because you don't know what gene has been spliced into your food. Perhaps a gene from a peanut has been placed in rice for some reason, and someone with a peanut allergy eats the rice. There's also concern that GMOs cause more allergies.

My stance on this is more of informed consumer. I want to know what I'm eating. In Europe, I believe they must label foods that contain GMOs as such. I want to see that applied here in North America.

Over all, I just would like to see more restrictions placed on what we put into our bodies. I'm not sure how the restriction thing works (I'll try to do some research eventually), so I don't know the process or what has to go down in order to apply it. But all I want is to know what I'm doing to myself. As I'm trying to be healthier, I don't suddenly want an ironic situation where what I'm doing to help myself live longer will be the cause of an early death.

*I do have colitis, which I have mentioned in"My Musings", however when I started have colitis-related symptoms I hadn't been on Accutane for over a year. It takes around 6 months to flush it completely from your system, so it's unlikely that it was the cause. More likely, since there is a high concentration of individuals with Crohns and Colitis in the area where I live, pollution from oil-refineries triggered the condition or I inherited through genetics which is also likely since my grandmother's side of the family does have a few individuals with Crohns.