We’re going to be talking about in recent times how we’ve gotten to where we are and what has happened with our eating habits through society. Here’s an interesting fact for you to think about is… the largest billion dollar food companies in the world, most are owned by another industry. What industry do you think that might be? Did you say the tobacco industry? You are right. Most billion dollar food industries in the world have been bought up by the tobacco industry over the last 20 – 30 years. Why? Well, whether we like it or not, it was smart of them. In the ‘80s and ‘90s we started understanding so much more about cigarette smoking, tobacco smoking, the sales started plummeting, lawsuits all over the world, it was going negative. They saw it coming, it’s like, let’s see what else is addictive out there?

Oh, how about sugar and salt in food? Let’s talk about convenience foods. Now from the 1880’s to the 1940’s, food really didn’t have added sugar. Even packaged food really, cereals came out in the late 1800’s, it didn’t have added sugars. If it did have some, it was just a little. Not like we know of today where the modern day cereals basically have anywhere of up to 50 some to 56% sugar in them. I mean, anywhere between 20-50 some percent of that product is sugar. Think about that. That is amazing. So up until the 1940’s that wasn’t happening. Now in 1949, there’s a marketing guru, I forget his name… He worked for one of the big companies and he realized, well let’s just add some sugar into those cereals. So we have stuff like all of a sudden sugar frosted flakes, cocoa puffs, all these different cereals that started to sell between 1949 and 1951. All of a sudden, cereals had sugar in them—high content, up to 50% of it was sugar. So now, cereals are more like candy. There’s a big shift there. The gold rush was on. Or we could say, the sugar rush was on, the salt rush was on. All of a sudden man, it was just… they were like “Wow this is amazing!”

Okay, let’s talk soda pop – Coke, Pepsi, all the different names around the world, whatever soda pop you want to call it. Here’s the big start of it… in World War II, Coke, again these guys are smart. In World War II, Coke for every service person around the world and of course this was for the allies. So depending on what side are you fighting on, but this was for the allies. Coke offered five cents a bottle for every service man and woman around the world. So they can get it for five cents per bottle. So what happened after the war was over? They were all addicted to Coke because that’s what they drink the whole war because that’s what the cheapest thing they can get. So they created after World War II, a whole generation addicted to soda pop, basically. By the year 2000, and we’re talking like westernized civilization… Two of three people and were drinking 1 litre a day of soda pop. That’s where it went to. But it started back in here where they move a marketing move by those guys and it just boom, exploded over the next 50 years.

Fast foods. Let’s take a look at those guys. Alright, McDonald’s 1948, Burger King started 1959… Burger King 1959, KFC 1952, Domino’s Pizza 1967… and that’s in America. In Australia, in the ‘60s and ‘70s is when those all moved in and in New Zealand, the 1970s is when all that moved in. The companies have decided how much sugar you got, not you. They took that decision away from you about 50 years ago. And then they created this thing, the saying that fat was the villain. So they created this other great thing called “low-fat” foods. So now sugar and salt were added because they needed the flavor. Well here’s a question: how has that worked for society for over the last 50 years? You know what? You might not like this statement but this is the fact. We have become the food experiment for the food companies for the last 50 years, alright?

So let’s look at just some facts here so we understand that this has not worked. Obesity rates—and again, I’m talking about the westernized civilization here. Some countries are more than others, some countries are less; we’re just kind of averaging out. Obesity rates have tripled in the last 50 years, diabetes… back around 1950, around 2-5% of populations in westernized country had diabetes. Now it’s around 20-25% of any given country has diabetes. What’s that, a ten, anywhere between… at least 10x. ADH, auto-immune, Cardiovascular disease, dementia, alzheimer’s, cognitive decline … Agggh! So it’s not your fault!

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