|
In the past, processing was carried out by farmers and artisans
such as bread makers, cheese makers, distillers, millers and so
forth. This type of processing resulted in delicious foods and
kept the profits on the farm and in the farming communities
where it belonged--food processing should be a local cottage
industry.
Most importantly, traditional processing enhances or increases
the nutrient value of our foods. Traditional bread making
neutralizes anti-nutrients in grains to make the minerals more
available; lacto-fermentation of cabbage to make sauerkraut
increases the levels of vitamin C and many B vitamins many fold;
and the making of yoghurt, kefir and similar products from fresh
milk makes the nutrients in the milk more available and more
digestible.
Industrial Processing
Unfortunately, in modern times we have abandoned local artisanal
processing in favor of factory and industrial processing, which
actually destroys the nutrients in food rather than increasing
them, and makes our food more difficult to digest rather than
more digestible. Furthermore, industrial processing depends upon
products that have a negative impact on our health, such as
sugar, white flour, processed and hydrogenated oils, additives,
synthetic vitamins and an extrusion processing of grains. These
are the tools of the food processing industry.
Packaged Cereals
Dry breakfast cereals are produced by a process called
extrusion. Cereal makers first create a slurry of the grains and
then put them in a machine called an extruder. The grains are
forced out of a little hole at high temperature and pressure.
Depending on the shape of the hole, the grains are made into
little o's, flakes, animal shapes, or shreds (as in Shredded
Wheat or Triscuits), or they are puffed (as in puffed rice). A
blade slices off each little flake or shape, which is then
carried past a nozzle and sprayed with a coating of oil and
sugar to seal off the cereal from the ravages of milk and to
give it crunch.
In his book Fighting the Food Giants, Paul Stitt 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. They are all made in
the same way and mostly in the same factories. All dry cereals
that come in boxes are extruded cereals.
The only advances made in the extrusion process are those that
will cut cost regardless of how these will alter the nutrient
content of the product. Cereals are a multi-billion dollar
business, one that has created huge fortunes.
With so many people eating breakfast cereals, you might expect
to find some studies on the effect of extruded cereals on
animals or humans. Yet, there are no published studies at all in
the scientific literature.
A unpublished experiment was carried out in the 1960s.
Researchers at Ann Arbor University were given 18 laboratory
rats. They were divided into three groups: one group received
corn flakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard
box that the corn flakes came in and water; the control group
received rat chow and water. The rats in the control group
remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats
eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of
malnutrition. But the rats receiving the corn flakes and water
died before the rats that were eating the box! (The last corn
flake rat died the day the first box rat died.) But before
death, the corn flake rats developed schizophrenic behavior,
threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions.
The startling conclusion of this study is that there was more
nourishment in the box than there was in the corn flakes.
This experiment was actually designed as a joke, but the results
were far from funny. The results were never published and
similar studies have not been conducted. |
