We need to relearn what healthy diets are like and take charge of our bodies
To the Expositor:
In light of the recent, excellent, well researched article by Jacqueline St. Pierre on the (‘Roundup Review, Part I’, Page 1, March 5, 2025) I felt compelled to comment on the statement by a Tehkummah local farmer that industrialized farming practices are feeding the world. It is a statement I have heard several times in the past when defending the use of agrochemicals to grow food.
What is food? What is nutrition? Without diving too much into the semantics of these terms, one has to ask, ‘is the food I am eating keeping me healthy?’ The cash crops (aka the incentivized crops) that are being grown in massive scales in the west, including Ontario and now Manitoulin, are genetically modified, “Roundup Ready” corn, soy and canola. These get mainly converted into animal feed, sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup), and oils (soybean and canola) for human consumption. These sweeteners and oils are often used in processed foods that line our grocery shelves, to make ‘cheaper’ products that are highly addictive with very little health benefits. In fact, it is becoming well known that seed oils , including soybean and canola, are high in omega 6 fatty acids and these are very inflammatory to our bodies. These seed oils were once touted as the healthier choice over the saturated fats (ie. Becel margarine and its marketing campaign to choose this over butter), but since cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity are still rising, many health practitioners are sounding the alarm to stop fuelling our bodies with these damaging oils.
It is an interesting fact that the tobacco companies of the ‘80s acquired the major food companies such as Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco. Their same strategies to make cigarettes addictive were applied in similar fashion to hook people on processed foods. And just as cigarettes made the consumer ill, these processed foods filled with either corn syrup, corn starch, or seed oils, not to mention residual traces of Roundup are leaving the exact same mark. It’s about profit over health. These big corporations fill their pockets, and the consumer walks away with less money and more health concerns. Caveat Emptor…”Buyer Beware.”
With an increase of chronic disease rising in the Westernized countries, we need to re-learn what healthy diets are and take charge of our ill bodies. We need to go back to how our ancestors ate simpler and cleaner foods. We need to either grow our own food or support a local farmer who does in a more regenerative way that works with nature and not against it. The answer of feeding the world is not through industrialized, chemical farming. It is through our own individual actions and our consumer buying power that we change this ‘unsustainable’ agricultural pattern, as the cost to our health and our ecosystem is too high. As I like to quote often, ‘learn how to grow your vegetables instead of electing them.’ Bring on the growing season and insist on a more colourful, healthier plate that will bring you vitality. That is the real, restorative food.
Janice Mitchell
Tehkummah
