Food Matters asked seven experts a simple question: “What foods do you avoid?” Here are some of their eye-opening responses:
Canned Tomatoes
- An endocrinologist won’t go near canned tomatoes — the cans are lined with a resin containing BPA, and tomatoes are especially dangerous because their acid breaks the BPA down in dangerous amounts.
Conventional Beef
- Conventional cattle are fed grain, corn and soy to make them fat, even though studies show that grass-fed beef higher in important vitamins, minerals and heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory fats.
Microwave Popcorn
- Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) lines microwave popcorn bags, and when they are heated the compound, which has been linked to infertility, leaches onto the food.
Conventional Potatoes
- Non-organic potatoes are heavily sprayed with herbicides, pesticides and fungicides — many potato growers don’t eat the potatoes they sell, but instead and grow their own separate plots without all the chemicals.
Farmed Salmon
- Farmed salmon are stuffed into pens and fed chicken feathers and pellets. A scientific study on fish contamination showed high levels of carcinogens such as DDT and PCBs.
Conventional Milk
- Dairy cows are fed growth hormones to maximize milk production, which results in increased incidence of udder infection and pus in the milk.
Conventional Apples
- Apples are heavily and frequently doused with pesticides — pesticides that have been linked to Parkinson’s
A study of ancient bodies has determined that cancer is a man-made disease, one fueled by the excesses. Tumors turn out to be extremely rare until very recent times, when pollution and poor diet became issues.
Two hundred Harvard Medical School students are confronting the school’s administration, demanding an end to pharmaceutical industry influence in the classroom. The students worry that pharmaceutical industry scandals in recent years, including criminal convictions, billions of dollars in fines, proof of bias in research and publishing and false marketing claims, have cast a bad light on the medical profession. The students have criticized Harvard as being less vigilant than other leading medical schools in monitoring potential financial conflicts by faculty members. Harvard received the lowest possible grade, an “F,” from the American Medical Student Association, a national group that rates how well medical schools monitor and control drug industry money. The students were joined by Dr. Marcia Angell, a faculty member and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, who has vigorously advocated for an end to liaisons between academia and Big Pharma.
