May 26 2014: Why do Americans age sicker and die several years sooner than the inhabitants of other developed nations? There are a number of reasons. One is the poor quality of our food (and not just fast-food). Thanks to industrial farming, its nutritional quality has declined dramatically—and it is further significantly degraded during processing. Overall, we have a food crisis—which also means a health crisis—but seem largely unaware of it.

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.

W. C. Fields

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The following is from mercola.com of May 25 2014.

Dr. Dunning's work shows that in order to receive the same amount of iron you used to get from one apple in 1950, by 1998 you had to eat 26 apples! The reason food doesn't taste as good as it used to is also related to the deterioration of mineral content. The minerals actually form the compounds that give the fruit or vegetable its flavor.

Fewer Minerals = Greater Disease Rates

As demineralization increases, disease rates rise, as indicated in the following chart. Dr. Dunning also scoured the archives of the CDC, NIH, American Heart Association, and other agencies, tracking the incidence of disease over the same periods, and came up with the second chart below. As you can see, a very clear pattern emerges when all this information is combined.

The figures relating to American health and longevity are appalling—and it’s a sad thing that we are doing virtually nothing about them. Fear of terrorism has caused us to spend trillions of dollars on essentially futile wars—while creating untold misery in the process.

Meanwhile vastly more serious threats to our national wellbeing go unanswered. On the one hand, we are the richest country in the world. On the other hand, our health situation is more indicative of a third world country. Hundreds of millions of us are sicker than we need be, and are dying too soon.

We should be up in arms over that.

The following are the main reasons why our health situation sucks.

• CORRUPT SYSTEM. We have a systemically corrupt for profit healthcare system that not only costs far too much, but delivers an inferior service to most of the population. Just by itself, our healthcare system kills large numbers of Americans every year through medical error, gross carelessness, unnecessary procedures, and over medication. It’s a system without a moral code and it’s a disgrace.
• TOO SEDENTARY. Not enough of us take responsibility for our own health. In particular, we are excessively sedentary (sitting for too long is hazardous in itself) —and we don’t take nearly enough exercise. We could do a great deal about this through changes in work practices, more public transport etc.  The automobile is excessively dominant in U.S. society—and we are paying the price.
• WATER QUALITY ISSUES. We have serious problems with water quality. We test for certain known threats like lead and arsenic, but not for medical waste etc. even though contamination of our water supply by meds is widespread.
• AIR POLLUTION. We have serious problems with air pollution—and we are making them worse through fracking. Air pollution, of course, affects not just the air we breathe, but the soil we grow our crops in—and the water we use.
• SUBSTANDARD FOOD CHAIN. Our food chain is sub-standard from the earth we grow it in to the way we process it, to the materials we package it in. In addition, our meat is contaminated with antibiotics—fed to animals in vast quantities to counter disease ridden industrial farming operations. Such antibiotic overuse is rendering us immune to antibiotic effectiveness.

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