When there is a suspected murderer at loose, often a country wide alert is announced. However the Canadian consumer has to cope on his or her own when making decisions about . . .
food to buy for the family. We used to rely completely on the FDA or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or Health Canada to make sure that everything that was available for the consumer to buy was one hundred percent safe. Something happened during the last few decades that leaves some of us scratching our heads.
An increasing number of our citizens are either sensitive to gluten or celiac. Some people think that part of the problem may be caused by a chemical residue remaining on the wheat after desiccation. Desiccation is the killing of the wheat before harvest to make for cleaner and drier grain. This process which is now used on most of North America’s wheat crop before harvest is approved by both the USDA and Canadian authorities. Many restaurants now have a “gluten free” menu to choose from but when buying in the store, eating at a church supper, or even at a family picnic, there are seldom any warnings.
Sugar is another product that usually has no warning as to what that delectable food was made from. Sugar is used in many commonly purchased products from pop, to liquor, to catsup, to icing on a birthday cake. Sugar is usually made from sugar cane, sugar beets, or corn. In Europe, no one that I have met have ever had a digestive problem from eating any kind of sugar, but if the sugar is processed in North America, only one source contains no chemical residue. Most foods made from rice, wheat, corn, soybean, sugar beets, or canola will contain varying amounts of chemical residue. Residues of this chemical in food can cause mild sensitivities in some people, or more serious damage to the digestive system in others, to chelation of some necessary minor elements that are necessary to reduce early embryonic death. This was first noticed in dairy cows.
Recently there have been several meat replacements like beef and bacon introduced to the market that do not advertise that they contain grain products which likely contain some chemical residue. So far the USDA, Ag. Canada, and other North American authorities have accepted all these food products as being within the safe limits. Most research conducted on the health safety of these chemicals has been given over to, or closely monitored by the same companies that profit from the sale of the chemicals.
It looks like we will be on our own to research which products from which countries are safe for us and our families to eat or use for years to come.
If you use any kind of antacid then you probably ate something that your system was sensitive to.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family
for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
