Food author and activist Kristin Lawless at a Bay Area farmers’ market. Photo courtesy of Kristin Lawless.
America’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: Processed Foods
By Kristin Lawless, special to JenniferMargulis.net
We’ve been duped. All around us we see evidence of it. Cancer. Heart disease. Diabetes. Declining life span in the wealthiest nation that has ever existed on Earth.
“Food is a weapon,” rapper, author, and producer Chuck D tweeted recently about my book. Formerly Known As Food is an overview of our current food system and all that has gone wrong and how it affects our health.
In the book I argue that the industrial food system and all its processed foods are changing us from the inside out, all the way down to the microscopic bacteria in our gut.
Ever since Chuck D’s tweet, I’ve been thinking about how the time is now to stand up to Big Food and Big Ag.
Just a handful of large corporations control our food supply. These corporations flood the market with “foods” (i.e. processed foods and other rip-off concepts with fancy labels and claims) and environmental chemicals that are harming us and our families—not to mention poisoning the environment and all its creatures.
We have to stop them!
Real food considered radical
It defies logic that my approach to eating— simple whole, real food—is considered radical. But the deeper I dive into this, I realize it is radical.
Why? Because most so-called health and dietary experts are still promoting the industry’s message.
I’m not saying, eat less and exercise more, or all foods in moderation — those messages only serve an industrial food system that has been proven to make us ill. It’s actually pretty basic: if we want to live on a habitable planet and be healthy, we must reject the entire industrial food model.
Processed foods aren’t healthy
There is no tweaking around the edges, or making processed foods “healthier.” The entire system needs to drastically change if we want to save ourselves, our families, and our planet.
That’s why my next book will get right to the heart of the matter. It’s called How to Eat to Save Your Life (and the Planet). Together, we can take down Big Ag and Big Food with this rising health revolution.
I’ve started a new Instagram called “Kristin, Can I Eat This?” and a new blog by the same name, where I answer all your questions about food and health.
I’m also working on some new projects, like a cookbook and online classes. My first course is a deep dive into how we feed our babies and children and how we can set them up for life-long health. The class begins on March 10. You can get more information and register here.
We’re going to get loud about this. Join us in our revolution to heal ourselves and our planet!
Food author and activist Kristin Lawless.
About the Author:
Kristin Lawless is the author of Formerly Known As Food: How the Industrial Food System Is Changing Our Minds, Bodies, and Culture, which won the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature in 2019. Her journalism and columns have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Newsweek, and VICE. In addition, Lawless is also a Certified Nutrition Educator and lives with her husband and son in Oakland, California.
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kristinlawless; find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristinwlawless/. Subscribe to her newsletter and check out her website where she’ll be sharing tidbits of her new book in the coming weeks and months.
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