A Pennsylvania teenager is suing Coca-Cola, Nestlé USA, PepsiCo, General Mills, WK Kellogg Co and six other Big Food companies alleging that ultra processed foods engineered to be as addictive as cigarettes caused him to develop fatty liver disease, Type 2 diabetes and other health problems.
In a 148-page lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia County, Bryce Martinez, 18, alleges he’s the victim of a “predatory profiteering” scheme by Big Food that seeks to develop and market food to children that is harmful to health, without warning the public of the foods’ danger
Paediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro, author of “What’s Making Our Children Sick?: How Industrial Food Is Causing an Epidemic of Chronic Illness, and What Parents (and Doctors) Can Do About It,” said “The food industry has neuroscientists designing their addictive cocktails that have a combination of fats, salt, sugar and palatines [flavour enhancers] to create junk food addictions in our youth
Perro said this was evident in Martinez’s diet, which “was unfortunately filled with toxicants, some known to cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, such as glyphosate, which can progress to advanced and irreversible forms of liver disease
The lawsuit calls UPF( Ultra Processed Foods) “industrially produced edible substances that are imitations of food” and which “consist of former foods that have been fractioned into substances, chemically modified, combined with additives, and then reassembled using industrial techniques such as moulding, extrusion and pressurisation.
Earlier this month, Dr. Robert Califf, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, acknowledged during a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labour, and Pensions Committee that the food industry is indeed doing this.
The food industry has figured out there is a combination of sweet, carbohydrates, and salt that goes to our brains, and I think it’s addictive,” Califf said. “I think it’s the same neural circuits that are involved in opioid addiction
This lawsuit if successful may lead to the opening of the floodgates to challenging processed foods. This supports the farmers assertions that they are very important to the general public. Also read my other blogs on patents regarding GMO and the influence of Bill Gate
Buy direct from farmers and do not purchase any processed foods as that is the only way you can be certain of what is in the products you consume.
A starting point for any products you do buy from a supermarket is an app called YUKA. This is a useful tool when checking through the bar code what is in the product your purchasing. It also provides you with a score on the content and it may surprise you when you find out what is being hidden.
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