Food glorious food.... (2012)

Food has many threads to its consumption with social, cultural, political, economic and nutritional factors to consider. I focus here on the processes of its production and the ins and outs on how food is assessed for safety and eventually legislated for sale within its various trading blocs. This is a big subject and I will use food additives, animal feed additives, pesticides and radioactivity in foods to 'hang' the article together. What you eat is a highly individual 'thing' and I would not think about saying 'you must /not eat this or that food' because it is all about choice, although 'choice' is a highly subjective term as well because it is constrained by all the above threads and for most people it is decided on economic considerations. For many areas of the world its peoples are more worried about quantity rather than 'quality' and the definition of 'quality' is another subjective and woolly term. The point of this article is to point out that whatever foods you eat, you should have some idea on where it came from, how it was produced and most important of all, what it contains. The saying 'you are what you eat' is very apt on so many different levels!!

This article will also focus on the little discussed (within scientific circles at least) spiritual aspects of food production and consumption. Interspersed within the article is the notion that scientific uncertainty within food production issues is openly acknowledged within the food risk assessment process yet for the most part is largely ignored. I will repeat that: risk assessments occasionally acknowledge uncertainty but in no way is it quantified within the risk assessment process. The advice from our 'food safety bodies' is usually couched in authoritative and definitive language in defining any risk from some of these foods yet, this very advice is subject to (a) change and subtle modification leading to consumer confusion on what the 'experts' are really saying and whom to believe and (b) the uncertainties within the risk assessment process are rarely, if ever acknowledged.

You are light - you're body is a vessel of light:

The food chain is awash with all sorts of undesirable substances i.e. food additives, additives and micro-organisms added to the feed of animals, antibiotics, genetically modified crops hence foods, heavy metals, dioxins, oestrogen compounds (high levels in drinking water), microwaved foods, pesticides... the list is endless.

In reality, our body is an electromagnetic complex that vibrates within set frequencies as do all the various components of our organs and these organs are under the 'control' of various glands and ultimately the chakras. Spiritually, it can be defined as a 'light body' i.e. based on a geometric template and in these times, is speeding up or its rate of frequency is increasing. In point of fact, our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is mutating to allow more light into our body complex.

The light body simply needs light to sustain itself and the source of light in our diet are plants able to photosynthesis. Various cancers run rampant in westernised, industrialised societies. This is mostly due to diet and in order to avoid a myriad of food-related illnesses and dis-ease, it is advisable to eat (where possible) a combination of raw fruits & vegetables, nuts and berries. Not everyone is able to do this but the important point to note is and from a spiritual level, eating meat will clog your body up (an imbalance) simply because of all the added substances, hormones, antibiotics, feed additives etc. it contains. It is also wise to consider the way in which these animals are reared and slaughtered, particularly the moments before slaughter when these animals are greatly stressed and as a result, release 'fear' hormones into their blood. These are the conditions in which our food is prepared. I honour the indigenous peoples whom respect and honour the animals they kill to consume. Life is about conservation, not preservation and ideally, we should make use of all food sources that are available to us. The question really is not whether you eat meat or not, rather, do you honour the animal or other food source (the All-of-It) prior to consumption? The difference here is that all the animals and other sources of food that we consume also have life and consciousness and willingly come to this planet in order to provide us with the food we need to keep our bodies growing and going. Animals and other food sources lovingly reared and humanely slaughtered provide the body with nourishment not dis-ease.

Now, as we approach 2012 and planetary ascension, what easier way is there to impede our spiritual progress and immobilise our focus and consciousness to survival mode by simply adding various substances to the foods we eat. On the other hand and in spite of habituated streams of processed foods taken into the body over many years, many people have already felt this quickening in their vibratory bodies and have responded by cutting down on meat consumption or becoming vegetarians /vegans and consuming food from the base of the food chain without processing or cooking. Whatever you decide to consume, consciously make your choice, bless or thank your food and do the best you can if your choices are constrained in any way. Try and avoid castigating yourself and falling into the 'its naughty but nice' syndrome. Make a choice, go for it and don't regret any moment of it. The body is an amazingly complex and resilient vessel, it can take some stick and find its way back to equilibrium. Also be mindful that the body is just that, a body, it is a vessel created for you so that you can do your stuff in Life. Your life force or spirit is eternal and shines forever. A good test of discernment I am conscious of and use is the 'supermarket' test: when you go into a supermarket to buy fruit & veg. were your senses overwhelmed by all the smells, colours and appearance of the products on sale? I find supermarkets 'no smell' zones in terms of produce and the uniformity of size, texture and everything else about the produce (and the place) says 'don't buy'. I contrast that with locally grown fruit & veg organically grown and its just like us, dirty, grubby, all shapes, sizes and shades but lovely to touch.

Brief discussion on product authorisation issues:

Different countries have different methods for assessing food safety and in American models if there is a history of prolonged use of a substance within a food or consumption of the food itself it is 'generally regarded as safe' i.e. it has 'gras' status meaning it does not have to undergo food safety assessment'. The European Union (EU) has a different system for assessing food safety risk which again is different to other countries. The point is that there are various global bodies assessing consumer risk, they use different protocols yet they all use more or less the same datasets on food toxicity and methods of risk assessment. The common thread and point of contention here is that there exists toxicological data generated from animal experiments that were carried out in some cases 50 years ago. Obviously, the methods of analysis and analytical equipment for food analyses have improved considerably since the early days and this improved analytical ability should be used whenever industry would like to spike this or that particular food with an additive. Also note that when a product undergoes a risk assessment, it is usually based on a single additive at a time. Incidentally, it is only now that food safety bodies are considering the most efficient way of assessing toxicological risk from the combined effects of consuming lots of additives from all sources over a lifetime of consumption. To my knowledge, there is no requirement for industry to assess whether there are any enhanced or unforeseen risk effects from a combination of food additives.

The biggest single source of uncertainty within the risk assessment process itself is the lack of reported uncertainty itself. It just does not feature at all and to a large extent, this is the preferred risk assessment method carried out by all food safety bodies. The reason being that government bodies and EU-type safety committees prefer to work towards a single value of additive level in food that will produce evidence of its harm to the body. In other words if the detected level of an additive is above a specified level its bad: if its below its safe. The fact that levels which are just below an action level, if you take uncertainty into account it could be deemed as breaching the action level is seen as being neither here or there. It is on this rather shaky foundation that government agencies give advice on food safety to consumers. The use of pesticides in our foods is a good example because in general, these substances are extremely potent and you only need a 'drop' for it to work effectively. When analysing for pesticides in foods you need very sensitive analytical equipment because the levels are (or should be) extremely low. Without some indication of the uncertainty within the separation process and the ability of the equipment to maintain linear contaminant/signal levels i.e. some indication of measurement uncertainty, the detected level could be plus or minus 50% -90% of the reported value. If you then carry out a risk assessment using this value and times this by the amount you consume and divide by an 'arbitrary bodyweight' what risk to the consumer does it really represent?

The food chain is in a mess at the moment and I have no confidence in how we assess risk from many substances that potentially, we consume every day. As pointed out earlier, the biggest cause of cancer within the Western world is the food supply. There are lots of reports that point out that in certain parts of the world, inhabitants who do not eat Western-type diets have extremely low rates for some cancers. Highly processed /manipulated foods and diets rich in saturated fats, high sugar and salt content i.e. the typical British or American diet, show a concurrent high cancer rate of the colon, bowel etc. I recommend you watch a DVD called 'curing cancer from the inside out'. You will also find information in this DVD that will really shock you if you are thinking about having treatments for cancer i.e. chemotherapy, radiation etc. - they just do not work and for most people with 'so-called 'irreversible cancer' their lives are interrupted, cut short and miserable. The DVD also goes into detail on how clinical trials are carried out for some of the so-called cancer products and these substances do not work either. Pay particular attention on the way in which they analyse the data from clinical trials, note the huge 'smokescreen' when the Big Pharma statisticians express the efficacy of the cancer medicines /treatments in 'absolute' or 'relative' terms.

Food convenience and perceptions of food:

I find it interesting that some people can eat meat provided that it does not in any way remind them of the animal from whence it came. Supermarkets oblige in this type of psychological 'forgetfulness' by cutting up and packaging the meat so that it looks like a slab of cheese not chicken!! The common definition of meat also has a cultural bias as well, if I order a vegetarian meal in a Greek or Thai eatery, I could be given chicken or fish because it is not defined as meat in those countries!

The EU (European Union) has in place myriads of legislation to ensure uniformity of shape, size and colour for the produce of Nature. Supermarkets re-enforce this uniformity by not buying produce that does not conform to what they deem as 'aesthetically pleasing'. Some supermarkets like to ensure that a specific colour of egg is laid by birds and the farmer is encouraged to use colour additives such as canthaxanthin or astaxanthin to produce the required egg colour. I have seen a colour chart that is supplied to supermarkets and growers that basically says that if you use this amount of colour additive in the feed of these chickens, the egg yolk colour will be this shade!! My favourite 'forgetfulness parable' is pesticides because what you see (and most people expect nowadays) is a completely blemish-free fruit or vegetable. What is forgotten or is completely below the radar for most people is that pesticides have been used to produce these 'perfectly formed' specimens! My favourite of favourites is caged salmon fish farming. I visited one such place in Scotland and the fish are fed at specific times and in truth, the whole process of feeding and other aspects of their life cycle are completely automated. They add canthaxanthin to the feed of salmon to impart a bright pink colour to the flesh. This is to mimic the flesh colour of wild salmon who feed on all sorts of ocean goodies such as shrimp which naturally give salmon flesh this vivid pink colour. If the colour additive canthaxanthin is not used, the colour of the farmed salmon would be an ugly grey. Much of this produce is for export to countries outside the EU and once again, the food industry attempt to disguise their un-natural growing practices with the equally un-natural adulteration of caged salmon feed with a 'false' colour additive. Purely aesthetics and they also admit to it.

Another favourite is the term 'organic'. When you see the label 'organic eggs' you would expect that the hens consume foods that do not contain themselves. If you look at the legislation on what is possible and can be used by industry you will find that up to 20% of the food that hens are fed can legally contain protein in the form of other birds. Organically produced tomatoes and wine is another favourite. Conventional pesticides are not used but the growers add a copper complex to their veg and grapes to achieve the same effect. This could easily lead to copper poisoning because in effect it is not the substance in use that causes dis-ease its the level of that substance that does the damage. This is compounded in the UK because none of the regulatory or 'watchdog' pesticide organisations, Pesticides Safety Directorate, the Food Standards Agency, Defra nor the Organic Association monitor the levels of copper use in organic produce. There are a few reports of high levels of copper found in French produce and because of the ways in which the food industry works, if its common practice in one country then its odds on that you will find the same common practice in another country provided the growing conditions are similar.

I am not knocking organically grown produce because much of what I consume is organically grown. Its just that the organic legislation in most food trading blocs allows provision for loopholes which can be exploited by unscrupulous growers and its something you need to be aware of.

Allotment holders (mostly organic growing city types) think the compost they buy to grow their vegetables does not contain pesticides but it might and it all depends on what the farmer spreads on his field or whether or not have waste cuttings from municipal areas i.e. parks and gardens etc are included in the mix. The legislation is very clear here i.e. it does not exist nor do any of the regulatory bodies in the UK nor the organic association test for pesticides or their levels in compost. Check it out, ask questions and satisfy yourself. Pesticides and compost is a very muddled area and none of the regulatory bodies want to take responsibility for its enforcement or testing.

I have scraped the surface here and there are lots of articles on the Internet if you require more detailed information. I tend to do my research by firstly looking at non-government, non-industry sites and comparing their conclusions /data with the data from official bodies. The 'truth' of the issue lies somewhere between the two sets of data.

In conclusion, if you scratch the surface of any controversial food issue i.e. artificial sweeteners, the heavy use of sugar and salt in commonly consumed food products, etc. you quickly become aware that all is not well within the food regulatory bodies and their masters who sit at the top of the EU food/product authorisation pyramid. Carrying out your own research into the foods you consume can become quite addictive minefield where data becomes conflicting, black becomes white and it becomes impossible to make sense of any of it. One thing is clear though and that is the food industry and its regulators bend over backwards to accommodate each others needs. There are clear political and economic strands to the issue of food safety. Superimposed on this 'unholy alliance' are unseen factors at work and for me, food production /safety is one way in which the dark T-shirts (Annunuki, Illuminati puppets) can impede our spiritual progress by blocking off the ultimate source of light for our evolving lightbodies.

Finally, over the past 10 - 15 years the civil service departments who oversee much of the safety aspects of foods has been fragmented, broken down and re-built under a new name and most need to survive within a wholly commercial environment. This is particularly true of the UK's analytical laboratories and of course, the same thing happened to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Foods (now called Defra) who oversaw the BSE (bovine spongiform encepthalopathy) scandal. Its food safety division (practically all of its staff) were re-branded under the FSA (Food Standards Agency) logo in 2000. If you have ever tried to get advice from a government department and you are not quite sure who to ask, be prepared to be handed around various government organisations because the government response to food safety questions is very fragmented in part due to this weird re-branding policy within its food science divisions. Part of this re-branding of government agencies is to ensure that each specialist food division is unaware of what is going on in another division. This results in an overall poor service to consumers but I guess that is one of the things that it was designed to do in the first place!!