Free Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food by Geoff Bond Page B

In one stroke, this processing deprived city populations of vital nutrients. As we shall see, this had surprising and unexpected negative consequences for the consumer.
    The first patents for canning food were issued as early as 1810 in England; the United States soon followed. The technique involves sealing the food in the can and then heating it to over 200°F. Most animal foods can be preserved this way and a good many plant foods as well. Always the pressure is on to select variations of the food that withstand this treatment best. Some foods, like milk and fruit juices, are “pasteurized”—the food is heated very briefly to an elevated temperature and then sealed into bottles. No one thought particularly hard about what was happening. Heat, it was known, killed the harmful bacteria that cause food to rot, so that was good. It was less understood that heating also destroyed natural enzymes and many other micronutrients.
     
    The Importance of Micronutrients
    We know that there are many active compounds in the foods we eat, particularly fruits and vegetables. We are familiar with the “classic” micronutrients that have been identified over the past 100 years: vitamins A, B, C, and so on, and minerals like iron, selenium, zinc, and iodine. However, we now know that there are thousands of other micronutrient compounds that play a part in the smooth functioning of the body. In this book, we call them “background” micronutrients. For example, there is the family of carotenoids, of which there are over 600. They give the color to carrots, oranges, tomatoes, and melons. There is the phenol family with over 5,000 members. They too are present in all fruits and vegetables, and strongly present in tea, coffee, and wine. And there are the 7,000 terpene compounds, which are omnipresent in all plant foods, particularly in spices and aromatic herbs. We must not forget the thousands of bioflavonoids, yet another vast range of compounds that are essential to health.
    We know that all these micronutrients, both classic and background, are important to optimum health. We can’t define exactly how all these compounds work, but we ignore their importance at our peril.
     
    Systems of food transport became quicker and more reliable, so many more food products were grown for export to the burgeoning cities. Thus, varieties of plant were chosen that survived transportation well. Bulk storage systems improved with the development of refrigeration in the 1920s and of scientific techniques of “conditioning,” which sought to slow or prevent spoilage by careful control of moisture and gases in the silo. Plant varieties that stored well were favored.
     
    THE FAST-FOOD INDUSTRY
    In just the last 50 years, there has been a tremendous shift in the way families get their meals. In the year 1950, the average American spent $2,625 for food eaten at home and a further $724 on food eaten out. 41 (All money is expressed in year 2000 dollars.) In other words, about 20% of the food budget was spent on food eaten away from home. In contrast, in the year 2000, the average American slashed nearly in half the dollars spent on food eaten at home to $1,500. Meanwhile, consumption of meals eaten out jumped by almost 50% to $1,125. In other words, over 40% of the food budget is spent on eating out.
    An industry had sprung up to fulfill a need. Americans were earning more money but they had less free time, and more and more women were working. This “fast-food” industry, as it came to be known, provided attractive, tasty, and cheap food—and you did not even have to stop the car engine while collecting your order at the “drive-thru” window. It is hard to imagine that in 1950, McDonald’s had just one outlet (in San Bernardino, California). Today, they have over 11,000. They were quickly followed by imitators such as Burger King (now over 6,000 outlets) and Wendy’s (now over 3,500 outlets). These establishments specialized in a new type of