And you thought clothing was bad

[BlueTrain]

I don't think I read this here first. If I did, I couldn't find the thread. This sort of goes along with the thread of 'what's in your pants.'

It seems that certain cheeses like grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, the kind we buy all the time, contains ground cellulose. That is, it contains a wood product. Says so on the labels. Is that bad? Can't be that good. It's added to prevent caking and apparently it works. Sometimes it's might be just a filler. I use some in omelets and au gratin potatoes. Should I be worried? It's also said that you probably wouldn't like to see sausage being made, either. And I do know for a fact that if you raise chickens to eat, there's something really messy that's going to take place somewhere between the henhouse and the kitchen.

Well, I'm not. Don't know what kind of wood they use. I imagine it could still be called organic, if that really has any meaning. I used to say that 'organic' meant it contains no petroleum products but I'm less certain of that now. Either way, it doesn't bother me. But it's certainly a curious fact, all the same. It might bother the kind of person who, as mentioned in a newspaper article a few days ago, went to five different grocery stores to find the perfect avocado. But I'm the kind of person who thought leftover pizza from a party at work (you have parties like that, don't you?) was like manna from heaven the next day and still believes cake is never too stale to eat.

I sure miss those pizza parties at work.

[Greenbare Woods]

It seems that certain cheeses like grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, the kind we buy all the time, contains ground cellulose. That is, it contains a wood product. Says so on the labels.

Some 40 years ago there was a big propaganda push for "high fiber" diets.  Wood fiber, sawdust, was added to many products such as bread.  "Contains 5% cellulose fiber," became common.  It cut the cost of producing food by 3 or 4 percent, made a lot of money for food manufacturers.   

Since then we have learned that undigestable vegetable fiber is a big cause of bowel irritation, crones disease, constipation, and colon cancer.  My younger sister died of colon cancer.  You won't catch me eating any sawdust products.

[BlueTrain]

I'm one of those animals that'll eat most anything, although there's a lot that I've never eaten and a few things, like Thai food, that I'll never eat again. I won't eat sodium, either, but I do use salt.

I've never known anyone who had colon cancer and I'm not related to anyone who ever died of any kind of cancer. But they're all dead just the same. One of my wife's relatives smoked and drank and lived past 100. But I'm not related to her. Maybe we should stick to a kosher/halal diet. But I'd sure hate to give up ham.

[jbeegoode]

Cheeze has also got the GMO feed, and antibiotics and hormones that are fed to cows in this country. The business is said to be controlled by the mafia...I dunno.

Cheese is made by a set process, but this American stuff is a new concoction.

European countries have no GMO and things are made the real way. The taste is the truth. I only eat European cheeses. There are probiotic factors in cheese.

When I cook with American cheeze, it makes like plastic. I can't get it to work in my omelets like it used to. It taste kinda like cheese. I consider it a fake cheese. The fake cheeze that is for vegans is the same texture, only worse...so much for health. Maybe it is inundated with wood, or even plastic, as I wouldn't put anything past the food manufacturers.

The nutritional value of all the processed foods is a further factor.

I go into Trader Joe's and read the labels. All of the American cheezes have labels telling us that there are studies that the crap in the cheeze is okay. That just tells me that the crap is in ALL American cheeze and it is corrupted corporate run studies and corporate run FDA that are in cahoots.

The quality of the cheese is the other factor and the my memory telling me how different this stuff is from what I grew up with. Velveeta started this out and now it is all cheeze.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

Remember when someone said that in the future we'd get all our nutrition from pills? That was probably before anyone was talking about bulk in our diet. There are even people who want to legalize "recreational drugs." Some things just don't add up.

Life expectancy, if that's anything to go by, is over 70 for men. In the late 1930s, when everyone consumed pure food, mostly grown at home, meat killed fresh in the back yard (that's the messy part I mentioned), home-baked bread, when smoking was healthful, and nobody stayed inside watching TV, life expectancy was around 60 for men. What it was for women was, presumably, irrelevant for everyone here. Some things just don't add up.

Just remember, you will most assuredly die of cancer if you don't die of something else first. Eat right, keep fit, die anyway.

[nuduke]

I believe quality of diet has had little effect on life expectancy over the last 100 years other than that our dreadful modern diet has caused more illness than in days of yore.  Back then too little food was a big factor.  But most of all, what has caused us in todays world to eassily make the fourscore years, frequently make fourscore and ten and increasingly to live to 5-score years is probably 3 factors.  1. Medical science and being able to cure or stave off heart disease and cancer and to diagnose and treat broken bones and ever more sophisticated operations to fight many conditions and particularly antibiotics and vaccination. measles, TB and sepsis accounted for many lives before antibiotics.  2  Public health, good water supply, refrigeration and individual hygiene.  We don't die of cholera or food poisoning so much any more. 3. Greater affluence and better nutrition and 4. We don't work so hard these days thanks to automation, machines and so on.  There are fewer manual jobs digging and shovelling, hammering and lifting which it would appear were a major factor in wearing people out and early death.
Where these factors don't exist to the same extent in poorer, less well developed countries, life expectancy remains significantly shorter.
Very importantly, if we talk about the average age at death, this has been hugely increased because infant and child mortality has plummeted over this period.   
That's my perception anyway (aided a bit by a spot of googling!).
John 

[ric]

There's also no mention of quality of life. For many the last year's have restricted mobility and dementia. My father for example spent his last few years in physically in a local nursing home, mentally God knows where most of the time, my father had gone at least 2 years before his body stopped.
I've got a ninety something neighbour, she's mentally ok but basically has sat in the same chair for the last 10 years. Got a carer to come in 3 times a day to get her in and out of bed and feed her.
Longer lifespan makes good statistics but not always good lives

[BlueTrain]

As nuduke has pointed out, decreased infant and child mortality may have had more effect on longevity than anything else. It used to be not that unusual, when families were really large, that the last child born would not survive for very long. It occurs to me that not having a lot of children might have made a difference, too. Certain ailments seem to run in families, too, which you can't do anything about. Basic sanitation, which is assumed today, and just getting enough to eat, also assumed today, probably make more difference than anything.

People also persist in habits that have been known to be unhealthy for ages, like using tobacco. I've never smoked but apparently people get something out of it. Likewise, certain occupations are also known to be unhealthy but I suppose they pay well, like coal mining. Something I think we forget and now take for granted is clean air and even, believe it or not, clean water. Originally, cities were unhealthy places to live, not because they were crowded, which they were, but because they were unsanitary and polluted. That was the original impetus for naturism, of which nudism was only one approach. The basic idea was to get out of town, into the countryside for hiking, exercise in the open air, with an element of conservation thrown in for good measure (hopefully not near a pig farm). For an urban worker to actually manage to get a vacation to be able to leave town for a week or two was an achievement in itself. So, it goes without saying that naturism, especially nudism, was a product of progressive (very progressive) thinking, as well as being largely urban. Presumably rural folks already enjoyed plenty of exercise in the open air (hopefully not near a pig farm) but were probably much too conservative to embrace nudism and too tired or busy to go hiking.

[Peter S]

John Nuduke, how can you dismiss the effects of diet yet say that better nutrition has helped? Aren’t they connected? I agree, though, that medical science is doing a good job of elongating our lifespans - on the one hand I believe the ever-more processed and chemically-enhanced nature of our foodstuffs is contributing to illness and bodily issues, but perhaps the preservatives used in those foods are preserving the bodies that take them on board. Unfortunately medicine is all too often preserving unhealthy life rather than increasing the healthy years, a factor that makes it more costly and more uncomfortable for all. I’m trying to extend the good years as much as possible, in the hope that, when it comes, the decline is reasonably rapid.

[BlueTrain]

Speaking only for myself, I think you raise good points. However, I don't believe that human bodies, or animals, either, for that matter, are necessarily that efficient at processing whatever we eat and drink. In other words, we aren't finely tuned machines, most of us. Some are, to be sure, like athletes. I imagine they subsist on a carefully controlled and studied diet, yet they do a lot more than that. But all athletes are not alike. Even though they may essentially do the same things, their aims may be different. And that's why bodybuilders usually don't look like Olympic weightlifters. Besides, there are unfounded rumors that some athletes consume a lot of totally unnatural substances to enhance their performance. It's doubtful if they have a long lifespan in mind when they do that, though.

On top of all that, I'd say that a lot of people live out their lives, short or long, with little contact with medical science. And some people don't even believe any of it.

[jbeegoode]

Life expectancy is a statistically created an average. All of those child deaths throw the numbers off.

In the 1930's there was more disease, contamination of water, food insecurity stress, ignorance, much less quality and knowledge in medicine, child death, smoking and exploitation of labor.

The people who I know from family and friends, that lived into the 90's, had a good farm and a garden out back. They had community, family and worked a lot. It was a thriving environment for good genes. They didn't drink to excess, or didn't drink at all.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

I know people that lived under those conditions who did not make it to 65. In fact, I'm still struck when I see the obituaries of people who were younger than me when they died. We may see aging or being old somewhat differently than, say, fifty years ago. One did not commonly see the cause of death back then, if the person was old. One obituary in the 1950s gave the cause of death as "extreme old age." I guess no one dies of old age these days.

I have my doubts that people ate any better (assuming they could afford things) in our grandparents day than now. I realize that's a vague range of years. One of my grandfathers was born in 1876. Let's just say before 1960 or maybe even 1950. Because food did not (presumably) contain additives like they do now, it does not follow that people had healthier diets, though they may have. Lots of processed foods have been around longer than we think, you know. I grew up eating bacon and eggs every morning. Would that be considered healthy today? I don't remember if we used butter or margarine, probably both, same as I do today. But back then, it was probably real margarine.

Ever visit an Amish farmer's market?  I'm sure they don't add anything to the foods they sell (they generally have prepared foods, not just produce). But it's heavy stuff.

[Greenbare Woods]

Just recently published (Jan 2020) the Journal of the American Medical Association is getting a backlash from big carb/sugar corporations for daring to publish independent research showing that red meat is not harmful for human health. 

Backlash Over Meat Dietary Recommendations Raises Questions About Corporate Ties to Nutrition Scientists

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2759201?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=content-shareicons&utm_content=article_engagement&utm_medium=social&utm_term=011620&fbclid=IwAR3PzOtjS5ieG-K2wfeCDs_bggOt1BAIY9VAiYCVYnamtuT8MTFYJgVD5bQ#.XiBVIxHXoHx.facebook

[BlueTrain]

According to a recent survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.

[jbeegoode]

"Eating red meat is not harmful to human health" is a misleading statement because of its absolutism. It is over simplified. Common sense tells us that it has been a part of human diet for millennia, and eating a hamburger doesn't make people drop dead. There is no issue there.

How much meat one eats, what kind of meat, what one eats with the meat and what source of the meat are the important concerns. A primarily vegetable, or plant based diet is a more natural diet, which has been practiced for millennia, back to human origins. It doesn't hurt people. People can get by eating just plants, obviously. Study shows us that all of the pockets of longevity are inhabited by vegetarians. "The China study" by Campbell is a study of 10's of thousands over years, huge masses of data with obvious conclusions. So, I'll personally stick to the organic fresh and raw veggie end of things and minimize my meat consumption to a treat every few months and then fish once or twice a week. I know how i feel and look and the studies that I read have shown personal results when I have put them into action.

There are not only the influences of big money mucking up the informative and propagandizing, but the self interest of the academics and colleague that play this game of intellectual dominance with peer review and "science based" proofs. Ivory castles are built on being respected and they are very often self-limiting and dismissive of new information and ideas, or just plain overly defensive. Just because something has yet to be proven doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Just because it hasn't been extensively proven, doesn't mean that what it points to is untrue. These ploys have been used to plant doubt by unethical corporate industry like tobacco, Monsanto, on and on.
Jbee