Who is in charge of marketing here?

In my very gradual journey to changing my diet to more whole, real food and organic produce and less processed foods, I have also stumbled upon how many chemicals are in our ‘normal’ household products – shampoos, soaps, toothpaste, deodorant, linens, water, Tupperware, and the list goes on and on. Am I getting out of control? Some would say yes!  But, the more I think about how much disease we have in our world and how many people are dependent on medication to get from one day to the next, it really makes me wonder what we are doing wrong. You have probably also heard stories about “this guy that your dad or your friend knew that was super healthy and really fit but just randomly had a heart attack one day”. Why? If he was truly “super healthy and really fit”, why in the world would his body just plain give up? That makes zero sense to me practically and scientifically. Something else is going on for these to be common stories. A friend made a good point the other day: for the amount of money we raise in the U.S. for cancer research and cancer foundations, why isn’t cancer going away instead of increasing in frequency? Some might argue genetics or hereditary diseases but I’m not buying it.

It suddenly dawned on me how many chemicals we expose ourselves to every day. Sodium lauryl sulfate in most soaps and shampoos – toxic and carcinogenic; any fragrance in anything (lotion, soap, etc) – toxic; parabens in the majority of skin care products – toxic and known to inhibit female hormones from working normally; preservatives in most of our food since we are surrounded by processed food – I learned the other day that human bodies are actually taking longer to decompose than they used to due to the amount of preservatives in them…..gross! I could keep going but you get the idea.

Most people do not know the very real dangers of high fructose corn syrup, antibiotics and added hormones in meat, and hydrogenated vegetable oil but that list could go on and on as well. I have never in my life read the ingredients on a nutrition label but now I read every. single. ingredient on every. single. thing. I consider buying or eating. Does it take me three times longer to complete a grocery store trip? Yep, but I believe it’s totally worth it. I think the ‘convenient factor’ has been a huge player in the game of processed food and fast food in America. And it’s costing us our lives.

What is the point of all of this? Well, now that I have become more aware of how many things in our life are severely detrimental to our health, even to the point of being toxic, I have suddenly noticed how almost 90% of the commercials on the tiny amount of television I watch in a week are all advertising something that we do not need to live and will most likely cause major health problems. Start paying attention….just tonight, I saw Clorox bleach advertised, Glade spray fragrance, Febreeze fabric refresher, McDonald’s food, Oil of Olay anti-aging cream, Pediasure, packaged hot dogs, anti-depression medication, Doritos chips, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Sonic food, some energy drink and some other drug I can’t remember. This was only over the hour I watched two Friends re-runs!

It just makes me wonder….who is in charge of marketing and advertising in this country? And when are we going to change the way we eat in order to better our health and stop using drugs to ‘fix’ everything?