Most of us think of "poor diet" as only such things as the filthy pig (which even the most devout pig-eater admits is poison), junk food and perhaps overindulgence in "junk food" (candy, cakes and cookies, etc.). Yet we go blithely along, eating most foods without pausing to question their content and their possible effect upon those who eat them. A shocking example (at least to me) is the large number of people who are weight-conscious, and therefore attempt to be careful of their diet. Add to that the growing consciousness and fear of diabetes, and you find the majority of us have taken to reading labels for sugar content. But for unlabeled foods, we usually take our chances or depend upon our taste buds. Thus, we are shocked to learn, as recently stated in one of the publications which this paper receives, that "Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries do." Imagine that�and then reflect upon the people you have known who have been dieting and who proudly sucked on lemons.

A recent report by the Food and Drug Administration pointed out that "a common fat in everyday groceries could be responsible for thousands of heart attacks annually." The report particularly refers to "some cookies, crackers, bread or cakes" which we normally eat every day. The faulty ingredient, says the FDA, is usually a man-made fat, designed to make vegetable oils act more like butter. It is called "trans fatty acid," and is created by a process called "hydrogenation." A Food & Drug Administration study released in June 2000 warned of the danger of this ingredient of most commercial cakes and cookies, but it was almost totally ignored by the news media, lest it offend some of their pais advertisers. During the same period, at a conference of the American Heart Association in Reston, Virginia, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition presented a study entitled: "Dietary Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Health Dietary Recommendations for Fatty Acids."

All three authors of the study were scientists with the United States Government. The most resounding portion of the report was the conclusion that "removing trans fatty acids from all margarine would prevent 6,300 heart attacks and 2,100 deaths each year. ..."

Meanwhile, the Swedish government announced the discovery "that many cooked foods that are staples of Western diets contain a probable carcinogen (cancer producer) at levels that no one suspected would be there. The substance is acrylamide, a chemical used in making plastics." The toxin was reportedly found "in a wide array of commonly eaten foods, including French fries, potato chips, biscuits, crackers, breakfast cereals, popcorn and bread. It did not show up in boiled or uncooked foods."

A study done recently in Sweden suggested that eating any fried or baked starch could increase your risk of getting cancer. Swedish researchers concluded that "frying potatoes or other starchy foods triggers the formation of an organic molecule called acrylamide, which has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats."

One report ends: "Grilling or broiling a nice marbled steak, for example, dramatically increases the concentration of heterocyclic amines�compounds that under laboratory conditions cause the kind of damage that leads to cancer."