Farmer Reveals The Dark Truths About Food Production

1. 1.1 million animals are killed every hour

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The demand for meat in the US is enormous, and it's so high that it means an absolutely shocking number of animals are killed every hour and make their way into the food industry.  And because the demand is so high, the treatment of the animals is often less than ideal.

2. It takes nearly 500 gallons of water to produce just 1 bar of chocolate

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One shocking fact lies within the production of your favorite chocolate bar.  It's true that the production of just one chocolate bar is particularly lengthy and after starting its life as cocoa beans, it takes up to 449 gallons of water to transform it into chocolate!

3. Each year, there are 100 billion pounds of food waste

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In appalling statistics, it is estimated that up to 40% of food is wasted in the US every year.  That's 119 billion pounds of food waste.  And this equates to 130 billion meals, and nearly $500 billion of food is thrown away each year.  And it doesn't seem to be improving any time soon!

4. You're supposed to be addicted to chips

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Once you start eating chips, you'll quickly find out that it is nearly impossible to stop munching once you start.  And there's a scientific reason for that behind the flavors.  They are actually made to trick your brain into wanting more and more and this eventually leads to health problems and obesity.

5. 100 different cows could be in your burger

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When you eat a burger, you're not only eating one cow.  In fact, one report found that one single patty from Mcdonald's could contain the meat of up to one hundred cows, and the same goes for your shop-bought minced beef!

6. Nutella isn't a health food

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Despite the clever marketing of Nutella a few years ago, this delicious hazelnut chocolate spread is far from being a health food.  In fact, the producers of Nutella omitted some key ingredients from the label, including a whole heap of sugar, modified palm oil, and artificial ingredients.

7. Sugar is worse than saturated fat for your health

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Sugar has been recently described as the #1 enemy of American diets and has been found to actually be worse than saturated fat for your health.  This includes having an appalling impact on your heart health, increasing the risk of a heart attack and other circulatory diseases.

8. Our war on fat is completely misplaced

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For many years, a war has been declared on saturated fat and cholesterol, suggesting that these are the biggest risks to our health.  This gave rise to low and zero-fat products but these just replaced the fats with sugar to make the food taste good.  This war on fat has been described as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of nutrition due to the current rise in type II diabetes and obesity.

9. The main ingredient in energy bars is sugar

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Energy bars tend to be marketed quite often as a health food, designed to fuel your workouts or long office shifts.  They claim to contain protein and iron to give us the boost we need, but be sure to read the label as some of these 'nutritious' bars actually contain mountains of sugar.  And we all know how bad that can be for your health!

10. Calorie counts are never completely accurate

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Nutrition information, including calorie counts, are not often completely accurate.  In fact, the FDA states that calorie counts on food labels can actually be up to 20% inaccurate, meaning that there could be way more calories in the product than you're aware of.

11. Honey contains added sugar

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Honey is often marketed as a natural health food.  And the truth is, it does have many benefits including being an important antioxidant.  However, beekeepers inevitably find it almost impossible to ensure every batch of honey is exactly the same so many brands add sugar to it for a more consistent taste.  This definitely beats the purpose of using a healthier sweetener!

12. Bacon is a carcinogen

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The World Health Organization classified processed meats like bacon as a Group 1 carcinogen.  This means that there has been strong evidence found that meats like bacon, ham, salami, and other similar processed meat do actually cause cancer.

13. Fat-free doesn't

mean

fat-

free

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The war on fat has definitely influenced many of our diets and this has given rise to products that label themselves as low-fat or fat-free when it comes to saturated, or trans, fats.  But this doesn't mean that they are completely free from these bad fats because they're allowed up to 0.5g of these to use this label.

14. Gluten-free isn't the healthier option

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Gluten is usually associated with bread and is usually the gluing

agent that is used to make the dough.  But if gluten is omitted from the breadmaking process, manufacturers tend to look for another gluing agent like rice flour which can cause inflammation.  So if you're not a celiac, there's not much reason to omit gluten from your diet, just eat less bread!

15. Veggie Straws aren't vegetables

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Marketing experts know that if you can get your consumers to associate a product with vegetables, they'll buy it for its health benefits. But apart from the vegetable dust they use to flavor the Veggie Straws, there are no veggies in sight.  And this is harmful because people tend to eat more of what they think is healthy!

16. Baby formula isn't all it seems

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The baby formula scandal in the 1970s opened our eyes to the food industry adding ingredients where they weren't needed and it seems that not even products made for newborns are what they seem!  Baby formulas claim to have the same structure as breastmilk but all of the jargon they use is just confusing.

17. Meat contains a lot of antibiotics

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A lot of antibiotics are fed to livestock but, the thing is, this generally doesn't make it into the meat that you eat.  But the shocking reason antibiotics are used is to cause rapid growth in the animal so they can be as big as possible.

18. Sugar is hidden inside products

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By now, it is common knowledge that sugar is bad for you.  But companies don't want you to stop buying their products just because of their sugar content.  So instead, they disguise it under different labels, including High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dextrose,

and Agave Nectar.

19. Cheese isn't always actual 

cheese

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This one is very misleading but you have to make sure you read the label when you are buying cheese.  It has been found that if you're buying cheese that is labeled as a Cheese Product

, it isn't actually real cheese!  In production, milk has been replaced with whey protein concentrate to save money, and therefore, you can't call the end product cheese!

20. Pregnant pigs live in tiny crates

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Pigs are kept in tiny metal crates for the entire duration of their pregnancy, and they are so small that they can't even move to turn around.  They are forced to stand on a concrete floor for four months and often end up with wounds from the crate.  Other countries like Sweden have banned this treatment of pigs.

21. Cows have stressful lives

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Cows do not live the best lives and have been found to live in incredibly stressful conditions.  This includes producing way more milk than is natural.  Some young cows that are used to make veal are also weighed down with heavy chains for the duration of their short lives.

22. Beef is treated with ammonia

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Cows are now fed corn but this is a completely unnatural food for them to eat and if fed incorrectly it can kill them.  With feeding cows corn, there is also an increased risk of e.coli contamination.  So to get around this, food producers treat the beef with ammonia (yes, the stuff used in cleaning products) to kill the bacteria.

23. Some brands of honey contain no honey in their jars

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A study found that a staggering 75% of honey on the shelves in the US doesn't actually contain any honey whatsoever.  To be honey

it must contain pollen, according to the FDA.  But most brands had absolutely no trace of pollen inside them whatsoever and were instead made from artificial ingredients used to replicate honey!

24. Fiber isn't always what it says

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We can all probably agree that fiber is actually good for you.  And brands have cottoned on to this in their marketing.  But they don't include real fiber in their products and the synthetic fiber they do use has been found to actually cause digestive problems and bloating.

25. Free range doesn't mean anything when it comes to chickens

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When you buy your free-range eggs, you are probably hoping that the chickens that laid them were roaming around freely and happily.  But you're wrong.  In fact, only 3% of chickens, usually organic, have a life you hope for and most are raised in sheds, so cramped that they can't even stretch their wings.

26. Chickens shouldn't look the way they do

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If humans didn't exist, or raise and eat chickens, the bird that we are familiar with today would look completely different.  We have shaped the way chickens grow for a long time.  They're absolutely enormous now and provide a huge amount of meat compared to a hundred years ago, and this is so food manufacturers can make as much profit as possible.

27. Male chicks are ground up alive

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In the egg industry, it is clear that female chicks will be the most valuable because they can lay eggs.  This means that the male chicks are completely useless to them, and not only this but they can't even be used for reproduction or for meat production.  So they place them into the grinder alive to dispose of them.

28. Chicken's beaks are burned off

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The methods by which chickens are raised have been found to be incredibly stressful for them.  And it's so stressful living in those conditions that chickens have been known to peck each other so badly that they seriously injure each other or even kill each other.  So many farmers choose to clip or burn off the ends of their beaks to prevent this from happening.

29. Your food can legally contain maggots

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Yes, you read that right.  Your food can actually legally contain maggots.  In fact, the FDA states that there are legal amounts of maggots and rodent droppings, and we won't name them anymore, that can be present in your food.  Sure they limit them and they aren't thought to be harmful to your health but it's definitely enough to put you off!

30. Food additives can affect your kids' behavior

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The food industry definitely doesn't want you to know that certain additives can be the cause of increased hyperactivity in children.  A study in the UK found a direct link between certain food colorings like yellow and red, along with sodium benzoate, and this undesired effect on children.  These ingredients are commonly found in packaged foods in the US.