If you look a lot at their slogans, sales pitches, and marketing campaigns it seems that the entire food industry has our best interest at heart. We are bombarded with the best, healthiest, most affordable, and family-friendly products the money can buy. Nobody talks about recalls, lawsuits, secret settlements, and health risks that do occur due to their negligence. The food industry invests billions of dollars to make us think that we depend on them. We don’t have a choice but to keep buying their products and there is no space for a change.

But with organic food becoming more popular. With free-range chickens and eggs, grass-fed beef, and plant-based food this generation is starting to read the small print of the food industry labels. More and more young people shy away from consumerism and the ultra-processed foods they serve to us. So it is not surprising that the food industry is trying to fight back by selling us some common stereotypes that will make us more dependent on staying in their line at the grocery shops. These myths may sound innocent and small. But when they are promoted to the entire consumer population can have significant financial gain for the big players in the food industry. So let’s try to break some of them up.

Vegetable oils are healthier than butter or lard

First of all vegetable oils are not actually made from vegetables. I mean generally speaking you might be correct in calling them vegetables if cotton seed is a vegetable, or canola, sunflower seed, grape seed, or all the other seeds. But calling them vegetable oils makes them sound so healthy. It was proven a long time ago that consuming vegetable oils that contain trans fats is actually increasing the risk of heart disease and heart attack. Vegetable oils are chemically produced in a process called hydrogenation which makes them even more unhealthy.

As opposed to butter and lard which are made from animal-based fats that are produced less chemically and don’t require as many additives and compounds to make them shelf-stable. The most important part is that butter or lard don’t contain dangerous trans fats and people have been using butter and animal-based fats for thousands of years. So be careful when you purchase vegetable oils. Even if the label says no trans fats it still contains some thanks to our beloved FDA which sets the standard on how many trans fats can be in a product even if it’s still labeled trans fat free. For more information on vegetable oils check my The Truth About Vegetable Oils.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

This is so that they can sell us breakfast cereal, orange juice, bacon, pancake mix, and maple syrup. milk, hashbrowns, sausages, coffee, and all the other breakfast staples that load us up in the morning and give us heartburn until lunchtime. Actually, the most important meal of the day is the meal you have when you are hungry. And you eat in moderation, healthy food from all food categories.

Naming breakfast the most important meal of the day was a marketing campaign of the food industry to promote their products and convince the public that having a huge meal first thing in the morning was healthy for you. But now that we know more I can say eat when you want. The most important thing you can do when you wake up is to hydrate your body. Drink enough water and when you are ready for breakfast eat a simple and nutritious meal without any heavy above-mentioned things unless you are working 12-hour shifts on a farm and you will spend all the calories you consumed in the morning. The mere fact that American breakfasts usually consist of bacon, eggs, toast, pancakes and other heart attack food is enough to tell you that it was dictated as such decades ago by the very manufacturers of such products to promote and sell and make a lot of money. Your breakfast can be anything you want and you can have it anytime you want. Or you can just skip it and wait for lunch.

Milk is the best source of calcium

Now I don’t have anything against milk. I drink it all the time. But the food industry or rather the dairy industry always claims that milk is the number one source of calcium. And all the bones in our bodies will start to break if we don’t drink at least a glass of milk a day. Of course, they would try to say that when their entire industry is in decline and forecast to get even lower consumption in the next year.

People stopped drinking milk for various reasons. Some could be animal cruelty, such as the poor state the animals are kept and the fact that the male calves are regularly removed from their mothers and disposed of. Lower milk consumption could be linked to consumers’ awareness of increased levels of hormones particularly estrogen and progesterone found in full-fat milk that they don’t want to have in their bodies. I mean if you give cows hormones and antibiotics to make them produce more milk of course trace amount of them will find its way to your glass. Other people just don’t want to drink any more milk because honestly, they don’t want to support the industry and with so many plant-based milk choices I see their point.

But saying that milk is the number one source of calcium is simply not true. Flax seeds, sesame seeds, and chia seeds all have 8 times more calcium than milk. You can also eat kale, beans, lentils, sardines and almonds. There are plenty of choices for everyone. And they are more environmentally friendly and more animal friendly than milk. All you have to do is sprinkle some into your food and that is it. You don’t have to support an industry that you don’t like or whose practices you don’t agree with.

Processing your own food at home is dangerous

I have heard these kind of superstitions so many times. But the fact is that you can make so much food at home by yourself with a couple of simple ingredients and save yourself a lot of money. Whether it’s making your own bread, yogurt, cheese, kombucha, jams, canned vegetables, juice, shakes, or seasoning it can be done safely following a simple recipe.

But the food industry is always trying to maintain that they are the only ones that can safely produce the food we eat in their super clean facilities made by expert professionals all for an outrageous price that is five times the cost to make it. Processing your own food at home whether it’s canning, fermenting, reducing, baking, or anything else is not going to kill you. It’s not even going to make you sick if you do it following a trusted recipe. And if you look at it this way we have all heard of stories of food poisoning happening because some food facility wasn’t clean enough and the distribution process wasn’t following the industry standards. So don’t feel discouraged if you want to make your own food at home. They are just trying to sell their own products to make money not because they care about your health. People have been preserving their own food for centuries and will continue to do so. Successfully.

Trusting the food industry trends

Did you notice that every couple of months we have another food product that is the answer to all our problems? I mean before the avocado craze we had chia seeds, goji berries, flax seeds, Curcuma, quinoa, spirulina, kale, cinnamon, and so many others. And they always choose some product or food that is very expensive because it comes only from a particular part of the world and nowhere else. And they promise it will make you healthy, live a hundred years, find you a rich husband, and pay off all your student debt.

But let’s be serious. Food trends are dictated by the food industry’s marketing campaigns. People who promote them. All the famous nutritionists and influencers are all being paid for their time. They are actually paid to appear and tell us how much this is good for us. For me, I always imagine it as someone who is sitting on a bunch of avocados and doesn’t know what to do with them. So let’s make it a trend. Let’s sell a bunch of avocados and the whole industry machinery pitches in like a well-oiled wheel and we get bombarded and suffocated on the fact that avocados are so so so healthy for us. And people start naming their firstborns avocados and they end up on the evening news. Sorry, I just can’t be completely serious about this one because is completely baffling to me that they think that we as the consumers are so stupid that we will believe that every 6 months another food will save the world.

Healthy eating costs more

To be honest this one is a little on us too. The food industry has made the price of ultra-processed food so cheap that yes often its cheaper to buy it than fruits and vegetables. I could tell you to buy seasonal fruits and try to save some money but the truth is that in the U.S. fresh produce is becoming more expensive every year. Due to transportation costs, supply, and demand, it will be even more expensive. The major problem is that the farmers are actually growing food for animal feed more than to actually feed people.

The other part of the problem is that even when you buy fresh produce people often discard a lot. Lack of cooking skills because let’s face it this generation is living on takeout is making the fresh produce even more expensive due to the bad handling. So if you want to enjoy the maximum of healthy food you need to know how to cook it. The thing you can also do is to try and grow some of your food. You do not need to live on a farm or a house surrounded by acres of land. I have grown my own food living in apartments, and in pots. You can grow anything from onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, and many more. That will cover some of the cost of eating healthy. Or you can buy large amounts of produce when there is a sale and preserve it by freezing, canning, or processing at home. I know that this requires time and energy but you will be happy to eat healthy and will save you money in the long run.