By Dean L. Jones, CPM

Universal guidance surrounding good nutrition says make half of our daily food intake fresh fruits and vegetables.  On the other hand, our biological makeup validates that our taste buds naturally prefer things that are sweet or salty, where food makers have taken advantage of this fact so much that upon trying to eat fresh vegetables at times they taste strange, unless they are accompanied with a zesty sauce, creamy dressing, or some other interesting topping.

That drive to eat everything but vegetables stems mainly from how food processing companies have consciously worked at breaking and entering into our taste patterns in order for us to have a strong preference to eat their product.  Packaged food makers know precisely how our taste buds are designed to seek out sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory tastes, so they go about making their products as unnaturally sweet, salty, and fatty as possible, thereby breaking up our natural desires to only get captivated by their unnatural flavors.

For young children this creates a serious health predicament when they avoid eating fresh vegetables in place of eating some sweet laden packaged product to reach satiety.  Building a strong body and mind from the nutrients found in vegetables will help lower the risk of contracting heart disease, diabetes and bone loss.  In addition, the world’s farming is being robbed in plain sight of natural vegetables in place of seed tampering, where now artificially manufactured plant seeds grow vegetables as a genetically modified organism.

Consequently, getting children to gain the taste of real vegetables is critical as the natural taste is in a state of flux and genetically modified vegetables may push us to have an even stronger desire to eat more processed foods filled with unnatural sugar, salt and fat.  Depending on such tastes will seriously increase the risk of developing an addiction on certain packaged foods, no different than an addict enslaved by or bound to using cocaine, heroin, alcohol or tobacco.  There are special parts of the brain susceptible to being duped into desiring certain cravings in lieu of vegetables packed with vitamins and minerals.

Healthy eaters clear of processed sugars have open taste buds and enjoy the flavors of fresh fruits and vegetables, where fresh carrots come with an incredible amount sweet taste.  Thereby, getting kids to eat vegetables is easier than society makes it out to be once parents decide that is what they are going to eat.  Placing a variety of vegetables out makes it fun seeing not if they are going to eat vegetables, but seeing which ones will become their favorites.  Cooked, lightly steamed and/or raw, the main thing is serve them absent all of that hyped dip, melted cheese or butter.  Allow the palette to appreciate natural flavors without the mask or fat, salt, or sugar trickery.

www.SugarAlert.com

Dean Jones, Ethics Advocate, Southland Partnership Corporation (a public benefit organization), contributes his view on health attributes derived from foods & beverages.