(ThyBlackMan.com) Webster’s College Dictionary defines food as “any substance eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.”
Webster’s is a reputable dictionary that has instructed learners throughout the world for decades. Why is the “food” industry able to use the word food to categorize its industry, when the product sold does not contain the characteristics of food?
Sustain Life
The standard American diet is devoid of the nutrients needed for the proper function of the human body: Iron, Zinc, Protein, Magnesium, Vitamin B12, Iodine, Calcium, and Omega3/Fatty Acids. Americans consume highly processed foods that are high in fats, salt, and sugar. These highly processed foods are a key catalyst in Americans’ struggle with hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer, and obesity. These foods have been scientifically proven again and again to destroy the body’s organs, causing the aforementioned health problems. Next time you order a large number one, tell the cashier to hold the triple by-pass.
Provide Energy
‘Itis’ is a pop culture term that refers to a feeling of sleepiness and lethargy one feels after eating too much food high in calories and low in nutrients. Food is a complex life form that sustains the life of an even more complex life form: humans. Yet pizza, burgers, hot dogs, fried foods, sugary juices, chips, and cookies do the opposite; they deplete the body’s energy. Humans are supposed to eat food to supply energy and nutrients. We must remember we are living organisms that do not perform well when consuming dead, 
processed foods void of life.
Food’s failure to perform its traditional duties has resulted in more profits for corporations with the emergence of the energy drink industry. Energy drinks and shots deliver a short boost of synthetic energy, the kind of boost that healthy food is supposed to provide. If possible, please try and implement some form of whole food still in its natural state into your diet, preferably something not packaged with a two-year shelf life (e.g., vegetables and fruits).
Promote Growth
The only growth that will come from the American diet is tumors, bacteria, cancer, and other health problems. The only positive growth is in the profits of the pharmaceutical companies that promise to remedy the after effects of America’s processed diet.
The food industry through financial persuasion of politicians and propaganda, has molded the minds and the diets of Americans. The only problem with their business model is the citizen gets stuck with two bills: the food bill and the medical bill, the latter used to remedy the effects of the food. I encourage you to educate yourself on foods that are detrimental to the health of yourself and your loved ones. We as a country have to re- learn how to eat foods that are beneficial to the sustenance, energy, and growth of our bodies.
Staff Writer; Linton Hinds Jr.
Official website; http://Livity.info/