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“We are looking for safe food,” medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D., said on his YouTube show. “We need to end the chronic disease epidemic, stroke pandemic.”
Ensuring safe food would be a big step forward in addressing obesity, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, preventable cancers, many types of mental illness and behavioral problems in children, Campbell said.
To explore how to address underlying issues in the food system, Campbell assessed proposals advanced by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder and chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense and independent candidate for U.S. president.
Campbell played a news clip of Kennedy talking about seed oils, which he said are associated with body-wide inflammation. The oils, found in almost all processed foods, are heavily subsidized because agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the oils, are funded by the industries that produce them.
Campbell said the problem with these oils is that they are produced at very high temperatures. He suggested using oils that are cold-pressed, like avocado oil and olive oil, which provide several health benefits.
He also showed a video clip about food coloring, which also can be toxic. For example, many food colorings used in the U.S., like Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 are petroleum-derived. Kennedy said they have been linked to psychiatric and autoimmune issues. The additives are banned in Europe, he said, but allowed in the U.S.
Campbell said that even though there were some better regulations in Europe, “We eat far too many ultra-processed foods. We need to eat more natural foods and get rid of this ultra processing,” which he said is likely the “the main factor in contributing to this epidemic/pandemic of … nearly all preventable chronic disease that is burdening our countries.”
Like food coloring, Kennedy said in the next clip, “natural flavors” are chemical products. Food labels don’t inform consumers of this because the captured agencies don’t mandate it. Their interest in subsidies, he added, is leading to the “mass poisoning of the American public.”
Campbell said, “It’s almost as if he’s thinking that vested interest in large-scale manufacturing and food production and control is not that concerned with our personal health.”
Pesticides are particularly concerning because fresh foods that people think may be healthy — like kale or strawberries — aren’t, Kennedy said, unless they’re certified organic.
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The Environmental Working Group has flagged the “Dirty Dozen” — non-organic fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticides in them — that people should avoid.
“This system needs to change,” Campbell said, “This is a massive problem. We need to do something about it on both sides of the pond.”
In the final clip Campbell shared, Kennedy said that one of the key changes necessary is to eliminate conflicts of interest among regulators.
“We have a generation of kids that are swimming around in a toxic soup right now,” Kennedy said. “We’re betraying them.”
Campbell agreed. “Let’s get the ethics back into this. Let’s start putting people first rather than profit for big industries.”
Watch Campbell’s video here:
The Defender on occasion posts content related to Children’s Health Defense’s nonprofit mission that features Mr. Kennedy’s views on the issues CHD and The Defender regularly cover. Mr. Kennedy, an independent candidate for president of the U.S., is on leave from CHD. In keeping with Federal Election Commission rules, this content does not represent an endorsement of Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy or his support for President Donald Trump’s campaign.
