Tobacco companies face $25 billion lawsuit

“A groundbreaking trial gets under way in Montreal on Monday against three tobacco companies which face a $25 billion (R189bn) lawsuit for allegedly failing to adequately warn smokers of the dangers of cigarettes.

Plaintiffs have filed two separate class actions against Imperial Tobacco, JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans Benson & Hedges in the Superior Court of Quebec.

The plaintiffs accuse the Canadian tobacco companies of hiding research which has established a link between smoking and serious health problems like cancer.”

Players please.. You’re never alone with a Strand.. I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel.

Of course the tobacco manufacturers advertised their products as good to use. Tell me of a manufacturer that doesn’t.

My paternal grandfather had lung cancer back in the 50’s. He had smoked Woodbines (an un-tipped British brand) for years but was told to give them up in 1944. He did that, but the cancer still got him in 1957. He was one of many.

We don’t smoke because it does us any good in real terms. We smoke because, in our heads, we believe that they calm us down. That is exactly what they do by numbing the nervous system to some degree. And yes, they are addictive.

So what’s with this crap about ‘nobody told us’?

We knew from the first few inhalations that they were doing us no good but we still persisted. Those first puffs wouldn’t have got us addicted, but the PERSONAL choice to continue the practise ensure that we all succumbed.

Recently, there has been a study which suggests that patches and counselling don’t help in the quest to quit. So make the same kind of personal choice as you made as you choked your way through your first cigarette.

Hey, I didn’t say ‘we’ for a reason. You’re on your own with this one. I wasn’t with you when you started and don’t expect me to be there when you quit.. 

Informative but deceitful..

This is the state of food labelling in Canada.

I watched CBC’s Marketplace last night. It was all about lousy labelling. You know the type, full of health claims, little logos which suggest a healthy option. They had 10 products tested, and the #1 culprit was a meat product.

Maple Leaf’s ‘Natural Selections’ came under fire over wording on the front of the packaging. There is an ingredient on the front which seems innocuous enough called ‘cultured celery extract’ which is………….. NITRITES.

It urns out that there is as much nitrite in Natural Selections as there is in the cheaper Maple Leaf cold cuts, so how can it be healthier?

Maple Leaf and most other food producers know that the average shopper will be caught out by false or deceitful claims if the right kind of wording and logos are applied to the front of the packaging. Even the colour of the packaging can make a difference.

But wait.. Is it entirely the fault of the food producers? Well, the deceit is for sure, but not the food stuff or what is added to make it last in packaging.

If you give families the choice of a grocery store which always has a good choice of food stuffs always available regardless of the time of day, or run the gauntlet of having to shop in maybe five different small specialized stores but not always get what is required, they will choose the large grocery store almost every time.

The ONLY way to package processed food stuffs or any foodstuffs such that they last is to add PRESERVATIVES.

Foodstuff manufacturers try to ensure that their products will still look like foodstuffs when the package is opened. The manufacturers do their best to keep it properly before shipping, the shipping people do their best to keep it properly before delivery to stores, stores do their bets to store and display properly before it is sold, but after it is sold, there is no telling what will happen to it.

There are so many shoppers who are ill-informed about how to store foodstuffs. It is amazing that more people aren’t poisoned daily.

Food is bought at the beginning of a shopping trip and then left in a vehicle for an unspecified amount of time while other store types are visited, but if these people are challenged, 99% will say that it should be ok. When the foodstuff finally makes it back home, it may sit around for a while, and when it is finally put away, stuff that shouldn’t be put in a refrigerator often will be, and stuff not suitable for freezing will be put in the freezer. All of the people will expect the foodstuff to still look and taste like it would if it was absolutely fresh.

It is the way that people want to shop and sheer ignorance and unwillingness to learn how to store food properly that forces food manufacturers to add ingredients which will give us all cancer long term.

In North America, there is no way to turn back the clock. The entire food process is so entrenched, and all of the small food retailers who did have the knowledge and skills are gone.

To anybody reading this from outside of North America, take note. If you don’t want to subject your family to medical conditions which may terminate lives early, don’t buy processed food. Stay loyal to the small corner store which still sells preservative free food.

Avoid processed meats, mass produced bread in polythene bags, anything with health claims all over it. Instead of buying ready prepared meals, make them up yourself. It can be fun, and is much better for you. 

Bad news on the health front..

The preponderance with pre-packaged, reconstituted products in North America is alarming, and it is no wonder that so many have health issues.

I have recently been diagnosed as being a diabetic type 2, and I blame it on the food that I have been eating for the last eight years. Before coming to Canada, I ate a southern European diet, almost all fresh and no crap like pizza, burgers and other reconstituted junk.

In all of my travels, apart from the UK where many have adopted the North American fast food way, I have never come across so many people with so many health issues.

Everything in North America has to be fast, not just at pizza and burger joints, but also in preparation at the food processing plants.

If you want a healthy life, make a stand and stop buying anything which has been reconstituted from mechanically recovered processes.

I watched a bit of Jamie Oliver’s program on TV and watched as US school boards took legal action to prevent the guy even being allowed in school cafeterias, let alone the kitchens. Absolutely deplorable on all counts..

I know that the word ‘conspiracy’ is a dirty word in the US, but I really do think that there is a conspiracy between the food producers and health providers. Nobody seems to be willing to change, and resistance is put up because nobody wants to lose out financially.

Get your heads out the sand, people. Your governments do NOT care. Food producers do NOT care. Health providers thrive on your illnesses and diseases.

Health is entirely in your hands, and never forget it.

More on ‘Cold cuts’..

As discussed in another post, cold cuts sold in packages have an excessive amount of preservatives in them. Look on the packs.

OK, so maybe you think that getting cold cuts from the deli counter of your favoured grocery store will be better. Think again, because it is a false assumption.

Metro deli counters sell cold cuts which do not have the harsh taste of the packaged stuff. I assume that there is some preservative in them, but just not as much.

This is NOT true of Loblaws deli counter. They have TWO variants for sale. The cheaper shaved cold cuts are every bit as bad as the packaged hams, chicken, turkey etc. If you want nitrate free cold cuts, you have to pay between 80c to a dollar more for the more brightly labelled meats.

None of the items on a deli counter have labels showing what is in them, and NEVER assume that they are better for you. Ask to taste a piece first before committing to buying.

An update to the previous post..

I looked at all of the packs of cold cuts in my local Loblaws store here in London Ontario. Apart from two, Maple Leafs Natural Selections and a Presidents Choice Prosciutto, all of the other packs of ham, salami and similar products produced by:

• Ziggy’s
• Piller’s
• Mastro
• President’s Choice
• Schneider’s

contained the following preservatives:

• Sodium Phospate
• Salt
• Carageenan
• Sodium Ascorbate
• Sodium Nitrate

You might think that the contents of the packages came off the same productions lines and were just packaged according to which retailer was going to sell them. There may well be some truth in this, but I do not know for sure.

What I do know is this. We are eating all kinds of crap.

Now for a question.

If Sodium Phosphate is a substitute for Sodium Nitrate, why do both sodium types appear in the SAME foodstuffs?

They call the process ‘plumping’

What they do is inject salt water into large chunks of meat, and the result is a nice piece of meat which feels springy to the touch, more tender. It can be done with any kind of meat, by the way.
Take a scrawny, aging chicken, put it out of its misery, pluck it, inject it and hey presto, one nice looking chicken, ready to be wrapped and sold as fresh. Nice job. Do the same with a side of bacon too. Turn it into good, succulent looking slices.
How do you tell that meat has been plumped? That’s easy.
When you cook the chicken, what looked like it could feed four people can now only reasonably feed three. Yes, it shrank as the injected water evaporated out during the cooking period. The only way to ensure that it doesn’t shrink too much is to seal the outside of the chicken in a sauté pan before committing it to a roasting dish, It helps seal in the salt water.
And the bacon? When you opened the pack, did it drip water out all over the counter top? That is some of the salt water, forced out by compression of the packs in their packing boxes. The longer that the bacon sits in transit, the more water will come out when the pack is opened. The rest comes out in the pan.
You may have struggled to fit the pieces of bacon into the pan at the start of cooking, but see how it has all shrunk to under half the surface area. The water has all but left the bacon, but much of the salt will most likely remain. One thing that you do not want to do is add more salt before eating.
So, how do you feel about this practice? Paying for an illusion, water that will evaporate before you get to serve the meat up to your family? Be happy in the knowledge that it may not have been your cooking methods which caused the Sunday roast to shrivel beyond all recognition.
Blame the scammers, the unscrupulous meat producers who will do anything to ensure that their profits stay high..