It occurs to me that the pharmaceutical and medical science industries and the food industry have a de-facto simbiotic relationship.
The public is little aware, with the exception of nutrition and health specialists, of their actual nutritional needs and ways of taking care of themselves. The FDA is highly succeptible to corporate lobby, and so there is little in the way of objective health and nutrition information readily available to the average consumer.
Packaged industrialized (fast food, slow-food, canned/boxed/wrapped) food is manufactured with some consideration of the health needs of the consumer, but the consumer protection, fairness in labeling, nutritional content labels etc. have been hard won controvertial cases which are relatively new (May 8, 1994 in the US). In any case, this information although posted on the wall in some fast-food restaurants, or available at their corporate websites, as far as I know it is still not legally required for restaurants to provide it. Take for example Subway which proports to have healthier food than other fast-food establishments, yet when reading the fine print, they stste that generally it's only healthier if you have their vegetarian sandwich without mayonaise or cheese. Manupulative (read: selectively honest)advertising does the rest.
This all assumes however that we are all aware of the nutritional content of the food we buy, and our bodies particular needs, though I suspect that this is not the case. So, if on average we don't really know how to properly feed ourselves based on nutrition, but rather choose food based on advertising, taste(flavor:sugar/salt) and class(cost) then we're actively contributing to chronic cumulative debilitating illness.
Assuming the above to be true, as we age, we would predictably become more and more dependant on regulatory drugs to maintain our standard of living re-health. Even if you factor out the natural degradation of the aging body, the effects of poor nutrition would be cumulative and degenerative.
If the public at large is kept uninformed, they will continue to habitually buy unhealthy but heavily advertised products/foods, and eventually have to consume pharmaceutical drugs to "feel well".
Thus, the lack of health and nutrition information directly contributes to future dependence on regulatory pharmaceuticals. In the absence of effective, objective health/nutrition education this ensures a cycle of dependant consumption which esentially guarantees exponential and infinite profits for both drug and food industries. At the expense of our health (and labor considering that
we pay them to malnouirish and dope us)
Quick links to food and drug regulatory info:
United States:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_facts_label
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_21_of_the_Code_of_Federal_Regulations
Great Brittain and some EU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_labelling_Regulations
Sources:
Robbins, John.
Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and The World. Conari Press. Berkely, 2001
Wikipedia. http://wikipedia.org. Online, June 2, 2008.
