What are the Hidden Costs of Eating Conventional, Industrial Food?

Do you pay attention to where your food comes from? Do you go to the grocery store and purchase whatever's on the shelf and give little thought to what it might be doing to your body? Do you spend little time thinking about the preventative side of taking care of your body through the foods you eat? Do you eat out at restaurants and fast food establishments? If so, here are some things to consider:

• Most grocery store and restaurant meat comes from factory farm environments where the animals are confined in the most abhorrent conditions available. They are shoved together in filthy, unnatural spaces surrounded by waste lagoons, are administered all types of chemicals including hormones, steroids, and antibiotics, and are fed the most unhealthy feeds available such as genetically-modified corn, grain, and soy, and renderings of bio-waste products. Animals cannot live normal, natural lives in these conditions, so why should their meat be healthy to consume?
• Conventional produce is grown with pesticides and herbicides, from genetically-modified and engineered seeds, and with modern farming methods which are as harsh as can be to the landscape and damage and strip the soil of its nutrients - substances which are vital to the nutritional density and flavor of the foods you are eating.Conventional produce is said to contain higher amounts of water and less nutrition, so basically what you are getting is a piece of fruit or vegetables comprised of a little polluted water and roughage, and little else.
  
• Processed foods in the store (representing at least 75% of what's available) are full of chemically-laden "food-like substances" which contain carcinogenic ingredients, hydrogenated oils, MSG and other excitotoxins, are synthetically fortified and contain little to no nutritional value.
  

Many health problems have been attributed to the consumption of these so-called foods. Toxins and chemicals in our food supply are responsible for the onslaught of earlier degenerative diseases than in the historical past. We consume massive amounts of this food each and every day in our homes, in schools, hospitals, offices, stores, and restaurants.

So is there a hidden cost? If you eat foods like this on a regular basis, you can bet there is. Switching to natural, organic, and grass-fed foods seems expensive on the surface, but when you consider the medical problems you will save yourself in the long run, doesn't it seem worth it to spend more now and save later? Industrial food may have a cheaper price tag at the store, but the long-term repercussions of eating this way for an extended period of time will definitely show a higher price tag in the future, in more ways than one: you'll pay with your pocketbook and your quality of life.