OPINION:
A new study of 100,000-plus French adults has found that those who eat a lot of processed foods and drink a good deal of sugary drinks are more likely to develop a variety of cancers than those who, say, eat healthy food.
What? You don’t say.
You mean eating chemicals and preservatives and high-sugar crap isn’t good for the body? And neither is sucking down the same through a straw dipped in a high-processed can of soda?
And here we all thought that bright orange snappy cheezy-flavored coating on our crunchy snacks was an organic condensed carrot or something.
“After studying more than 100,000 adults for years, their results showed that eating processed food is more closely linked with cancer risk than one’s age, sex, body mass index, height, level of physical activity, smoking and drinking habits, calories consumed, or family history,” the study found, Business Insider wrote.
Hmm. Turns out, the world’s most harmful foods aren’t really foods at all. They’re balled up, frozen, clumped-together chemicals — and mystery of all mysteries, they’re actually unhealthy.
Examples of food that’s not food?
Packaged pastries and muffins, chips, candy, sodas, frozen pre-made dinners — TV dinners — ramen noodles, cereals crunching with sugar and all the other stuff Americans like to eat that’s cheap, easy to pop while driving or convenient to stick in a microwave.
Next thing, they’ll be telling us vegetables and fresh unprocessed foods are the way to go. Or, that smoking’s bad.
Still, there’s a bit of light in this tunnel.
“It’s important to note that these results don’t mean processed food is definitely causing cancer,” the news outlet wrote. “The scientists simply found a worrisome trend in the data.”
And all the sugar addicts go whew.
But guess what?
Cancer is now one of the leading causes of death in the United States, with Cancer.org projecting more than 1.7 million in new diagnoses this year alone.
Back in 1900, cancer was a comparative blip when compared with infectious diseases, heart disease and other ailments.
One difference?
The absence of heavily processed, high chemical content foods then, compared to now.
Why risk it?
But then again, this is only common sense, yes?
It just can’t be a shocker that a grapefruit in the morning with a piece of wheat toast and peanut butter, or a tuna salad at lunch with lemon instead of creamy fat-filled dressing, beats a large coke, fried chicken sandwich cut in the shape of a perfect circle and pound of french fries dripping in grease on the old health scale.
Americans just can’t be that stupid.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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