A friend of mine, Michael Dvotscak, a brilliant painter, writer, and thinker, said that to me in an email. I thought to find some parallels before I flat out agreed with him.
Before the first Surgeon General’s warnings on cigarette packages in the 1960’s people had positive attitudes about smoking. It was thought to “calm the nerves.” Tobacco 
companies advertised smoking for weight loss in medical journals. It was perceived of as sexy and cool when cigarettes dangled from an actor’s lips. Women smoked with societal impunity during pregnancy, and after childbirth. Doctors smoked in their offices and offered patients cigarettes. You could smoke in hospital rooms, airplanes, movie theaters, and virtually every public and private space including in a car carrying kids and infants, with the windows rolled up. You could not escape cigarette smoke. So a lot of people took up the habit, and most everyone approved of, and encouraged smoking, including the medical community. And the tobacco industry was coddled and protected by the government.
People who smoked eventually developed wracking coughs, dental problems, leathery, heavily wrinkled skin, and God-awful breath. Then in crept the reality of cigarette smoking, the cancer bit. While cancer began as a sporadic occurrence, pretty soon it seemed like quite a few people were getting cancer. As the incidence of cancer increased, the tobacco industry concocted deadlier and deadlier cigarettes (go figure) with more potent chemicals in the hopes of keeping people addicted. Then all of a sudden the entity of cancer was large enough and scary enough to penetrate people’s denial. By then Americans were all cancer all the time.
The admission by the government and medical community that cigarettes were a major contributing factor to the epidemic of cancer eventually caused it to become less convenient to smoke due to restricted smoking in public places. When it was not socially acceptable to smoke and it was hard to find a place to light up, it was a lot easier to quit. At first just a few mavericks quit (those sissies), then more people got fed up, then people started jogging and quitting all over the place. Even though the tobacco industry fought to the death to keep people smoking and to recruit new smokers.
Meanwhile supermarkets started being built across the country and at first people thought the factory food sold in those stores was, if not sexy, at least cosmopolitan. No one wanted stuffed cabbage bubbling on the stove anymore. They wanted TV dinners and canned pork and beans, and froz
en pizza. Factory produced food was touted as being healthy, convenient, and economical. What started as a corn flake turned into hundreds of thousands of fake food products that are so far from being food it’s not funny.
Nevertheless, Americans embraced this factory fare and most everyone approved of, and encouraged eating it, including the medical community. And the food industry was coddled and protected by the government.
In the year 2010, there are way too many consumers who are under the same influences that previous generations of smokers were subjected to. Factory products are commercialized into kids’ heads via the delivery device of TV before they can even hold a spoon. That very same poisonous fare is served to sick, injured, and dying patients in hospitals and eaten by doctors and other medical personnel. It’s served on airplanes, at sports events, movie theaters, theme parks, and schools. You cannot escape it and for the most part it’s all you can find to eat.
Like diehard smokers, the population that has succumbed to fake food remains in the denial of their addiction 
even though they are suffering the combined effects of poisoning and malnutrition, some of which are obesity, degenerative disease, autoimmune conditions, neurological problems, and overall ill health. As people got sicker, the food industry concocted deadlier and deadlier food products (go figure) with more sugar, more deadly fats, more mineral stripped salt, and more potent chemicals in the hopes of keeping people addicted.
The government and the medical community have yet to admit that the epidemic of disease and the increased rise in cancer is the result of eating factory food. But a select few have come to their senses enough to recognize that what’s formulated in a laboratory and then made, grown, or raised in a factory is n
ot a sustainable human diet, and these renegades have kept the flame of real, whole food alive. Meanwhile, the food industry, which lives in happy harmony with the diet and drug industries, will fight to the death to keep people consuming their products, and so far these industries have been protected, and coddled by the government, including the FDA.
So it does seem that there are enough parallels to prove Michael’s statement true, that “processed food is to our generation what tobacco was to our parent’s generation.” Unfortunately the most 
profound difference is that people can and should live without smoking, but people can’t live without food. It makes the battle against factory produced food much more difficult to win than the battle against smoking. And that’s saying something.
My blog is dedicated to my Life Mission: Living a happy and fulfilled life, caring about my body and spirit, women’s issues, and the planet. I hope you come back and read how you can define, explore, and live your Life Mission.
PROCESSED FOOD IS TO OUR GENERATION IS WHAT TOBACCO WAS TO OUR PARENTS’ GENERATION
Before the first Surgeon General’s warnings on cigarette packages in the 1960’s people had positive attitudes about smoking. It was thought to “calm the nerves.” Tobacco
companies advertised smoking for weight loss in medical journals. It was perceived of as sexy and cool when cigarettes dangled from an actor’s lips. Women smoked with societal impunity during pregnancy, and after childbirth. Doctors smoked in their offices and offered patients cigarettes. You could smoke in hospital rooms, airplanes, movie theaters, and virtually every public and private space including in a car carrying kids and infants, with the windows rolled up. You could not escape cigarette smoke. So a lot of people took up the habit, and most everyone approved of, and encouraged smoking, including the medical community. And the tobacco industry was coddled and protected by the government.
People who smoked eventually developed wracking coughs, dental problems, leathery, heavily wrinkled skin, and God-awful breath. Then in crept the reality of cigarette smoking, the cancer bit. While cancer began as a sporadic occurrence, pretty soon it seemed like quite a few people were getting cancer. As the incidence of cancer increased, the tobacco industry concocted deadlier and deadlier cigarettes (go figure) with more potent chemicals in the hopes of keeping people addicted. Then all of a sudden the entity of cancer was large enough and scary enough to penetrate people’s denial. By then Americans were all cancer all the time.
Meanwhile supermarkets started being built across the country and at first people thought the factory food sold in those stores was, if not sexy, at least cosmopolitan. No one wanted stuffed cabbage bubbling on the stove anymore. They wanted TV dinners and canned pork and beans, and froz
en pizza. Factory produced food was touted as being healthy, convenient, and economical. What started as a corn flake turned into hundreds of thousands of fake food products that are so far from being food it’s not funny.
Nevertheless, Americans embraced this factory fare and most everyone approved of, and encouraged eating it, including the medical community. And the food industry was coddled and protected by the government.
In the year 2010, there are way too many consumers who are under the same influences that previous generations of smokers were subjected to. Factory products are commercialized into kids’ heads via the delivery device of TV before they can even hold a spoon. That very same poisonous fare is served to sick, injured, and dying patients in hospitals and eaten by doctors and other medical personnel. It’s served on airplanes, at sports events, movie theaters, theme parks, and schools. You cannot escape it and for the most part it’s all you can find to eat.
Like diehard smokers, the population that has succumbed to fake food remains in the denial of their addiction
even though they are suffering the combined effects of poisoning and malnutrition, some of which are obesity, degenerative disease, autoimmune conditions, neurological problems, and overall ill health. As people got sicker, the food industry concocted deadlier and deadlier food products (go figure) with more sugar, more deadly fats, more mineral stripped salt, and more potent chemicals in the hopes of keeping people addicted.
The government and the medical community have yet to admit that the epidemic of disease and the increased rise in cancer is the result of eating factory food. But a select few have come to their senses enough to recognize that what’s formulated in a laboratory and then made, grown, or raised in a factory is n
ot a sustainable human diet, and these renegades have kept the flame of real, whole food alive. Meanwhile, the food industry, which lives in happy harmony with the diet and drug industries, will fight to the death to keep people consuming their products, and so far these industries have been protected, and coddled by the government, including the FDA.
So it does seem that there are enough parallels to prove Michael’s statement true, that “processed food is to our generation what tobacco was to our parent’s generation.” Unfortunately the most
profound difference is that people can and should live without smoking, but people can’t live without food. It makes the battle against factory produced food much more difficult to win than the battle against smoking. And that’s saying something.