Article #3: Blackstrap Molasses: Super Junk Food By T.C. Fry

The sales job the aluminum and chemical industries did to put their poisonous wastes, that is, fluoride compounds, into much of the nation's drinking water as a health measure must, by all standards, be called masterful even though fraudulent.

But, by comparison, you must positively applaud the sugar industry in selling its primary waste product to "health consumers" who pride themselves upon their food savvy, fastidiousness and awareness. In fact the sales job done on the "health food crowd" is so good the sugar industry gets more money from their poisonous waste than from the primary product, unwholesome white sugar.

The extent of the esteem in which blackstrap molasses is held merely points up the gullibility, credulousness and generally uncritical thinking with which "awakened" people accept "health claims" if they come from the "right" quarter.

Of course it is fitting that you and I should not have to be concerned with our food any more than the air we breathe. We should be able to accept all the food we eat as uncritically as the animals in their natural habitat eat the foods of their adaptation. That's the way it should be! For there are more productive, cultural and joyful pursuits in life than immersing ourselves in concerns about our stomach and what to put into it, our bowels and their business, our liver and its business, etc. Under the circumstances it is proper that we be deeply concerned. But our concern must be bolstered by deeper thinking than that which so readily endears such a pernicious product as blackstrap molasses.

Talk about candy, primarily a white sugar product, being a junk food, it can't even hold a candlestick to blackstrap molasses! Blackstrap is over 50% sucrose itself and that's the least of its drawbacks in the human diet! Anything bad that can be said about white sugar and candy goes double and triple for blackstrap molasses.

With candy at least you have sugar that has gone through only two or three cookings. And the chemicals used in its extraction are in the molasses, not in the sugar. Further, candy often has the virtue of having some nuts or nut butters, fruits, etc. in it. But, nevertheless, candy's reputation as "sugared junk" is well deserved.

But if candy is junk, then molasses is super junk! For molasses has more of the same evils that candy has plus some evils that candy and white sugar never had (unless it contains molasses which some candy and brown sugar does) and it has none of the "redeeming qualities" that some candy has.

I have several "health" publications that go into ecstasy over this "natural health food." A natural health food, mind you! And some mighty big names in the "health field" lend their endorsement—in fact almost all the big names in the popular health field would consider themselves remiss if they had not sung the praises of blackstrap molasses.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of just what blackstrap molasses represents and how this foul-tasting waste product came to be so popular, let's investigate that "natural" angle.

When we speak of a natural food we mean, of course, a natural food for humans.

Now Nature has been, on the scene for who knows how many eons of time. Blackstrap molasses has yet to reach its 300th birthday! Nature came mightly late in providing us with this wonder food! Nevertheless, let's put blackstrap molasses to the "natural" test.

1. TO BE NATURAL, a food must be one to which humans have adapted anatomically, physiologically and psychologically.
   
2. TO BE NATURAL, a food must be delicious to the palate of humans in its natural state.
   
3. TO BE NATURAL, a food must be eaten and relished in its living or raw state. Humans, like animals, weren't endowed with cook stoves.
   
4. TO BE NATURAL, a food must have been nurtured to its finished state by Nature by strictly natural agencies.
   
5. TO BE NATURAL, a food must appeal to unperverted human gustatory senses, i.e., to our senses of smell, taste and sight such as does a beautiful redolent apple, for instance.
   
6. TO BE NATURAL, a food can be eaten alone and relished by unperverted palates.

These are only some of the criteria for a natural food of humans. How does molasses stack up against these yardsticks?

1. To begin with, humans haven't been eating molasses long. No adaptation whatsoever could be possible. Psychologically the product has no appeal at all except that we are conditioned to it as we are to other perversions. Children rebel against the stuff, something they don't do with, say, apples or bananas.
   
2. Molasses is not delicious to any normal palate and is repulsive to most who "eat it for health" reasons. Molasses has no natural state inasmuch as Nature never created such an abomination.
   
3. Of course Nature did not even get into the act on molasses—it is strictly a manufactured product. To represent that the sugar cane and beets from which it came is reared organically by natural means is a gross absurdity.
   
4. Molasses has no living state, for Nature did not create it. It is a waste product in the production of white sugar with all its evils plus a host of its own. Molasses is one of the most cooked substances you can buy. As our friends into Yoga would say—it has no prana or life force.
   
5. Blackstrap molasses is repulsive to our senses of smell of taste and sight.
6. And last, but not least, blackstrap molasses cannot be relished by itself by even the hardiest! A proper food of humans can be eaten as a meal. For instance we can make a mono meal of any one of these foods: apples, watermelons, cantaloupes, bananas, grapes, oranges, peaches, apricots, figs, dates, etc. And you can live well on one of these foods alone for several weeks with healthful results. Many people do! Can you imagine trying to live on a mono diet of blackstrap molasses for several weeks? Or some of its syrup cousins, including the highly touted maple syrup and honey?

So much for the "naturalness" of blackstrap molasses. It doesn't meet one single criterium as a natural food for humans. And certainly a food that is not natural to humans cannot be healthful for humans. Moreover, you wouldn't consider putting an unnatural, unhealthful food into your body, would you?

For more detailed information on molasses, see Lesson 35 - Junk Foods: A Case Study On Molasses