Man is continuously moving into cities; meaning he's moving farther and farther from where food is grown and produced. Many city folks leave for their places of work in the morning and only return in the evening; due to the extra hassle it is commute back to their homes for meals, in between their working hours. This has, among other factors, triggered the growth of the processed food industry. From ready to eat foods, to foods that only need some quick heating, the options available are now numerous.

The merits of this industry are well documented and appreciated. These include: adding the shelf life of food; removal of toxins; and addition of more nutrient content. It has also been used to help allergic and sick people eat foods, that aid treatment, or which would have otherwise harmed them. Its use in the military and UN operations is also well documented.

However, processed foods are only supposed to cover for freshly made food where it is unavailable or hard to get. This is because processed foods are usually not as nutritious as fresh foods. But you find man eating processed foods, unnecessarily, these days; never minding the fact that processed foods are also likely to contain, potentialy harmful, food additives like flavorings, texture enhancing agents or food coloring. Some of these extras have been noted to add little or lack nutritive-value. Some scientists even claim that some are harmful e.g. some foods containing nitrites or sulphites are suspected to have adverse health effects.

Processed foods also usually contain high calories than unprocessed foods and hence end up fattening rather than providing overall good health. There are other demerits like costs etc. which we will not go into for now. What is worrying is the combination that is modern lifestyles and modern foods.

We shun voluntary exercises and healthy living, for fun and self abandon. Some of us pile the fats and toxins then adopt killer diets for a while, only to pile back all the weight once we are done. It's like dieting is supposed to inform fat cells not to store fat or toxins no matter what. I'm not a medic or scientist but I think I read somewhere that fat cells easily multiply but don't die out when they are made inactive. In other words people who were once fat and diet, or exercise to loose weight, can mostly only starve their fat cells for as long as they can.

Many people simply don't understand how the equation works. It's the cells and hormones that control us and not the other way round. That's why on the surface one might say he has a craving. But inside him, some major element is lacking and an LPO (Local Purchase Order) has just been hurriedly written.

So when you pass that hip joint, with all the fried food inviting you in, just know it's your fat cells that are really running up and down with excitement. Sooner or later they're going to have it their way. Little wonder then that some countries are considering branding the “average weight of its citizens” a national disaster. Little wonder that cancer has visited us like a bad relative. The other culprit, apart from food additives, is our changing lifestyles and accompanying hunger for consumer products. For example, a study on Japanese women has suggested a link between obesity and adult exposure to Bisphenol-A, a compound found in plastic bottles.

An article in Newsweek by Devra Davis (“A thousand Threats,” March 5, 2007), touched on the cancer issue and raised queries on cancer causing agents like Paradioxane in consumer products and the need for more research and probable elimination of these agents. He also noted that whereas scientists need to piece together the puzzle on these agents, the companies that make these products are holding back vital information on their products' formulas; claiming them to be trade-secrets. Worse still, is the fact that many countries don't require labeling of potential cancer causing ingredients in consumer products. What a folly and quagmire we are in! Maybe that's why aliens have never showed up; preferring to make the proverbial golden bridge to a fleeing enemy.

And what does society do? We continue on, blindly, like a sheep being led to a slaughterhouse. Some of the lean and shapely people we see walking around are so, because of being constantly under the watchful eye of the scalpel; never minding the risk of dying under it. They fool the rest of society by binging and not getting fat, while keeping their “weight-maintaining-formulae secret.” Makes you wonder if they are, inadvertently, part of an external being’s the ploy. I mean, who knows!

Only just recently I felt for some American star who lost his mum as she underwent plastic surgery. Yet many people out there, given the chance to undergo this procedure for beauty purposes, would run into the operation rooms and demand to be the first. If the jack-ass could speak, we would be having a million more lawsuits. Looking at this situation, all I can say is check your desires. You could be, inadvertently, playing a lead role in fulfilling somebody else’s schemes. And that schemer could be outside this world.

Sometimes I imagine what animals probably think of us. For them getting fat means stocking up to hibernate or something. Nothing goes to waste. But for us, it's waste and panic. It's develop, trick and sell. Enjoy, life is short! We've seemed to have forgotten that self-preservation is the first law of nature. It's now more of self-enrichment as the only law.

Add a powerful external hand with a beaker, bunsen burner and "The Grand Counrter Test" and you will probably be very close to the truth. Read on to see who this Schemer could be and what is the driving intention.