How did you first find out about the nefarious practices of the
processed food and sugar industries?
Steve: The American Center for Science in the Public Interest
released a scathing, 40-page Report, entitled "," that
features Jon's experience as part of the report.
The press
release announcing the publication of the Report stated:
New
Investigative Report Finds Slotting Fees, 'Category Captains,'
and Other Deals Undermine Consumer Choice.
Basically, backroom deals between supermarket chains and food
manufacturers help determine which products get placed in high
traffic areas - and which products appear at all.
The Center for
Science in the Public Interest today is releasing a report
exposing these little-known and poorly understood practices and
is calling on,
...to investigate
the murky financial arrangements between supermarkets and
manufacturers that help shape what America eats.
What was your previous knowledge about the Food Mafia?
Jon: Like that of everyone else, none. The Food Mafia is a
loose-knit organization that collectively operates to poison
America's food system, which is what makes it Food Terrorism.
The very day we finished our draft manuscript, the New York
Times ran a story entitled
The Shady History of Sugar.
Reality
mimicking art mimicking reality, it revealed the Big Food-Big
Sugar Industrial Complex had been bribing Harvard scientists,
corrupting politicians and defrauding the American public - if
not the world - for decades, about the poison that is sugar.
As
it turns out, the whole RDA's recommended Food Pyramid is a
fraud.
The fraud on the American Food system was perpetrated because
the Sugar Lobby lawfully and unlawfully lined the pockets of
politicians across America, on both sides of the aisle, Democrat
and Republican alike.
For decades, it has been one of the most
powerful lobbies in America.
Given the power of those lobbies, do you think your story will
be suppressed in any way?
Jon: The tide of scientific and public opinion is changing.
Enough scientists, public advocacy groups, attorney generals and
members of the public see and know the truth. As with Big
Tobacco, the force of history will prevent the suppression
today, though The Food Mafia (like Big Tobacco did), will fight
back.
How did you first get acquainted with Jon Gordon?
Steve: We met when Jon was looking for a co-writer with
experience in legal thrillers and the law to help him co-write
the book. The rest is history.
How did you experience this two-man job, writing about his
Gordon's real life?
Steve: The process was quite dynamic.
We had Jon's history with
Clemmy's Ice Cream, his connections in the industries involved,
and the greatest library in the history of humankind: the
internet.
This put vast amounts of information at our
fingertips, allowing us to write fiction in lock-step with the
unfolding of history.
As a man of the law, were you ever worried of the consequences
you might confront against the big food corporations?
Steve: We have both been worried from day one.
We thought about
using a nom de plume but tossed that idea aside as cowardice,
and even to this day, we are concerned, from time to time, that
nefarious things could happen to us.
Jon feels his phones were
once tapped and that his emails were hacked, but can't prove who
did it.
Also, websites were set up in the manner of trolls to
direct business away from Clemmy's. My wife has expressed
concern about our public presence on the internet that would
allow people to find our home.
Good luck, I say - the pizza man
can't even find it after we give him the post code.
What were your eating habits before doing your research for this
story, and how have they changed?
Jon: I was diagnosed prediabetic before we wrote the
book. My habits changed instantly to low GI, healthy, organic
food to the extent life permits it.
Steve: Though not diagnosed with anything, I always figured that
it was diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity that would
take you down in life.
Working with Jon, his eyes were opened to
the evil that is processed food and sugar as used in processed
food.
This led me to co-write a book with Australian pharmacist
Suzanne Ripley, entitled Ripley's Fast Diabetes Solution, which
is a holistic approach to preventing and reversing diabetes
through diet, food, exercise, stress control, and proper sleep.
The snowballing effect of me understanding food, nutrition and
diabetes has led me to forsake processed foods, fast foods and
sugar to the greatest extent possible, including the use of
alternative sweeteners like
Xylitol, which has none of the
harmful effects of sugar but tastes the exact same.
Today I try
to eat fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, fresh fish, organic
free range meat (but not nearly as much of it), nuts, spices,
and healthy oils, like coconut oil and olive oil.
The added benefit was that I shed two stone in three months, and
have easily kept it off, without that being the actual goal!
Do you think this issue will lead to legal consequences similar
to the tobacco fallout?
Jon: Yes, and many others do as well. It is worse than the evil
of Big Tobacco, larger in scope, and openly and shamelessly
targets innocent children who (deliberately) grow up addicted to
sugar.
Could this case change the way we buy food?
Jon: It could and should. Together with the overall momentum of
the market, with more people knowing that nutrition and diet are
hugely important to health and containing health care costs, we
also think it will.
There's a plan to adapt the book into a film. Can you tell me
more about it?
Steve: Only that it's in the works and it looks promising. A
very big star could come on board, but more to come on that.
