The food we eat has been "enhanced" in recent years....especially meat and poultry products. We live in a rural area where there a many poultry and cattle farms. The local producers feed the cattle, chickens and turkeys a steady diet of steroids and growth hormones....so as to increase production and reduce "time to market". These farmers can now have chickens and turkeys ready to be processed in just 3 or 4 months, instead of the 8 to 12 months that would normally be required. I strongly suspect that many of these "additives" remain in the flesh and are passed along to us when we consume the meat. Similar measures are taken on fruits and vegetables, corn, soybeans, and wheat, etc., in the form of fertilizers, and pesticides, etc.,..again, in order to increase production. With an ever increasing population, and increased demand for food at a reasonable price, agriculture has become quite "creative" in its production.
This combination of added chemicals, and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle among our people most certainly adds to the growing epidemic of Obesity we are seeing....IMO. I suppose a person might be better off eating strictly Organic
food...if you can find such, and afford the extra prices, etc. However, for most of us, the Only way to keep the waistline under control is to limit the caloric intake, and adopt a lifestyle that burns the calories we consume.