An Era of Institutional Betrayal

How our education and healthcare system have made us sicker than ever

Oct 29, 2023

Sunday is a day of rest. A day to spend hours basking in the sunshine, cooking a big, warm dinner, and petting the dogs. This afternoon, while on a social media cleanse, I picked up a book that’s been sitting on our coffee table for quite a while- Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown.

Not only is the cover of this book beautiful (and perfect for a coffee table) but it’s also packed with information on emotions. There are endless quotes, references to studies, and great insights that will have you thinking deeply about your life and the waves of emotions you experience.

I was reading through the chapter on love and all of its contradicting emotions and came across the emotion of betrayal. Brown detailed the different types of betrayal, one of them being called institutional betrayal.

Institutional betrayal is defined as when

“an institution causes harm to an individual who trusts or depends upon the institution”.

My mind instantly jumped to our food and healthcare system. These systems are made up of huge institutions like the FDA, USDA, American Heart Association (AHA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and World Health Organization (WHO).

These institutions were formed to protect the American people from harm through our food, lifestyle, and preventative care measures.

However, many of us are finally waking up to the truth - these institutions, infiltrated by money and corruption, are doing the exact opposite. They are using our trust to grow richer while only making our health worse off.

A violation of trust

I first experienced institutional betrayal as a teenager in high school. Ever since I can remember, I suffered from GI issues. My family would always joke around that there needed to be a bathroom close by for my dad and me after every meal because we would immediately get an upset stomach.

My issues were seen as normal, as something that just “ran in the family”.

My GI issues got to the point where I couldn’t eat at school, especially on days when I had cross country meets, because I’d be afraid of how my body would react. I couldn’t go out to eat with my friends because of how self-conscious I was about my stomach issues.

Eventually, my mom took me to a GI doctor to find some answers about why this was happening to me. They ran test after test, not finding anything. I asked about my diet and they quickly dismissed that.

After no real answers, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease due to some inflammation and blood found in my intestines. It felt like a cop-out. There were no clear, obvious signs of Crohn’s, but they didn’t know what else it could be so they gave me that grim diagnosis.

At that moment I was destined to be on medication for the rest of my life at only 17 years old.

Things got better, and then they got worse. After 2 years of taking the medication, I came to the realization that I didn’t want to be taking 6 pills a day for the rest of my life. I started experimenting with diet, becoming vegan, and then eventually incorporating high-quality meats. Slowly, but surely, I began to heal myself and abandon the medication.

Increasing my awareness of the ingredients I consumed, and how they made me feel, was a game-changer for my health. While I still suffer from occasional flares, I can live a relatively normal life. I don’t have to fear going out to eat with friends and have more energy than I’ve ever had.

I healed most of my GI issues simply by changing my diet.

However, I wasn’t able to do this until I began trusting myself rather than the so-called “experts”. I started to own my health and the choices I made that were negatively impacting it. I could accept the fate given to me by a doctor or I could take ownership of my choices and how they made me feel.

Betrayed by our education system

I know I’m not the only one with a story like this. Many of us have shared experiences of doctors giving no real solutions but prescribing a “miracle pill”.

Many of us have been told that nothing is wrong with us and that we are crazy for thinking our food or environment could cause all of our problems.

Chances are you are here because you’ve been burned by the modern systems of nutrition and health care just as I have.

Now, I don’t believe doctors are inherently bad people. I believe they’ve been trained by a system that is so far gone, they don’t even know how to question it.

Medical schools receive large donations of money, textbooks, and equipment from pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca and Merck. Of course, these books diminish the importance of lifestyle and diet while putting pharmaceuticals on a pedestal.

These schools rely on this funding to stay afloat, biasing the education being given to new doctors. Doctors are brainwashed into treating symptoms with pills, rather than looking into the root cause of illness.

Students inherently trust the schools they are learning from, those students become doctors, and we Americans trust the doctors so, the cycle continues. Most of us have been raised to put doctors on top of a pedestal, never questioning their authority or expertise.

They tell us to get a vaccine, so we get it.

They tell us to take an antibiotic, so we take it.

They tell us to stop eating red meat, so we stop eating red meat.

We think doctors are using all the education and critical thinking they received in medical school to make the best decisions for us. However, as a society, we were all screwed from the moment big corporations began peddling influence in our education system.

Betrayed by food

Not only is the medical system betraying us, thinking it’s helping when it’s promoting a particular agenda, but so is the USDA.

As a kid, I was taught that the food pyramid was the holy standard of diet. I should eat mainly grains like cereal, bread, and pasta. Fruits and vegetables come second. But rarely should I touch meat, yogurt, eggs, and cheese. And, of course, fat is the biggest devil of them all!

This generation suffers an alarming rate of Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and obesity because they were told to avoid the things that should be the basis of a healthy diet.

The USDA is an organization meant to guide Americans to make healthy choices. Instead, they are guided by the dollars coming into their pockets. If you look up bribery and the USDA, tons of articles pop up. The leaders of this organization are known for taking bribes from processed food and meat companies.

After all, it’s the processed grain products that make companies like Kellogg’s and General Mills the most money. Why wouldn’t they tell you to eat 6-11 servings of this each day?

Article headline of these companies making BILLIONS of dollars off cereal each year

And, if you think you are safe to count on organizations like the American Heart Association to have your best interest, think again. Even so-called “health” organizations are paid off by the food industry.

In the 2010s, it was discovered that the AHA was paid $20 million by Proctor and Gamble to promote products low in saturated fat, like their CRISCO product. They chose to ignore important data that found saturated fat was indeed NOT the cause of heart disease.

For the last 60 years, Americans have been misled to think fat is bad, contributing to the disease epidemic we are currently experiencing.

Who do we trust now?

If we can’t trust these so-called accredited organizations supposed to have our best interest, who can we trust?

Information is power. When you have unlimited, unbiased information at your fingertips, you can feel empowered to make your own decisions.

It’s time we stop listening to whatever doctors tell us. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING, should be taken with a grain of salt. We need to start putting our trust in ourselves rather than an outside power.

If you feel like something is wrong, listen to yourself. Seek the help and answers that you need.

If you don’t feel good eating a so-called “health food”, don’t eat it. You know what fuels you best.

Institutional betrayal comes with putting our health in the hands of others. Nobody should be able to hold that kind of power over us.

It’s time we start putting trust in our bodies and minds, using the resources we have available through research, influencers, naturopathic doctors, and nature to guide us to the answers we need.

For years I ate a vegan diet, thinking that would cure my Crohn’s Disease. I heard influencer after influencer talking about how plant foods were the way to go. I followed this religiously despite being chronically bloated and tired to the point of thinking I suffered from narcolepsy.

While I was more skeptical of the healthcare system, I then put all of my trust in these health influencers, who also led me astray. Eventually, I put myself first and listened to the messages my body was sending me.

The first bite of red meat after being vegan for so long felt like an electric charge to my system. I finally realized that nobody could tell me how to eat, exercise, or feel. The only person I could truly depend on was myself.

When we put trust in ourselves, we can feel empowered to make the right choices for our health and follow our gut instincts. Nobody can tell us what to do, feel, or think. It is only when we give others complete power that we lose control of ourselves.

Take action: Have you become reliant on a system or person outside yourself for your health? Break that chain. Instead, use what they say as guidance to follow your institution. Question everything, and seek answers that feel right to you.

Did any of this resonate with you? We would love to hear more about your health journey and how we can be of help to you. Schedule a free chat with us here.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Madison

PS: We are getting married next Monday! We can’t wait to share this upcoming chapter of our lives with you. If you have any marriage advice, comment it below.

Back to Our Roots

Discussion about this post