Food is a basic commodity needed to sustain life and as such, it must be safe to eat. Despite the innumerable controversies that abound regarding the ingredients and additives in our food and sage advice from many professional sources and health gurus arguing to the contrary, this paper will support the thesis that, for most people, our food supply is safe. While accepting that prepared foods may contain additives and preservatives, these are necessary to allow manufacturers to bring food safely into our homes. Preservatives and additives are necessary to ensure that our food supply is safe, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the consumer to ensure that the food they eat is fit for consumption.
Humans have long used additives to preserve fresh food. For example, meat and fish was salted and dried or was stored in extremely salt water and vegetables were pickled in vinegar. However, in recent years, the range of chemicals added to people’s food has increased greatly. Nowadays, people do not grow the food they need but buy it from shops, processed and packaged. As the world’s population increases, more food is needed to feed people; therefore, farmers use chemicals on crops to increase their harvest, and scientists also use them to alter the existing food. As a rule, depending on what an individual eats, he takes it for granted and expects his food to be healthy and safe, but what if the food makes a person ill?
Many people are worried whether the food they eat is safe and do not accept assurances from the government that there are no hidden problems. Although strict regulations and rigorous standards govern every aspect of food production, food safety still remains a critical issue for some people because of the nature of food and its ingredients.
Often the reason for concern is a personal health issue. Some people suffer badly with food allergies, even to unprocessed or very lightly processed foods, which could still be considered “natural”. Some children develop allergies to peanuts which can cause a severe anaphylactic reaction and even death. Others are allergic to the gluten in wheat, which even in its extremely unrefined state can cause severe pain for those with coeliac disease. Some people are lactose-intolerant and are therefore unable to properly process milk or dairy products properly. Some are allergic to eggs, which can cause digestive symptoms, asthma, skin irritations and excess mucus production. All of these foods are considered by the general public to be safe to eat and are virtually additive- and preservative-free yet can cause severe health problems in those people who are negatively susceptible to them.
Additives and preservatives play many roles in the foods we eat including preventing food from decaying, slowing down or preventing the oxidation of foods and improving and enhancing the colors and flavors of certain foods. These chemicals work to ensure the safety of our food, not to poison it. Many food additives are actual natural substances and the chances are, if a person is allergic to an artificial additive in his/her food, they will almost certainly be allergic to its natural counterpart.
The industries which manufacture our food have long been subjected to a variety of controls aimed at preserving the safety of the food which they produce. Government legislation mandates regular food safety inspection and monitoring procedures and supplies the funding for research into the detection and control of food-borne pathogens. It also provides the means for continuing education of workers in the food industry and also the consumer, about food safety.
While the time-honored methods of sight, smell and touch used when inspecting food for safety are no match for a new generation of food-borne pathogens, better diagnostic tests for these are being developed all the time. Designed to detect pathogens during the processing phase, these tests are cheaper, faster and more sensitive to a vast range of pathogens. Producers are also employing innovative methods of prevention of food pathogens by immunizing their livestock .
In general, various testing methods allow researchers to monitor and detect dangerous chemicals in food; nevertheless, there are still extra ingredients, and their presence is quite disturbing. Anthony Bourdain writes, “Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress” . Indeed, people would experience this range of emotions if they learned how many chemicals are present in their food. As a matter of fact, modern food production incorporates a lot of synthetic chemicals, and their high concentration may be extremely damaging and harmful to humans. However, each product passes safety review, and most of them are initiated by the companies themselves. Some people see the only way out: to buy local food, which is considered natural and safe, but they are surprised to learn that farmers inject hormones into their livestock that helps them to gain weight faster and bring more profit. There are also hormones that increase the amount of milk produced by dairy cows, but studies demonstrate a potential risk of cancer from these chemicals. Moreover, farmers use pesticides on vegetables and fruits. Although their permitted amount is considered safe, such chemicals are highly toxic, and their effects directly on people have not been studied.
The negative argument for the safety of our food is best illustrated by the fast food industry. In his bestseller, Pollan says that the way we eat links us to the natural world in a profound manner and enables our bodies to join with the natural world as one.(. Indeed, in a society that lives daily at a high speed, fast food has been eagerly adopted as the favorite and easily available food. Fast food advertisements and numerous restaurants are permeating neighborhoods and invading people’s minds and stomachs. Obviously, these restaurants are so flourishing because they offer their clients cheap, quick, and tasty meal, which is too high in salt, fat, and some other dangerous chemicals. Therefore, fast food is a potential threat to human health because it contributes to various chronic diseases and obesity.
Although several fast-food restaurants are trying to reduce the use of such chemicals as trans fats, they are still remaining in many items. As a rule, trans fats are created by combining hydrogen with unsaturated fats, which helps products to have a longer storage period. However, scientists insist that trans fats increase heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) is added to products that include oils to prevent them from going rancid. This chemical has been labelled a dangerous carcinogen and causes stomach cancer. Propylene glycol is another synthetic chemical that can be found in fast foods because it functions as a solvent to make the spice concentrates. Sodium nitrite is known to cause pancreatic cancer; nevertheless, it is still used as a coloring agent because it makes old meat looks fresh and red. Many fast food items also contain flavors, sweeteners, and artificial dyes. They substitute real food, including vegetables, eggs, and fruits. Dyes are quite dangerous because they can cause behavioral problems in children and a risk of cancer. Thus, if a person orders fries, a burger, and a soda, he is likely to eat dangerous chemicals. Many fast food restaurants prepare fries in oil that has trans fats; the burger is likely to contain BHA, and a soda contains numerous dyes and flavors.
However, as humans we are imbued with free will, and the consumption of fast food is a personal conscientious choice. Numerous advertising campaigns have demonstrated that fast food is not a good food choice, but nevertheless, we humans continue to consume it in vast amounts.
Nowadays, genetic modification (GM) is a rapidly developing branch of science which allows the swapping of genes from the genome of one organism into the genome of a different one. For example, tomato plants cannot grow in cold weather. Therefore, scientists chose a dogfish as a species with an excellent frost-resistant gene and inserted it into tomato plant chromosomes. Many staple foods such as corn, soybean, canola, and cottonseed have been genetically modified. GM has wide implications for the future of global food security. With global warming and climate change providing the potential for the destruction of vast tracts of agricultural land, particularly in underdeveloped countries, GM of food provides several advantages for farmers and future food production. However; Ballard writes that “Genetic modification is controversial. Some people see it as the answer to many of the world’s health and food problems. Others think that we can hardly begin to understand or assess the potential hazards posed by GM techniques because they are still so new”. However, the safety studies all over the world demonstrate that genetically modified foods can tragically create nutritional problems, unpredicted allergies, antibiotic resistant diseases, and other health problems.
In his article “On Dumpster Diving”, Lars Eighner writes about primitive principles of eating safely from the Dumpsters, “ using senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question “Why was this discarded?” . He also mentions that the responsibility of the safety of food obtained from Dumpsters is primarily belongs to the person that consumes the food. These same principles of common sense, knowing where your food comes from and what you are eating, should apply to the consumption of all foods. No-one can say that there is a lack of information about the foods we consume and what goes into the manufacture of processed foods. If we choose to eat processed and fast foods with abandon, having given their components no consideration or thought, then we deserve to suffer the consequences.
Undoubtedly, scientific progress and technological advancements have done much to ensure the safety of the food we consume, and in fact have even made some previously dangerous foods safe to eat. Innovations in transport, refrigeration and the food industry have allowed us to experience foods from all over the world and have increased the variety and types of foods we consume. While people should always take care with the food they eat, this is not only an issue surrounding the safety of food but also of general health. The more fresh food and the less processed food we eat, the healthier we will be. While GM foods and food additives and preservatives are still the subject of some debate, generally speaking, modern technology has made the food we consume safer, fresher and more readily available. However, ultimately the responsibility for eating food safely lies with the consumer and the hygienic methods they use to store, wash, defrost and cook food. A dirty kitchen can be more of a problem when preparing food than can any food additive. We all need food to survive and maintain our health, and as modern science and manufacturing processes have made food safety one of their highest priorities, we must ultimately take responsibility for the safety of the food we eat.
Works Cited
Ballard, C. “Is Our Food Safe?” 2015. Britannica Digital Learning. Ebook Library. 17 June 2016.
Bourdain, A. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. 2000. <https://joeandjin.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/anthony-bourdain-kitchen-confidential.pdf>.
Eighner, L. “On Dumpster Diving.” New England Journal of Public Policy 24.1, Article 10 (2013): 87-95. <http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol24/iss1/10>.
Hall, A. “Is It Safe to Eat?” Scientific American (1997). <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-it-safe-to-eat/>.
Pollan, M. The Omnivores Dilemma. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
