What’s Happening to Your Food?

HOW much poison do you want to eat? No doubt you may be repelled by such a suggestion. You probably feel that you do not want to eat any poison at all.

Yet, whether you realize it or not, much of the food in many lands, especially the United States and other Western countries, now contains small amounts of chemicals that could kill you if eaten in large amounts. Especially has the use of these chemicals grown since World War II.

You may feel that, while such chemicals are added to packaged foods, at least when you buy raw fruits, vegetables or meat you can avoid them. But almost all of these products, in one way or another, have been exposed to chemicals long before you buy them.

Chemicals that are added to foods are called “additives.” There are literally hundreds of them in use today. Many of these additives are synthetic​—man-made chemicals formulated in the laboratory.

How widespread is the use of these additives today? William Longgood, in his book The Poisons in Your Food, comments: “Virtually every bite of food you eat has been treated with some chemical somewhere along the line: dyes, bleaches, emulsifiers, antioxidants, preservatives, flavors, flavor enhancers, buffers, noxious sprays, acidifiers, alkalizers, deodorants, moisteners, drying agents, gases, extenders, thickeners, disinfectants, defoliants, fungicides, neutralizers, artificial sweeteners, anticaking and antifoaming agents, conditioners, curers, hydrolyzers, hydrogenators, maturers, fortifiers, and many others.”

Recent Publicity

Additives came into the news recently because of the publicity given cyclamates. Cyclamates were among the more than 600 food additives that were “Generally Recognized As Safe” (called the GRAS list) by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

Cyclamates are man-made chemical sweeteners that took the place of sugar for reasons of diet or health. They were used in soft drinks, ice cream, salad dressings, puddings, gelatins, jams and jellies, even pickles. They found their way into practically every diet food and were also used in children’s flavored vitamins.

However, experiments showed that cyclamates caused cancer in mice and rats, as well as the birth of deformed chicks. This conflicted with the American law that states that no food additive “shall be deemed to be safe if it is found to induce cancer when ingested by man or animal.”​—The Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1958.

Thus, diet drinks containing cyclamates were banned, although diet foods and medicines containing them, if properly labeled, could be sold without a prescription. Several other countries followed the United States and banned the use of cyclamates.

Two Sides

This publicity over artificial sweeteners caused many to question the use of other additives. Was there a risk in loading so much of the food supply with man-made chemicals? Some authorities were made uneasy by the fact that far too many additives had not really been given sufficient testing to determine their safety even though they were already on the GRAS list.

There are those who say that these chemicals are safe in the amounts used, although they admit that in much larger doses they can be harmful, even kill. On the other hand, there are those who maintain that if a chemical is a poison in large amounts, it is still a poison in small amounts​—arsenic is arsenic, they say, no matter how thin you spread it. They also argue that since few, if any, of these additives are of any nutritional value, why take the risk of using them?

Why should there be any doubt as to the safety of food additives? Because while some of these chemicals in large quantities have produced cancer and other ill effects in experimental animals such as mice and rats, it is not certain that this is what happens in humans who are exposed to much less in their diet. And these additives have not been in use on such a wholesale basis long enough to find out who is right.

Why Additives?

If many chemical additives, especially man-made ones, have no food value, as is admitted, and may even be dangerous in the long run, why are they being used? Why has man deliberately added these products to the foods that are so vital to his health?

With the coming of large cities it became more and more necessary not only to ship food products long distances but to store them in warehouses and on shelves for long periods of time. Something had to be done to keep these foods from spoiling. Hence, chemicals were added to stop the growth of organisms that normally spoil food.

Then came the demand for diet foods, especially nonfattening foods and drinks. This meant, for example, that in soft drinks it was not desirable to have sugar as a sweetener since it added calories. So chemicals that tasted sweet were substituted for sugar.

Another reason for additives was the coming into popularity of precooked foods, such as “TV dinners.” These the housewife simply warmed up and served. However, chemicals were added to preserve them and enhance their taste and looks until the consumer purchased them.

The consumer is not without fault. Too many people want things that look good, feel good and taste good regardless of food value. So manufacturers put into foods chemicals that produce these effects. For instance, a piece of white bread may look good, feel soft, and even taste good. But usually it is made from bleached white flour, which has most of the nutrition taken out in processing. Chemicals are added to make it look nice, feel nice, taste nice and to preserve it. Often a few synthetic vitamins are added and it is sold as “enriched” bread. The consumer is pleased to buy such a product, instead of refusing it.

In connection with bread, Mr. Longgood remarks: “The fate that befalls an innocent wheat berry more fittingly belongs in the annals of crime than in a treatise on foods.” He says: “The average loaf of commercial white bread sold today is primarily the product of chemical ingenuity, clever mechanical technology and advertising guile. It is subjected to a bombardment of chemicals, stripped of virtually all nutrients, given a few synthetic vitamins, shot with emulsifier to keep it soft and . . . sold to the gullible public as an enriched product. Bread and most other commercial baked goods are more closely allied with the test tube than with nature.”

If you live in the Western world, even the meat you buy is likely to have been chemically treated. Many animals are given sex-hormone implants when very young and are then fed synthetic hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals to get maximum weight and prevent some diseases. Also, their bodies contain pesticides picked up from feed that has been chemically sprayed in addition to being chemically fertilized. Many meat products, especially cold cuts, are further treated chemically in the process of curing, flavoring, coloring and preserving.

Just how much of these chemicals does the average person eat? It is estimated that he eats about three pounds a year. But what is the effect of these chemical additives?