Yesterday's post was more or less about the economics of food production so I figured today might be good to look at the health impact of industrialized food production. This topic is much harder for me to approach just because there are (a) so many different aspects to health and (b) so many misconceptions. I'll try my best. If it doesn't make sense tell me. If you disagree with me, that's fine, I'd like to hear your opinion. My one request is that you be respectful. I have noticed that people tend to become belligerent when their health and convictions are questioned on this matter. I'm not attacking you, I'm just stating what I think.
The first thing that a person needs to know about being healthy is that it requires monitoring and thought about what you eat. You can't just go to the store and walk down a row grab everything you see and say, "What's wrong with food producers these days? They're giving me so many unhealthy choices!" Realize that eating fruits, veggies and whole grains are going to be the best for you. Period. There is no debate on that issue. It is always better to eat things that as you eat them, they look just like they did when they were growing. Eating a banana is much better than eating banana creme pie. Eating a potato is much better than eating potato chips.
Given the above fact, it is not the food producer's job to only give you healthy choices to eat. That would mean they would lose out on a whole lot of revenue for people who value taste, and quality more than health. It is common to hear about the "Supersize Me" documentary where a man ate nothing but supersized meals from McDonald's and then had all sorts of horrible health reprocussions. What you don't hear that often is in a reaction to that documentary another study was done where a man ate at McDonald's for a month and actually lost weight and got healthier. He just chose the healthy choices at McDonald's over the supersized meals. It is YOUR choice to eat healthy. Nobody is pushing you to eat what you do, but you. (With the exception of small children of course.)
Another concern that is emerging and growing in popularity is the "organic" food. First of all I think this term is a complete misnomer because as it was originally used in science, organic meant of, relating to, or derived from living organisms, or in chemistry it just means that the compound is based on a carbon structure. Guess what? We live in an orgain world. EVERYTHING we eat is based on a carbon structure. Just about everything we eat is from an animal or plant origin.
The newer definition and the one accepted by the consumer of organic foods is a substance, especially a fertilizer or pesticide, of animal or vegetable origin. This means that an organic food is one in which all the pesticides and fertilizers are not synthesized, but derrived from animals or vegetables. As I understand it this means that consumers of organic foods reject any food that has been in contact with antibiotics, or pesticides. Take chicken for example. They can be given antibiotics while they are growing to prevent Salmonella contamination of the lining of their colon. This gives rise to the question of antibiotics in the foods we eat. WHICH IS A VERY GOOD QUESTION. The answer can be found when you do a little research about the regulations of chicken antibiotics in the United States. They must have a period of withdrawl before slaughter to ensure the antibiotics are out of their system and we don't eat them. Yes, statistically speaking you could get a chicken that has antibiotics in it, but the probability of that is minute. There is lots of testing of chicken carcasses before they go to market for quality and safety to the consumer.
Here's another example. How about organic vegetables. The consumer of the organic vegetable says it is healthier for them because they will not be consuming any pesticides. Well, the days of DDT are over. I admit that there are rather unhealthy pesticides that have been invented, but in order for a pesticide to be used on a crop there must be a "reasonable certainty of no harm" to the consumer in any and all of the various exposure routes to the cosumer (ingestion, inhalation, skin contact.) Many pesticides have come out in the past decade that are much better for the human and the environment. Many degrade naturally into innocuous metabolites. Yes, there is a risk of exposure to pesticides, but the body's response of an unhealthy person depends on other things:
- What is the hazard?
- What is the exposure to that hazard?
- How much of that exposure actually makes it into the body as a dose?
- The higher the dose the higher the response.
There may be a hazard there, but there have been regulations and guidelines that the US government have set out on how much and what types of uses pesticides can have to reduce the exposure to that hazard low enough that the actual dose into your body is miniscule. In fact your exposure to that hazard has to be low enough to have a 100 fold margin of saftey to the lowest response level. Bottom line, yes the risk is there, but it is really very small.
I think that's enough for today.
