Food Chemicals

Read About Dangerous Substances in What You Eat

Mar 17, 2009 Naheed Ali

Effects of food chemicals can be very severe. Learn a few things about how food chemicals came to be a part of the foods you eat today.

Products initially synthesized as chemical weapons against soldiers were eventually diverted to the fight against pests and diseases at the end of World War II. Methyl bromide, for example, a deadly odorless gas, continues to be utilized today in many agricultural technologies despite the European regulations for its proper disposal.

Methyl bromide and other similar food chemicals were used to disinfect land on which farmers were trying to develop crops. Food chemicals such as methyl bromide were also sprayed in greenhouses and on quilts and other non-food products for sanitization purposes.

Destruction Caused by Food Chemicals

As the name suggests, most biocides are designed to kill insects, arachnids, mollusks, fungi, bacteria, weeds, etc. Biocides are food chemicals used on crops that almost always kill the pests they are designed to attack.

Similarly, the intentions of the food chemical industry are unfortunately transmitted to farmers and their customers. Isn’t it strange how the deadly effects of these food chemicals reach the human being and many other species in nature?

One can perceive the level of danger in the production and harvesting of plants or animals that feed us, as proportional to the intensity of food chemical production.

Cereals, oilseeds, and nuts, for example, are crops with low production costs, so the technology has led to maximum production with minimum costs and created opportunities for improving the machinery, the selection of raw material, and making more efficient fertilizers and stronger food chemicals.

This is ironic because harvesting techniques and conservation measures are likewise improving all the time.

The major problems posed by these food chemicals used in crops are environmental erosion, desertification and salinization of soils, which are also due to the massive use of synthetic mineral fertilizers, especially nitrates, which can develop into nitrosamines and nitrites.

Moreover, small doses of treatment fungicides, herbicides and disinfectants used as food chemicals on seeds and soil are unsafe, given the accumulation of food chemical molecules that trickle down in the food chain.

According to reports from The European Union, the soil is not as promising to farmers, and therefore makes the overall farming industry less tolerant to harmful food chemicals added to fruits and vegetables.

In some nations around the world, agricultural output is dwindling. The use of food chemicals may be responsible, although more research is needed to establish this as fact.

Food Chemicals and Livestock

In a similar vein, ranching is equally affected by food chemicals. Cattle, goats, sheep, and other types of livestock are farmed almost freely in forests, meadows and mountain regions. However, chemical industries are lobbying heavily to farmers to enter fully into a world where there is accelerated production of huge quantities of feed at very low prices (M. Viladoviú, Does the Current Food Model go Against Life? 1982).

In the long run, this can cause farmers to take their livestock from open pastures to mass-production enclosures, further exposing the animals to food chemicals.

Various livestock medications, such as powerful antibiotics, hormones (some are used despite being banned), excessive vitamins are making livestock increasingly “artificial.”

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The copyright of the article Food Chemicals in Nutrition is owned by Naheed Ali. Permission to republish Food Chemicals in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Food Chemicals