Not everything that goes into our food is mentioned on the label. Food manufacturers pay millions to keep their products from being regulated, leading to some strange practices. Franken-food is a science fact…and it’s what’s for dinner.
THE NATIONAL FOODBALL LEAGUE
Food production is a high-stakes game with many players: corporations, farmers, consumer safety groups, scientists, doctors, the government, and, of course, consumers. Each group has its own agenda and its own game plan. We’ve tried to sort through it all to bring you clear, unbiased information, but there doesn’t seem to be a single study result out there that hasn’t been disputed by somebody. Hopefully the players who say these food products are perfectly safe are correct—and the ones who say we’re all going to turn into hairy mutants and die gruesome, horrible deaths are wrong. Here’s a look at what’s in your food…and who doesn’t want you to know about it.
Hormones—chemicals naturally produced by the body—have several important duties, including regulating reproductive functions. In humans, the imbalance of even a single hormone can lead to a host of problems, including obesity, depression, and even cancer. Yet injecting growth hormones into cattle (to make them gain weight faster and require less feed) has become standard practice for the U.S. beef and dairy industries: More than 80% of American cattle are injected with them. In addition to synthetic hormones used to increase milk production, six other naturally occurring hormones have been approved for use in beef by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): zeranol, estradiol, melengestrol acetate, trenbolone acetate, progesterone, and testosterone.
But after extensive research and testing, the European Commission (the European Union’s executive body) concluded that “no acceptable daily intake could be established for any of these hormones” and connected them to an increased risk of severe hormonal imbalance as well as various types of cancer. Two of these hormones, estradiol and zeranol, are also linked to poor development in children. It’s now illegal for European farmers to inject their cattle with hormones, but the FDA says they’re safe and doesn’t require hormone-treated foods to carry any labeling.
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Chances are, you eat genetically modified, or “GM,” foods every day. Over 105 million acres of GM crops are grown in America—mostly corn, soy, wheat, and canola—common ingredients in nearly every packaged food from corn flakes to soup to fish sticks.
To produce a genetically modified plant, the desired DNA is placed in a carrier, often a virus like E. coli, and implanted in the host plant’s cells. Subsequent generations of the plant then carry the genetic mutation. Most GM crops have been modified to withstand larger amounts of pesticides, or to make the plants last longer and resist damage. One example: “fishberries.” A gene from a species of Arctic codfish that creates an antifreeze protein was infused into the genetic code of strawberries in order to make them more frost-tolerant. Proponents of GM argue that interspecies crossbreeding is simply the next step in plant development.
And because they’re technically “living crops” and not additives, GM foods aren’t required to undergo safety testing before being put on the market. So what could possibly go wrong?
• In 1992 Murray Lumpkin, M.D., then director of the FDA’s Division of Anti-infective Drug Products, warned that DNA doesn’t always break down in the stomach. Some of it can be absorbed by gut bacteria, which could then become resistant to antibiotics or mutate in unexpected ways. The University of Georgia’s Dr. Sharad Phatak says, “When you insert a foreign gene, you are changing the whole metabolic process. Will any one gene kick off a whole slew of changes? We don’t know for sure.”
• Combining genes may lead to new allergic reactions. In 1992 an eight-year-old girl with a seafood allergy reportedly died after eating fishberries. And in 1996 production of a GM soybean containing Brazil nut genes was halted after it was found to cause allergic reactions.
The first, and so far only, safety evaluation of a GM crop was commissioned in the early 1990s by Calgene (now owned by Monsanto, one of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology companies) for their FLAVR SAVR™ tomato. Though the test was never peer-reviewed, Calgene’s report to the FDA concluded that there were no significant toxic effects…even though several test rats died within a few weeks of eating the GM tomatoes. And no studies were done on their intestines, even though 7 out of 20 rats developed stomach lesions. In humans, this could cause life-threatening hemorrhages or worse.
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Workers at agricultural supplier J.R. Simplot Company noticed that one of their cows was eating the same amount of food as the other cows but was gaining 8 pounds a day (as opposed to the average 3.5-pound daily weight gain). So Simplot cloned the cow. Now they have eight identical cows that all gain 8 pounds a day. That’s a big benefit of animal cloning: It can take the guesswork out of farming, leading to higher yields and higher profits.
But the downside: Animal cloning is a new and unproven technology that may have severe safety implications. Even Ian Wilmut, the lead scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, warns against eating cloned animals. He says that defects in clones are common, and even a small imbalance in a clone could lead to hidden food safety problems. And the technology is so new that there have been few studies on the risks of eating cloned food.
Nevertheless, in January 2008, the FDA ruled that the meat and milk from cloned livestock are safe for human consumption, despite pressure from Congress to delay the FDA’s decision until additional safety studies could be conducted. (They never were.) What’s more, the FDA does not require labeling, so consumers have no way of knowing whether these products are on their supermarket shelves.
Food irradiation is a process that uses high-energy gamma rays, electron beams, or X-rays (about seven million times more powerful than a medical X-ray) to kill hidden bacteria and insects during food production. So what’s wrong with that? Critics argue that the process allows food handlers to be sloppy with sanitation, knowing that the food is going to be irradiated later. Besides that, irradiation can do some strange things to food.
Meat, fruits, and vegetables that are irradiated can, at the very least, lose some of their vitamin content. And the rays that kill harmful bacteria also kill beneficial bacteria and enzymes. But of even more concern to scientists at the International Institute of Concern for Public Health are the “unique radiolytic byproducts” of irradiation—substances that can cause gene mutations. And while it won’t make your food radioactive, irradiation can form toxic chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde, both suspected of causing cancer and birth defects.
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Just as with other controversial food-related issues, some scientists say irradiation is perfectly safe. The FDA maintains that irradiation is an “effective way of combating food-borne illness.” Their findings, however, are based on studies done in the 1950s. Consumer safety groups continue to lobby for new tests, but U.S. food regulations currently allow the irradiation of wheat, white potatoes, spices, dry vegetable seasonings, fresh eggs, fresh produce, and meat and poultry. Wholly irradiated foods must be labeled “irradiated” or “treated with radiation” and display the radura symbol (a flower inside a green circle). But no special labeling is required on manufactured products that contain irradiated ingredients, and the FDA is considering a new rule that would allow some irradiated foods to be marketed with no labeling at all.
Americans have the largest, cheapest food supply in the world. And much of the bounty has come from advances in food science, including genetic engineering and cloning. Americans also have one of the lowest rates of food-borne illnesses, thanks in part to irradiation. So should we just relax and chow down? Maybe, or maybe we need more long-term, large-scale testing. And maybe we should know what we’re eating. Award-winning microbiologist Dr. John Fagan advocates the labeling of all newly introduced foods. “Without labeling,” he says, “it will be very difficult for scientists to trace the source of new illness caused by modified foods.” In the meantime, there is a large-scale study of the long-term health effects of modified foods—it’s happening right now, and we are the test subjects.
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“Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on Earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.”
—Dave Barry
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