Chemicals in Food: What You Need to Know About the Debate Over Food Additives
You have no doubt heard of the growing campaign to remove certain additives and chemicals from America’s food.
The Popular View:
A lax government and consumer ignorance has allowed farmers, fishermen, and food processors to put chemicals in our food, probably just to make a buck here and there.
It’s an outrage and it’s probably the reason we are gaining weight and getting sicker. Someone’s got to do something about it. It’s going to be difficult to go up against the vested interests and some of them have, apparently, been at this chemicals-in-food-business for a very long time.
The Reality:
Let’s start with a definition of chemicals.
What Are Chemicals, Really?
Anything that has mass and occupies space is matter. Matter consists of particles. The particles may be molecules, atoms, or subatomic bits, such as protons, electrons, or leptons. So, basically anything you can taste, smell, or hold consists of matter and is therefore a chemical.
Things that are chemicals include everything that is composed of atoms—such as water, Canada, diamonds, shoes, apples, goats, parsley, humans, Red dye #40, spider webs, feces, trees, dirt, sand, and broccoli.
The Health Benefits of Broccoli (And the Chemicals Inside It)
Let’s take a look at the chemicals contained in broccoli (and you can do this for any type of food):
glucosinolates, sulforaphane (an isothiocyanate), indole-3-carbinol, B-carotene, lycopene, potassium, iron, calcium, flavonoids, diindolymethane, vitamin K, isothiocyanates, quercetin, kaempferol, and selenium.
In fact, naturally occurring sulforaphane is a natural plant defense mechanism, i.e., a natural pesticide. Organic broccoli growers use pyrethrum, copper, Bacillius thurii, and Neem oil as pesticides. Insecticides and fungicides are sprayed weekly, even on organic broccoli. Non-organic broccoli may contain some combination of 26 different synthetic pesticides.
The Bigger Picture: Understanding What’s Really Harmful
Why don’t manufacturers put all those pesticides on a label so people can be warned about the many chemicals in this vegetable?
One reason is that the article that revealed naturally occurring chemicals in broccoli went on to say,
“The effect of broccoli highlights its significant potential as a functional food due to its multiple health benefits. It is a nutrient-rich vegetable with important vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other bioactive compounds. These nutrients and phytochemicals support overall health and wellness, including cancer prevention and reduced inflammation. The pharmaceutical importance of broccoli is widely known as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, immunomodulator, antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, and anti-amnesic.
It’s going to be difficult to avoid pesticides as plants produce their own pesticides and represent over 99% of the pesticides you consume. A USDA survey notes “26% of ‘organic’ samples had detectable levels of pesticide(s) and 9% of ‘organic’ samples had unsafe** levels of at least one pesticide.”
This is part of the evolution of all living things, producing ways to defend themselves.
A New Approach: Embracing Beneficial Chemicals
Maybe you’re a “crunchy mom” who prioritizes “natural living—whether it’s choosing organic food, avoiding chemicals, or embracing eco-friendly practices.” One crunchy mom says, “Cancer from processed foods and pesticides truly happens. Hormone disruption from household chemicals and meats absolutely leads to a host of problems. These are not opinions; they are science-based facts.”
These crunchy moms have good intentions, but what they fail to grasp is there is really nothing that is natural in supermarkets, or for that matter, on farms. Tom Standage, in his excellent book An Edible History of Humanity, says, “The simple truth is that farming is profoundly unnatural…and all domesticated plants and animals are man-made technologies.”
He adds, “Corn, cows, and chickens as we know them do not occur in nature, and they would not exist today without human intervention. Even carrots are man-made.
Maybe instead of worrying about chemicals in food, we should try and make sure we get the right chemicals in food. Let’s go back to broccoli. One of the chemicals in broccoli is glucosinolates, which fights cancer. Antioxidants in broccoli may prevent age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. Indole-3-carbinol and diindolylmethane, both in broccoli, help regulate immune responses and reduce excessive inflammation. Antioxidants in broccoli reduce the risk of chronic disease.
How can we ensure we're getting these beneficial chemicals in our food?
Just as we have been developing tools over hundreds of years to make food tastier and more available to feed a growing population, we can continue that progression with new, more powerful tools like gene editing to produce foods that are healthier and safer.
If we remove those chemicals from broccoli and put them in something that is, perhaps more tasty (even something President George H.W. Bush, who hated broccoli, would like), they become the dreaded food additives making the label look unclean. But they would still have disease fighting capabilities.
Bottom line: it’s time to stop fearing chemicals and start finding and embracing the ones that can improve our health.