My Last Lecture!

Lecture 16: Food Supply and Safety

Will Brown03/01/2012

Chapter 12 pgs 492-495 & Chapter 13

Questions to start off with:

• Why should we as nutrition conscious individuals care about where our food comes from?

• Does organic farming really matter or is it just marketing?

• Is it important to know if your eating a GMO?• Are pesticides bad? Are they necessary?• Why are we even having this discussion?

Can you tell the difference?

The Belief

Where does your food come from?

Where does your food come from?

The Reality

Why should you care where your food comes from?

• Pesticides – common in most agriculture– Used to prevent plant disease and parasites

• Food Additives – common in most if not all processed food, regardless of “Organic” label– Used to prevent spoilage

• Environmental contaminants – depending on where food is grown you can have things like lead or mercury

• Exploitation of migrant or poor workers• Genetically modified organisms

What are Pesticides

• Federal definition is anything that is used to kill, control, repel, or mitigate pests.

• Can be synthetic or naturally occurring compounds

• Sub classes include things like rodenticide, fungicides, and insecticides

• There are 10,000 pesticides allowed by the EPA with over 300 active ingredients

Why use pesticides?

• Pests destroy billions of dollars of food annually– Use of pesticides increase yield keeping food costs

lower• Consumers want perfect looking food– Would you eat an apple with a worm hole?

• Prolongs food during distribution

Why worry about pesticides?• 1.2 billion pounds are used annually• Once applied they can go anywhere

– Carried on the wind by air currents– Seep into ground water– Taken up by the plants– Decompose into other compounds

• Concentrate in certain organisms such as crabs and shellfish• While most are deemed safe in small amounts no one knows what chronic exposure

does– Especially important with small children– Increased cancer rates farm communities and farm workers– In lab animals some are known to cause birth defects, sterility, cancer, organ damage, etc.

• Some argue that the risk of these are less than if you eat other known cancer causing natural things like grilled meat.– Do you need to add pesticides on top of the exposure you already get?

What are food additives?

• Substances that are added to foods to make them easier to process, extend shelf life, and prevent spoilage

• All of these must be evaluated by the FDA– Well, not all… GRAS list• Food additives prior to 1958 that were deemed

Generally Recognized As Safe are excluded

• Can be beneficial or harmful

Why use Food Additives?• Preservatives

– Most are added to prong shelf life and prevent spoilage• Keeps food cost down

– Some prevent microbial growth keeping the food chain safer• Used to prevent enzymatic degradation and color change

– These include Vitamins C and E• Improved texture and taste

– Lecithin and Guar Gum in ice cream• Without the use of preservatives world wide food

distribution would be impossible

Why worry about Food Additives?

• Some are intentional – like ascorbic acid• Some are unintentional or incidental – like rat

feces, cleaning agents and hair– These are know as contaminants– FDA allows a certain amount of contamination in

food products• Certain amount of the population are allergic

to certain food additives

Before we move on lets take a moment and pause…

• The FDA does regulate what can and can be added to food.

• No food additive that is known to be toxic or cancer causing can be added to food– There is a whole procedure for testing that is very

detailed and outlined (pg 520)• While all the above is true for intentional, there

is no way the FDA can regulate the incidentals– There are levels of acceptable limits

Environmental Contaminants

• Where the food is grown and the soil it is grown in is critical to the what is in the food– If lead is in the soil, you will have lead in your

broccoli• Acrylamides can develop during frying in high

carbohydrate foods• PCBs are known to cause cancer and immune

disfunction and are found in fish from the Great Lakes and Hudson river

Exploitation of Farm Workers

• Many farm workers and food processing workers are illegal aliens

• Underpaid when compared to American counterparts• Usually not provided health care• Sometimes they are not protected under workers

compensation clauses– If they are and do get hurt, most won’t seek medical care

anyway• Most live well below the poverty line• Companies do not pay taxes on wages paid to illegals

GMOs

• Genetically modified food organisms– Genetically altered to express proteins or

substances not previously found in the food• Examples include– Triple stack corn from Monsanto– Pigs that can absorb phosphorus more easily

• First introduced into food chain in 1996• GMOs are not required on food labels

Let’s take a moment to discuss how GMOs are produced

GMOs

• In the US in 2009 and 2010, 93% of the planted areas of soy bean were GMO– 93% of cotton– 86% of corn– 95% of sugar beets

• Can be sold as “Organic”– Remember, organic is a farming term and does not

refer to what is farmed

Why all the press?

• Opponents claim that they are unsafe– GMOs that are in the food supply have not been shown

to be more unsafe than natural varieties• Proponents claim superior yields– Reality is that world wide crop yields have not increased

• Opponents claim that there could be wide spread dissemination of the genes– While there is evidence this has occurred it has not

conferred any specific advantage to the subsequent generations

How did we get here?• A very complex answer• Began in the early 1900s; originally aimed at supporting

family farms that were struggling in the great depression– Included things like government buying surplus to drive up

prices at the grocery store– Paying farmers not to grow food

• Movement began to industrialize our food chain in order to prevent wide spread famine

• USDA developed to prevent contamination of food and thus improve safety of people

How did we get here?

• Now that you have overproduction of food, what do you do with it?

• You begin to find ways to use it– Deconstruction of corn and soybeans that allow for other

products to be made– These include most of the food additives

• Big corporations pay lobbyists a lot of money• Rural farmers have a lot of political power due to

the way our country's legislative branches are set up

What can you do about all of this?• Educate yourself on where your food comes from– Pay attention to locations where the food is grown– How far has it been shipped– How much processing is involved

• As the consumer you have the ultimate choice– Choose locally grown food supplies

• Community Supported Agriculture• Farmers Markets

– Buy Organic foods when possible– Buy from farms that use sustainable farming practices– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnfE721NKDw

Suggestions for further information

• Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan• Food, Inc.

• Temple Grandin