Just
when you thought the food headlines couldn’t get any worse, out comes a
study showing that we’ve got flame-retardants in our sandwiches.
Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health tested
foods such as deli meats, fish, and peanut butter and found a chemical
called HBCD, a flame retardant, in some of our most common foods.
It turns out that today, we are not only eating meat glue, weed
killers, and soybeans that have been hardwired to withstand routine
saturation of chemicals, but also, apparently, flame retardants.
Who knew?
The researchers gently framed the flame-retardant issue (obviously,
not wanting to come across as alarmists or get their hands slapped by
the chemical industry), and their conclusion is that more time and
research are needed to determine whether these chemicals will be
associated with adverse effects on human health, since, to date, no
human health studies have been performed. (None – would you sign up for
the study asking you to eat flame-retardants on your PB&J?)
With the growing number of chemicals finding their ways onto our dinner plates, people are paying attention.
Fast Company
recently reported “Chemicals aren’t why you’re fat, but they’re making
you fatter”. Lovely. Just what we need in the midst of the biggest
obesity epidemic ever.
And they’re right. Evidence is mounting that exposure to certain chemicals, now called “obesogens” in our food,
often at very low levels, can lead to weight gain because they change the way that our bodies work and the way we metabolize what we eat. And since “
we know next to nothing”
about whether flame retardants like the ones found in our lunch meats
may affect human health, we are eating in the dark while studies show
that we are increasingly exposed.
Is there any silver lining?
“The levels we found are lower than what the government agencies
currently think are dangerous,” according to Arnold Schecter, a public
health physician at the University of Texas School of Public Health in
Dallas, who has been systematically uncovering a wide range of chemicals
in supermarket foods,on
WebMD.
“But those levels were determined one chemical at a time.” In other
words, we aren’t testing for what this compound exposure of multiple
chemicals might be doing to us, to our kids and to our loved ones.
Schecter and others are discovering in their research that we’re
exposed to multiple chemicals at the same time and it’s the unknown
about these chemicals in combination, also known as “synergistic
toxicity,” that is causing concern.
(Remember those science class experiments as a kid? You held two
beakers, one in each hand, no problem, yet when you poured them into a
container together, there was combustion? That’s what Schecter and the
scientists are worried about).
So what’s an eater to do who wants to avoid flame retardants in their
food? Well, it turns out that fifteen of the 36 samples in the study,
or 42%, had detectable levels of the flame retardants, HBCDs (a full
list of the foods tested can be
found on WebMD).
Some of these 15 samples were the same foods, but from different
stores. And all of the foods tested were conventional foods (no organic
brands were tested) ranging from deli sliced lunchmeats and cans of
chili to bacon and peanut butter.
So what can you do?
Reduce your exposure to processed foods. Eat fewer chemicals. Go
organic when you can, since by law, these foods are not allowed to be
produced with certain synthetic chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers.
Pay attention to what you are eating, because according to Arnold
Schecter, the public health physician at the University of Texas School
of Public Health in Dallas, “What we’re seeing are chemicals that can
cause endocrine disruption, that can cause nervous system damage, that
can cause reproductive damage, that can cause developmental damage, that
can cause cancer in some cases.”
And get involved. Our food system is broken, it’s been
industrialized to the point that all kinds of chemicals and non-food
ingredients are now being found in it, and with the escalating rates of
conditions like autism and diseases like cancer, we can no longer afford
to turn a blind eye to the foods that we are feeding our families.
Global cancer rates are expected to rise 75%
in less than twenty years time. And while correlation is not
causation, the fact that we have no human health studies to determine if
these chemicals are causing cancer (or for that matter, autism,
infertility, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s), we can no longer afford to be
this live human trial. There is simply too much at stake.
The
massive shrub tax cuts mark their 10th birthday this week. Sadly,
despite my best efforts to find something redeeming about
them—honest!—there is little to celebrate. By nearly all of the metrics
set out by the shrub himself, the cuts were a colossal failure. 
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