Flame-Retardant Sandwiches, Who Knew?

 by Robyn O'Brien 

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.