CHEMICALS IN OUR FOOD - TWO SIDES OF AN ARGUMENT
Much of the food that leaves a farmer's field undergoes several processing steps before it reaches our tables. Grain is ground into flour or meal, often enriched with vitamins and minerals lost in processing, and then turned into cereal or bakery products. Meat is smoked, pickled, or otherwise treated to keep it from spoiling. Salt, pepper, garlic, other herbs and spices, and flavorings improve the taste of food. Dyes injected into fruit or added to other foods make taste of food. Dyes injected into fruit or added to other foods make them more eye-appealing. Vitamins, minerals, smoke, dyes, stabilizers, thickeners, salt, and other flavor enhancers, substances with chemical-sounding names - all these things are food additives.
In the past, most - if not all - food additives came from nature. Today, technology has made it possible for many natural additives to be replaced with manufactured ones - additives made by putting chemicals together.
Some people say we should be just as concerned with the effects these manufactured additives have on our bodies as we are with the effects of chemicals on the land, in the water, and in the air. These people fear we are polluting our bodies with too many chemicals. They think these chemicals may cause diseases such as cancer.
Food processors try to justify their use of manufactured additives. They point out that every living and non-living thing on earth is made up of chemicals or combinations of them. Even when eating "natural" foods, people are eating chemicals. Processors argue that manufactured additives do all the things that natural additives do, but they do them with less cost to the consumer. They also point out that manufactured additives do some things that natural ones cannot do. For example, they enrich milk, flour, and other foods with vitamins and minerals lost in processing. Of they make foods tastier for people who cannot eat salt or sugar.
Food companies admit that large doses of some manufactured additives can cause diseases. At present, the use of some of them is banned. Words of caution on the packaging of some products are added.