By Debra Wirth
Which would you rather have? A big, round, red apple or a small, blotchy, brownish-red apple? A bunch of differently sized bananas ranging in colour from green to brown to off-yellow, or a bunch of large, evenly sized, bright yellow bananas? A dark green, spotty and elongated capsicum or a plump, smooth and shiny one?
When faced with these sorts of choices in the local fruit and vegetable market, most people tend to go for the more visually attractive option. Large, smooth and evenly coloured fruit and vegetables are associated in our minds with fresh, juicy and ripe. Smaller and unevenly coloured and textured produce we tend to think of as old or unripe and generally not a good deal. The bigger and brighter it is, the better it must be.
So agribusiness and produce growers hope we will all go on thinking. I began to be suspicious when, year after year, strawberries went on getting impossibly bigger and redder. A punnet which used to hold about 20 little strawberries now holds about 7 grotesquely huge strawberries. Nature was not responsible for the change. It's responsible for very little in the world of large-scale agriculture.
First the soil is chemically fertilised and "bolstered" against exhaustion. Then seeds are planted (perhaps a new, genetically engineered strain). The plants are sprayed, dusted and dripped with various formulas to protect them against pests, to make them more productive, to make their fruit rounder and evenly coloured. Often, after the produce is harvested, chemicals are applied to enhance its colour, make it shiny or preserve it for longer.
The animals which provide the meat that we eat, aside from themselves eating feed which has been produced inorganically, are also treated and injected with various chemicals such as growth hormones. Once slaughtered, the meat is extensively processed before it reaches the consumer.
While many people would be aware that some "unnatural" substances are used in producing the food we eat, most are not aware of the scale of the use of chemicals or what the chemicals are. Most frightening of all is our total ignorance — and the not-so-total but still fairly comprehensive ignorance — of the companies which produce the chemicals used in food production, as to the short and long-term effects of these chemicals.
Fatigue, vagueness, types of dermatitis, allergies, biliousness, bloating, abdominal swelling and other inexplicable symptoms in
children and adults, and extreme hyperactivity in children can all
be related to our diet, Maggie Mulham, a naturopath who works with
Russell's Natural Food Market in Sydney, told Green Left.
Chronic fatigue syndrome can definitely be classed as an environmental illness, according to Mulham. This ailment, like the other symptoms listed above, is caused by a slow breakdown in the body's immune system which can be attributed to a combination of toxins and pollutants in our environment and additives and preservatives in food.
Robert Buist, in his book Food Chemical Sensitivity, has grouped chemical additives intentionally added to food under the following headings:
1. Preservatives, for increasing shelf life.
2. Colouring agents, for improving appearance.
3. Taste and odour modifiers, for enhancing flavour.
4. Texture modifiers, for changing texture and appearance.
5. Processing agents, to facilitate easy processing.
6. Nutritional agents, to maximise nutritional value.
Undoubtedly some of these processes, like food preservation for example, are necessary. It is the methods and chemicals employed which need to be questioned. What started out as a necessary process has spiralled completely out of control. Competition between companies for bigger and bigger portions of the market, combined with an almost complete lack of monitoring and regulation, means that it is now almost impossible to buy a food product which is anywhere near organic.
Buist refers to a survey done by the United States Department of Agriculture. The data was collected from people living in the US, but it is probably not irrelevant to the Australian situation. The survey revealed that almost 40% of shoppers were motivated to buy a product solely because of its sensory appeal. Another 32% were more interested in the efficient use of time and money, with the price of the product being of prime importance. Only 18% were concerned with nutritional information, labelling, food additives and preservatives.
Food companies compete by making their product look attractive. The additives and preservatives used to accomplish this are not emblazoned on the packaging. More often than not, they are in tiny print and disguised as a number.
A more recent addition to food packaging is slogans like "healthy", "hearty" and "100% natural"
— claims which often have very little hard evidence to back
them up.
Chemical additives and preservatives, like pesticides and other chemical agents, are represented by the big companies as harmless to our health in small doses. But even if true in the case of a particular chemical, the claim is irrelevant, considering that there is next to no system which guarantees keeping the doses small.
More and more people are seeking ways of lessening or even eliminating their intake of and exposure to chemicals and other toxins. It is now possible to find commercial outlets for organically grown fruit and vegetables in most centres.
This is no solution in itself, however. While chemicals continue to be used in the large-scale production of food, they continue to pollute the environment and the soil, with the possibility of contaminating entire food chain for a very long time.