Chemical Soup – A Recipe, Serves Seven Billion

Last week there was a piece on the radio about why the composer Handle was so bad tempered. While I could write about why we allow talented people to behave so badly, the really interesting point is that it was lead that was put into the wine he drank in copious quantities, that was there as a preservative.

Often when I have spoken about some of the junk that is allowed in our food, people always say well if it were dangerous or harmful then it would not be allowed. History is littered with examples of products and additives that have been allowed and licensed to go in to our food that latter we discover is harmful. This includes plastics that leach toxins into food in packaging or babies feeding bottles, to the chemicals used in agriculture and horticulture.

Often though these ingredients are added not to make the food better but to extend the shelf-life of a product, or make the colour appear better, or add a flavour that is just not there. When I was in my teens I had a girlfriend who loved some strawberry flavoured sweet but hated the taste of Strawberries. I have never really understood why if something is supposed to taste of Strawberries or Raspberries does not contain the fruit. Well I do know, its to make it cheaper, but why do people buy this junk? As rarely does it taste of what it is supposed to.

With agricultural chemicals, even at the beginning of this year the European Union banned a whole list of chemicals that are now known to cause cancer. There part of the problem is that the food and agricultural industry ignore the fact that any chemical that is designed to kill a pest is a toxin, it is designed to kill.

With all chemicals the regulators and the industry hide behind the levels that it is deemed safe for humans to ingest. While in most cases this will be fine as the residues are quite low. The problems arise for people that are not totally healthy in the first place. While pregnancy is not an illness, this can include pregnant women, there have been plenty of warnings that pregnant women should avoid this or that. Therefore to my mind, if they can cause problems to some people, they should not be allowed, or the residue levels should be lowered.

However the biggest concern is the cocktail of chemicals that are in our environment and particularly in our food.

There is a parallel problem in the environment highlighted by the effect upon Amphibians. It has been shown that the cocktail of chemicals in the environment is the primary cause for genetic deformities. This in turn is the major cause of the decline and extinction of many species of frogs and toads. While these chemicals are all at allowable levels as individual chemicals, there is little research that has been done to see what the effects of this mixture of thousands of compounds have on the environment and human health.

In Britain while the water is very clean and drinkable, the information regarding the chemical residues in groundwater is covered by the Official Secrets Act. Well its a good job that America has a Freedom of Information Act, as we are supposed to have, but in the US all groundwater has residues from the garden chemicals used to maintain a pristine lawn. All at levels that are legal, but it is still a cocktail of chemicals that should not be there. Using the US experience as a model it is likely that in Britain we have the same situation.

If we combine that chemical cocktail with the residues on our food and the chemicals deliberately added to our food and we are all Guinea Pigs in this global chemistry set.

As it was the effects of Lead on the behaviour of Handle that inspired this posting, the question has to be asked what effects are all these chemicals having on the behaviour of people now?

There are more people with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), a greater proportion of the population with mental health problems, so is there a link? Without research we can not know for sure, but there are plenty of anecdotal evidence that some food colours (E Numbers) exacerbate these conditions. They may even trigger them, but without research we can not know.

The effects of this chemical soup is not know. With DDT, a single chemical, it took years to discover that it was killing our environment and hence us. The effect of all these chemicals in our food and our environment may not be discovered until its to late. All we can do is make wise choices and avoid buying or using products that add to the problem.