The recent spate of
food-related headlines has led to consumers questioning the safety of
our food. While there are still areas that need improvement on balance,
our food supply is safer than it has ever been. In general, consumers
are advised to follow advice only from reputable authorities, and not to
make dietary changes based on dramatic headlines.
Bird flu, mad cow
disease, mercury in canned tuna, - all of these are recent health scares
that have had significant impact on food consumption patterns in Asia.
While there is no evidence that it is possible to catch bird flu from
eating chicken, consumers in Asia stayed away from chicken when the bird
flu epidemic spread across several Asian countries. The discovery of
just one cow affected by mad cow disease in the USA resulted in the
importation of US beef being banned in some countries such as Japan and
Korea, and in turn a shortage of beef in many restaurants. Another
example of how recent scares can disrupt food supplies out of all
proportion to expert assessment of risk.
Scare or Safe?
These food scares
raise a question: is our food supply becoming more unsafe? Ironically,
by most accounts, our food supply is safer than it has ever been. Better
knowledge, increased legislation and enforcement as well as better
education and hygiene practices have put in place systems that are
designed to reduce the incidences that cause food-borne illnesses,
especially among commercial producers.
In addition,
advances in science and technology have provided valuable tools like
pasteurisation, freeze-drying, water disinfection and analytical tools
for common contaminants that help to make food and drinking water safer.
Why then the seeming
increase in food scares? It may seem counter-intuitive but better
surveillance of food production methods and processes are actually part
of the reason. With more scrutiny and better methods of analyses,
possible areas of concern are spotted more frequently and hence appear
more often on the evening news. More sensitive chemical analysis
methods mean that smaller and smaller amounts of contaminants are
detected, reported and acted on.
For example,
acrylamide, a chemical by-product created in starchy foods cooked at
high temperatures, made headlines in 2002 when Swedish scientists
reported that they found the chemical in a number of fried and
oven-baked foods. While acrylamide is listed as a potential food safety
risk, the chemical has only been confirmed to cause cancer in laboratory
animals that have been fed high doses. Scientists are still uncertain on
whether it could have the same effect on people at the low levels found
in food. Furthermore, as this substance has been present in foods for
thousands of years (since humans started cooking their foods) it is not
a new risk, and therefore does not warrant an immediate change in
eating patterns until a very thorough risk assessment is completed. A
network of food science experts are working on this currently.
Moreover, food scare
stories are often reported out of context. A report stating that a
certain food product has higher levels of a chemical does not mean that
the elevated levels are harmful to human health.
While there are
cases where unscrupulous food manufacturers cheat by using unapproved
ingredients, these cases are the exception, rather than the rule for the
majority of our foods.
Some food scares are
merely a perception, as in the case of bird flu. While a number of
people have died as a result of bird flu, all the victims were exposed
to the virus on live or dead birds and not as a result of eating
chicken. Nevertheless, the association of an animal disease with
livestock led to a drastic reduction in the consumption of chicken even
in unaffected countries like Singapore and Malaysia.
The Real Risks and
Sensible Responses
The main cause of
food-borne illnesses is still microbial contamination; a fact that is
less often highlighted in the press than it deserves to be, except in
those cases where there are many victims.
In less developed
parts of Asia, contaminated water, lack of knowledge and inconsistent
standards in food production hygiene are still the maincauses of
food-borne illnesses. Hence, consumers can do a great deal to protect
themselves by practising common sense hygiene guidelines, such as
frequent and thorough hand washing, boiling drinking water, keeping food
at the right temperatures, etc, both at home and in their choice of
eateries. Washing fresh produce thoroughly in dilute solution of vinegar
or bicarbonate of soda, and then rinsing in clean water will remove most
potential contaminants, such as soil and surface residues.
Succumbing to food
scares may actually do more harm than good: The use of pesticides is
very strictly controlled by national authorities. Whilst there are
occasional cases of misuse and overuse of pesticides, national authority
monitoring reports demonstrate that these are the exception rather than
the norm.
Furthermore, the use
of carefully designed pesticides helps to keep the price of these
important foods low and therefore more available to a wide range of
consumers. Myths about the use of pesticide residues in fruits and
vegetables have caused some people to reduce their intake of these
healthful foods in a misguided effort to reduce their exposure to
pesticides. However, according to the World Health Organisation, low
fruit and vegetable consumption is one of the top 10 risk factors in
global mortality. Ironically, people who fear they may get cancer from
pesticides may be at greater risk from cancers and heart disease by
reducing their consumption of fruits and vegetables. To date, expert
consensus is clear that the low level of pesticide residues in fruits
and vegetables are not a recognised risk factor for cancer.
Worry about
contaminants like PCBs and mercury may drive people to lower their
consumption of healthful fish like farmed salmon. While there is
controversy over the levels of these contaminants, food safety
authorities in the UK and USA remind consumers that the issue of very
low levels of contaminants should be balanced against the health
benefits of eating these fishes. There is one important exception to
this advice, which is that pregnant and nursing mothers, and young
children are advised to limit their consumption of large fish such as
swordfish and shark as a precautionary measure to minimise their
consumption of mercury (for more information on this visit
www.afic.org)
Dietary
changes should not be made on the basis of a dramatic food scare
headline. Instead consumers are advised to seek more information
from reputable authorities before making unnecessary or even
harmful dietary changes.
Future Bright
Nevertheless,
government health officials, food processors, transporters and retailers
are becoming more aware of the issues of food safety and are taking
active measures to prevent lapses or correct inadequacies. Ingredients
and additives used in food and agriculture must go through a rigorous
approval process to ensure they are safe.
By the beginning of
next year, food manufacturers in the EU will be required
by law to trace all
their food products along the supply chain. The products have to be
tagged and traced at all stages of production to enable manufacturers to
identify the origin of each ingredient used in the making of a food
product. The move is intended to ensure greater accountability down the
line for manufacturers and result in higher food safety standards. Novel
tools such as traceability software, bar-codes and radio frequency
identification tags and their rapid adoption throughout the food
manufacturing chain will improve the efficiency of the process.
In addition, several
guidelines and standards, like the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical
Control Point) which has been adopted by the major food processors and
handlers already, and are now becoming more widely applied by smaller
operators in the food industry, will enable food producers to implement
safety standards throughout the production process. The impact of mad
cow disease in Europe, USA and Japan resulted in more stringent testing
of cattle and the banning of the practice of feeding cattle remains to
livestock. Whilst cases of mad cow disease will still surface from time
to time as a result of past practices, the elimination of animal parts
from livestock feed appears to have reduced the number of new cases
occurring very significantly.
Meanwhile, though
there are still unanswered questions like the issue of acceptable levels
of acrylamide, health agencies all over the world are unanimous in
their advice to consumers: Adopt a balanced and varied diet rich in
fruits and vegetables. Reducing variety in diet by cutting out food
groups, for example, is risky because it actually increases chances of
dietary imbalance or even deficiency.
