My response isn’t specific to the concept of “chemicals” but I wanted to mention that food being tainted and compromised has probably been an ever present (and sometimes justified) fear in human societies. I think that the “chemicals” are a modern interpretation of that phenomenon.
For example, products like bread and cheese were often adulterated in Victorian England and mixed with cheap and sometimes dangerous substitutes. Some other examples are lead being used to cut sugar and meat treated with chemicals like formaldehyde to make it last longer. It was only in the past 120-ish years that laws were passed to prevent this but tainted baby formula is still sold in some countries.
I think it’s distrust of the corporation.
How they do sneaky things like change the names of sugars. Or change an ingredient for a cheaper alternative and now it’s fat free! Over and over these companies have been proven liars.
I believe it was Rachel Carson who popularized it in her book Silent Spring. An important work but since then the fear against chemicals has probably been taken too far and in some cases misinformation has been willfully presented to an ignorant public because various people or companies can make a quick buck.
I certainly don’t have the qualifications or time to look into the claims of doom made by people who talk about the evils of “chemicals” in food, but I do think part of it is people thinking that if they “eat clean,” they can avoid chronic diseases (cancer is the one most commonly mentioned.)
I think a lot of it is people needing to pretend like they have some control over things that they don’t really control. They can delude themselves into thinking they won’t get a cancer diagnosis someday if they avoid certain foods. Personally, I try to eat healthy to lessen my chances of heart disease and stroke since there is a clear link to that, but I think it’s very wishful thinking that I am going to be safe from cancer if I avoid chemicals in foods.
Isn’t that discussion strictly from a psychology standpoint, not a nutritional standpoint? People will choose honey over sugar any day because it’s more natural when there is negligible nutritional difference. Still I’d like to see what the professionals have to say on the matter.
Personally, I find stuff like sodium bicarbonate to be a lot less scary when I learn about where the base mineral is mined from. I guess the biggest problem with trisodium phosphate is that it could build up faster than our kidneys could flush it since it is in everything. Also, it can eat skin, but so can concentrated raw pineapple. Coloring the food with a dye made from coal tar is unnecessary, especially when so many people have a negative reaction.
i have to assume part of it just general apprehensiveness to things you may not know or are unfamiliar with. i think in modern times it’s a combination of that plus the mass mass media grift on selling people alternative but expensive foods. I remember when gluten free was first a thing, treated as something can could alleviate ASD symptoms, then it became a fad diet, and now it’s a multi billion dollar industry with it’s own circle of proponents.
It’s clear to see where a fear of GMOs can come from, GMOs are unnatural try this pesticide free, locally grown blah blah blah for X amount. Don’t drink water from the tap, it has chemicals like fluoride, drink raw water, don’t worry about the pond scum.
The documentary on the beginnings of the FDA goes over some of the fears behind chemicals in food (and the reasons why). It’s worth watching. The Poison Squad
>> By the close of the Industrial Revolution, the American food supply was tainted with frauds, fakes, and legions of new and untested chemicals, dangerously threatening the health of consumers. Based on the book by Deborah Blum, The Poison Squad tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley who, determined to banish these dangerous substances from dinner tables, took on the powerful food manufacturers and their allies.
Quite reasonably, we fear adulteration of our food because it has convincingly occurred.
125 years ago, food in USA was adulterated by a vast array of substances. Sometimes the labeled product was not even present. Chalk & water mixed together and labeled as “milk.” Sawdust labeled as cornmeal. Products were contaminated with heavy metals, solvents, and dangerous dyes & preservatives.
“The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation’s first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
Food is intimate because it is taken into our body and then broken down to become part of our body.
People’s Republic of China citizens were recently surveyed: among their top 3 fears was adulteration of food supply.
The specific gravity of powdered milk is weighed and tested. Some genius observed that melamine had the identical specific gravity. For several years, powdered milk was adulterated with melamine undetected.
People were feeding their babies powdered milk, who developed kidney disease. A betrayal of the social contract.
It’s definitely not the specific chemicals considering how easy it is to get people outraged about dihydrogen monoxide. People just tend to fear things that sound scary, especially when presented a certain way, and this has been done with a variety of chemicals. Add to that the fact that oftentimes dangerous substances are referred to by their chemical names, and you get this conviction that things you don’t recognise must be inherently bad. It’s a lot of appeal to nature fallacy without really taking a moment to understand that vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc, are chemicals with complicated names too.
many people have high blood pressure or diabetes. They are told to watch their salt and sugar intake. When it’s a chemical name, they don’t know what it means, so then they fear they have to take more insulin, test their BP etc
No matter how you slice it, the general theme is that a diet with natural whole foods and less processed foods tends to be more healthy. The correlation between ancestral behaviors and health is intuitive. The result is that people who value health tend to have a well-founded avoidance of artificial ingredients which tend to contribute rather than fight chronic disease moreso than natural foods. Many man-made aspects of the world have unintended consequences in this way due to technology often having more power than humans are capable of managing properly. The question overlooks these points.
The process of trying to educate a largely uncaring public led to a lot of propaganda style mythologizing of certain words and ideas, and nuance and subtlety get utterly lost. It’s not really hard to understand. About the best we can hope for is that it leads more people into asking questions, or, in aggregate, has a beneficial effect on peoples behavior. Honestly if people just ate actual whole foods that didn’t have anything that required labeling as a chemical the population as a group would be a lot healthier. It’s a double edged sword.
I’m convinced that the increase of autism since 1985 (1 in 1000 births) to today (1 in 64 births) in the western world has to do with repeated ingestion of unnatural chemicals in the food supply. I might not be correct, but it would seem that sodium chloride instead of “table salt” is overblown and the elephant in the room is the stuff being sprayed on the food in the fields. Just my 2¢
Chemicals are everywhere! It’s hard to avoid them completely, but here is some advice on how you can reduce your exposure.
The first step would be eating organic produce since they don’t use pesticides which often end up in our foods through farming practices such as using synthetic fertilizers or Round-up weed killer ( among others ). You might also want to purchase food with no added preservatives—that means no processed snacks at all cost since those usually contain harmful chemicals too
I think there’s an ever growing awareness/fear of the pollution we’ve done to the planet. The air is dirty, the water has lead in it, veggies have like half the vitamins they used to, the soil is depleted, the pesticides are in the drinking water, it’s just a toxic mess out there. So I think people are just subtly losing it in fear of being trapped on a planet that is more poisonous then ever
I feel that in American culture (and maybe other countries too) there is just a huge lack of trust in the experts. I’m sure there are tons of factors that play a part. As a dietitian, I see the food marketing side of things playing a large role. I have had DM patients who refuse to put “chemicals” in their body so they continue to drink their regular coke. Meanwhile, their blood sugar is at very high and unsafe levels. Educating these people is the key. Explaining that Diet Coke is a better option for them over their regular coke, because of their health and what is happening inside their bodies. Please note that water should be our first choice, but we need to meet people where they are.
I guess what I am trying to say that it is our job as food scientists, dietitians, public health workers, or any experts in our fields to EDUCATE and not judge. I can’t say this enough, because regardless of your expertise there are going to be tons of people who are ignorant to what you know and when you put them down for not knowing this will only cause them to “rebel” or not listen.
I’m a chemist. Every molecule in food is a “chemical.” So not all “chemicals” are bad.
However… in every beginning laboratory class we say “never eat anything in the laboratory & certainly never eat anything created in the laboratory.” 1) So many of the added chemicals in food were made in a laboratory. How can that make any sense. I don’t care about purity arguments bc most chemical processes don’t have 100% purity, so you’re eating the chemical & any allowable level of impurity from solvents, by-products, etc. 2) I think there are a lot of chemicals on labels that people aren’t familiar with. When we aren’t familiar with things (races, foreign lands, chemicals, activities like flying, etc) we’re often afraid. When I don’t recognize a chemical on a label, I definitely don’t eat it. That’s really scary when a chemist can’t recognize the crap you’re trying to put in food.
What I really hate is there is zero primary school learning focused on nutrition. I entered an RD/food science undergrad out of high school and you start from the very basics because there is no K-12 requirements of the subject in America. I am now in a nutritional science program bc my food science degree didn’t actually cover how nutrients work in the body’s systems.
Everyone’s points about Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, etc are correct. Highly processed and refined foods cause the SAD (Standard American Diet) to be the prominent diet of our country and any country who adopts our eating habits. We are currently living in a nutrition apartheid in America from the food deserts in rural and low income areas where nutrient depleted, highly processed foods are widely available but have zero access to fresh or even frozen whole fruits & vegetables. Whole food nutrition is treated as a luxury for the rich to buy. The agriculture subsidization program and the US government’s commitment to releasing harmful chemicals for the general public to consume for years or even decades before proper research is done adds to the corruption. I think johnson & johnson is a great example of just how harmful a company can be even though it’s mainstream and well established. And it’s also speculated that the high amount of unproven chemicals in our food is what is causing exponentially high diagnoses of food allergies and autoimmune diseases every year. Speculation has also been made that glyphosate exposure has led to higher cases of celiac and gluten intolerances; as someone who developed a gluten intolerance ~5 years ago I can definitely say I was regularly eating cheap wheat products leading up to my diagnosis, and it was the first time in my life regularly doing so. I understand that not all chemicals are bad, but man-made, unnecessary, for-profit developed chemicals, additives, and preservatives are what I always recommend people avoid and no amount of rationalizing from food scientists will convince me otherwise at this point.
I never got my RD because the year I was supposed to do my dietetic internship I attended the ADA convention which was sponsored by Coca-Cola and Subway and that was so absolutely backwards to me. The industry is bastardized by conglomerates and I don’t believe it’s salvageable at this point.
A lot of myths regarding science is spread amongst the mentally poor. Do your own research and only mingle with people who know what they’re talking about. PM me if you wanna talk diet, nutrition, or health.
See you at the top.