Toxic chemicals used in food preparation can
leach into human bodies.
However, Americans love ultraprocessed foods.
Ultraprocessed foods comprise more than half the calories the average American
adult eats. They are up to 70% of the American diet. But they are linked to a
wide variety of health issues including heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
In October 2023, California in US banned four
substances — BVO, red dye No. 3, potassium bromate and propylparaben due to
their links with serious health concerns as cancer, endocrine and reproductive
issues, and heart and liver problems. For example:
Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, is vegetable
oil modified with bromine. It is used to suspend citrus flavorings into sodas
and juice drinks, where it prevents the flavoring from separating during
shipping and storage.
BVO leaves residues of bromine triglycerides in
body fat and fat in the liver, heart, and brain. Excessive bromine accumulation
in the body results in bromine toxicity, which causes damage to the central
nervous system, headaches, nausea, memory loss and loss of coordination,
Another case, red dye No. 3, a synthetic color
additive made from petroleum and chemically known as erythrosine, was used to
give foods, candy and beverages a bright cherry-red color. But scientists have
discovered its links to cancer in animals.
Meanwhile, black-colored plastic used for
kitchen utensils and toys is linked to banned toxic flame retardants.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the newly confirmed lead of
the Department of Health and Human Services in US has pledged to tackle these ultra-processed foods, food dyes and additives and spoken out against these
ingredients that hurt health.
In fact, he has frequently advocated for eliminating
ultra-processed foods which are “poisoning” people, particularly children. These
foods altered to include added fats, starches and sugars, like frozen pizzas,
crisps and sugary breakfast cereals, that are linked to health problems like
cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
And so Kennedy wants to ban ultra-processed
foods from school cafeterias.
The former Democrat has also singled out other
controversial health issues including seed oils, pasteurized milk and fluoride
in drinking water.
He has come after seed oils, writing on social
media that Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by products like canola
and sunflower oil that are used in fast foods.
But public health experts and former officials
said a number of Kennedy’s goals were not worthwhile - and in some cases,
harmful.
For instance, he believes raw milk has health
benefits despite the increased risk of bacterial contamination. But drinking
raw milk that has not been pasteurized - a process that helps kill bacteria -
can make people sick or even kill them.
“There's no evidence of any nutritional benefit
of any magnitude that we know that comes from non-pasteurizing of milk,” said
Dr Peter Lurie, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a non-profit group in US that advocates for food safety.
Kennedy’s proposal to remove fluoride from
drinking water and be banned altogether also could be problematic, because
fluoride, in the low levels found in water, has been proven to improve dental
health, said University of Michigan nutritional sciences professor Jennifer
Garner.
And his claim that seed oils are helping drive
the obesity epidemic is not based in science, either, Dr Lurie said.
“We see no evidence for that. In fact, they seem
like important products to the extent that they substitute for saturated fats
such as butter”, he said.
