Chemicals in the food we eat.

In todays day and age things are being produced with chemicals. More and more chemicals have been used as the years have gone. Products and food have been using chemicals to make things less expensive. Having the products use chemicals usually means that they can make more of these due to the decrease in price of keeping the products good. Is it okay that we are using chemicals to make more of something but less safe for people? In the case of food there is a major problem with chemicals.

The food industry not only uses harmful chemicals in their foods but many farm sure chemical to keep the products from going bad or to keep animals away from them. There are many harmful chemicals thats are being used n many foods and you should know which of them they are to avoid eating them. The top ten toxic food ingredients are 1. Palm Oil 2. Shortening 3. White Flour, Rice, Pasta, and Bread 4. High Fructose Corn Syrup 5. Artificial Sweeteners 6. Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Benzoate 7. Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) 8. Sodium Nitrates and Sodium Nitrites 9. Blue, Green, Red, and Yellow 10. MSG (BetterHealthStore) All of these foods and chemicals are in so many of the foods that most people eat everyday. Processed foods are a reason why so many people are having illness due to these chemicals that are being used in these processed foods. Cancer has been linked to many of these chemicals. Sweeteners are also a major issue for people all around the world. The chemical that we use to sweeten our drinks are very bad for you. These sweeteners have been linked to causing cancers. The best way for you to sweeten your drinks is through natural sugars. Many of the candies that are made today use many of the chemicals listed before. These candies chemicals are not the only thing that is affecting this society in a negative way though. These candies have large amounts of sugars contained in them which has spiked an increase in obesity in recent years.

Many of the farms use chemicals to preserve their products. These chemicals are used to try and keep animals from eating them. Wouldn’t you think that if these chemicals are harmful to the animals that they would also be harmful to the humans that are eating them? People think that are they wash their products off with water before eating it that all the chemicals have been washed off. Is this true? No, some chemicals while still remain on the surface of the products. Daily mail states “One chemical, which has links to cancer, birth defects and infertility, remained on the skin of apples despite the basic kitchen practice. Others remained both on the outside of potatoes and within the flesh, even after cooking.” People don’t even known the half of the chemical that are being used in the foods they are consuming. This is a major issue in all countries around the world.

Many different companies are trying to make their products more clean by going organic. The best way to eat is organic.

Chemical issues

For my civic issues post i choose to focus on something that is often over looked, chemicals. There are so many chemicals being used today in so many different way that we just aren’t seeing. Chemicals today are almost put int everything. The issue that I am focusing on today is chemicals in food. The chemicals companies are putting in their products are negatively affecting its consumers. There are many chemicals that we are using in our foods today. The breast cancer fund says “Modern food-production methods have opened major avenues of exposure to environmental carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting compounds. Pesticides sprayed on crops, antibiotics used on poultry, and hormones given to cattle expose consumers involuntarily to contaminants that become part of our bodies. Some of these exposures may increase breast cancer risk.” These chemicals are being used to try and preserve foods that a company is making. Companies also use chemicals in their food products to try and make it look better.

Animals are being feed antibiotics that can be harmful for humans to digest. There are many chemicals that are in these foods that are also leading to certain diseases and cancers. Also many times these chemicals can be found on farms. Many farms us harmful pesticides to try and keep their crops free of bugs and animals. These pesticides though are harmful for humans to digest To that, many things that food are keep in release chemicals as well. For example, Bisphenol A (BPA) can be found in reusable plastic food containers and the lining of food and beverage cans. Research shows that BPA exposure is linked to breast cancer, and has been shown to interfere with chemotherapy treatment for the disease. There needs to be a better way to farm without the use of these harmful pesticides. Many of the wrappings that these products are being packaged in contain harmful chemicals. In an article from ewg it states “New research based on nationwide tests shows that many fast food chains still use food wrappers, bags and boxes coated with highly fluorinated chemicals.’ The chemicals in these wrappings are extremely harmful to the consumer. The coating on the wrappers is what makes the chemicals bad to consume.

“Scientists from nonprofit research organizations including EWG, federal and state regulatory agencies, and academic institutions collaborated to collect and test samples of sandwich and pastry wrappers, french fry bags, pizza boxes, and other paper and paperboard products from 27 fast food chains and several local restaurants in five regions of the U.S. They found that of the 327 samples used to serve food, collected in 2014 and 2015, 40 percent tested positive for fluorine, a likely indicator of the compounds known as PFCs or PFAS chemicals.” These chemicals that are in these wrappers have been linked to causing cancer. There are ways to prevent this this though. There are organic ways to wrap these products. There is many ways to prevent these chemicals from being used, many of these companies though use them because they are cheap. If more companies tried to g o organic many lives could be saved.