Lies hidden in food labels

Heiry Vesga

University of Texas at El Paso

English 1312: Research and Critical Writing

Abstract

The food industry has been around ever since human civilization, and itll remain till the last existence of human beings. Technologies have been improving, day by day, ever since the invention McCormick's Reaper where its used as a tractor, but with horses to gather all sorts of grains, inventions have been developing quickly but not just because of the gains of money the manufacture owners were getting, but because of its increase demands for more food, to stay along with the increase of human population. Back then small serving were sustainable to keep a person alive, now its done in huge servings to satisfy a person. But thats just how it used to be and how it has change; the main topic is the food industry labels, because of the fact of increase population that there isnt enough workers mandating the regulations of food productivity and labeling. The 8 sources that have been chosen are mainly academic articles and important online journals, like the CNN. The sources are about explaining certain food products and the reason why labels should be improved; it explains what the nutritional fact is about and what youre consuming, also the risk of obesity and other health risks. Other non-scholarly articles are mainly about the differences in conventional and organic grown product and GMOs, since most food products are either grown conventionally or organically. The last source that will be use is the primary research, an online survey used by google form. There was 18 participants who decided to be part of my survey, I had like about 10 candidates I choose and the rest were random. The questions they will be answering, will be concerning on importance of food labeling, eating habits, conventional and organic grown, and GMO questions. There were 10 males, and 8 females, for the age range there was only one 17 and under participant, 14 of 18-24 age, 0 for 25-30, and 3 for 30 and older. For ethnicity there was 4 whites, 11 Hispanics/ Latinos, 2 Black/ African American, 0 Native American or American Indians, and 1 Asian/ Pacific Islander.

Lies hidden in food labels: Review of literature

Food is a big part of our life, it helps keep us in better shape, gives us energy, provides the nutrients that our body needs, and mainly, it keeps us alive. With better engineering there might not be any point on watching what youre eating, since there have been cases that conventional food doesnt cause any harm, but theres been studies on the side effects of Genetically Modified food. As the population has increased rapidly, so has the food industry grown and has changed dramatically by its use of chemical, food processing, and food technologies. Its a great change as you would see it compared to back then, when food was scarce and expensive as well as better food quality and now, we have all the food we need with greater amount of calories Center, P. o. (n.d.). History of food. The calories were consuming now are the wrong kind of calories that our body is taking in causing population growth of obesity, side effects, and low healthy lifestyle. Because of the falsity of labels, the public tends to consume more, because they believe its not going harm their body as a bacon burger would. Labels werent a big concern because most of the population didnt know how the food were made, what was doing to their health, and because the society trusted the food industry, since most are not a nutritionist expert. Now, the food industry is the main concern, because of articles and reports of outbreaks and diseases thats been arising upon the news media, that the public are starting to pay attention on what they buy and eat. Throughout the primary research, I will be searching related concerns about food labeling. The main questions that will be focused on, are:

1. Are Genetically Modified food healthy to eat?

2. Why should food labels be a big concern? And how has it changed?

3. What are the benefits that organic and conventional food provides?

Because its what you want to know when researching the background fact about a food you usually eat. The reason these three questions were chosen because before you get through the details of food labeling, you first want to begin with the history of how the food industry has changed. After that question has been answered, you now want to start researching of its use of chemicals and safety of its chemicals and the importance of food labels, and what the public thinks. With my primary research, a survey will be conducted on random people asking them if they check their food labels before purchasing, and the reason why they check their food labels or why dont they check it, and if they agree with the food industry not providing the whole information on the label. This research might help clear the question out if the public pays attention on what they eat, and if they actually care since the only reason nothing is being done about the chemical used in our food, its because nobody is voicing out their opinions, and by also doing this it might determine if food labels are big a concern in El Paso.

Are Genetically Modified food healthy to eat?

Genetically Modified are multiple genetic genes transmitted into certain foods. For instance crops genome uses a vector including as a minimum, viral promoters, transcription terminators, antibiotic resistance marker genes and reporter genes (Pusztai, 2001). Theres been cases that GM foods may cause defectiveness, but its uncertain because of lack of information and Data, its hard to predict since multiple genes are created without ever knowing, that it starts to create new genes that might be developing toxins without any warning signs, its also hard to analyze the new upcoming toxins and its very limited on the selection criteria. There hasnt been reports on side effects with the testing on rats, but the data is far less dependable, but that is just one report that was done by Science magazine, theres still more to research on. The testing on chemicals that was done havent been adequate, it couldnt possibly determine if its safe to consume the chemicals; and it doesnt explain the dangers it might have, but it has been said, consuming high biological activity may alter your gut and metabolism. To determine if this is true, they have done animal testing by focusing on the toxic and nutritional level on the rat.

The first testing was done by using the first safety GM tomatoes, the rats were fed with tomatoes that had kanr genes inserted. There was no alterations on the rats body weight, protein, and there was no case of toxic, but the data is not a significant source to rely on, because the weight wasnt measured correctly, the intestines werent checked, and 7 out of 40 rats died by unknown reason. The GM tomatoes cant be concluded safe, because of how the research was done, so theres has to be another possible way on determining the safeness of GM foods. Moving on to the second testing the rat and mice were fed with toasted glyphosate-resistant soybean (GTS) and non-toasted and there was no sign of defects on the organs, nutrition, and production of antibodies, but when they were under starvation theyre growing rate stopped. Even though the testing was unreliable and not functional, and theres been studies that GM foods has no risk on human health, theres still a big concern if the public should still consume GM food. Its been said that it may cause allergies and anaphylaxis in humans eating unlabeled GM foodstuffs. (Pusztai, 2001). When the gene is from a crop of known allergenicity, it is easy to establish whether the GM food is allergenic using in vitrotests, such as RAST or immunoblotting, with sera from individuals sensitized to the original crop. This was demonstrated in GM soybeans expressing the Brazil nut 2 S protein28 or in GM potatoes expressing cod protein genes (Pusztai, 2001) and It is also relatively easy to assess whether genetic engineering affected the potency of endogenous allergens.30, some farm workers exposed to B. Thuringiensis pesticide were shown to have developed skin sensitization and IgE antibodies to the Bt spore extract. With their sera, it may now therefore, be possible to test for the allergenic potential of GM crops expressing Bt toxin. (Pusztai, 2001). You may or may not be affected with allergic reactions if you consume GM food, but it hasnt been fully concluded about being affected with allergies since the new genes was moved to another source that hasnt been consumed yet. Researches havent been able to determine on how to test the predictability of allergens, the only testing that can be done on animals is nutrition and toxic levels, but not the development of allergies.

The results were from Arpad Pusztai who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. His research resulted in no defects, but with further research there was other results from a credible website who was funded by Jeffrey Smith a GMO expert, whos credited by improving government policies and influencing consumer-buying habits. Comparing these two websites the action bioscience resulted in neutral effects, there was no issues with the lab rats when they were consuming the GMO tomato and soybeans with no harm, but in the IRT website the results were different. In this article, the lab rats that were fed with tomatoes resulted in stomach bleeding and several died. They were fed for 28 days, 7 out of 20 developed stomach bleeding and the 7 out of 40 died within two weeks but despite the negative effect it had on the rats the tomato was still approved by the FDA scientist (Institute for responsible technology , n.d.). The second test when the mice were fed with soybean they developed unexplained testicular changes, organs differences, issues with their pancreases and weird differences with their metabolism, everything went back to normal when they stopped doing the soybean diet. There was also positive results on developing allergies from Bt toxin. There were cases of workers developing allergies from Bt cotton. They developed allergies on the skin, eyes, and also with their respiratory, 250 had to be treated.

Theres quite a difference between these two articles, because of its mixed up results its not known yet if GMO actually causes any problem. Theres many research still going on to determine whats safe to consume, its still better to be on the safe side on avoiding GMO food, but most likely every product in the U.S food market is based on GMO. For now since there isnt proof of GMO causing any defects, it shouldnt be considered as a deadly food if it provides the same nutrition and there shouldnt be nothing wrong with consuming GMO products.

Which one is beneficial, organic or conventional foods?

Food labels and how the food are processed is one thing on determining the quality of the food, but nobody has ever thought about how its grown? Well those are the things thats going to be mainly touch on, since the first thing that should be done is to dig through its main roots. Farming is not an easy job especially, since you have to process foods quickly as possible for the whole population of the United States, but its too bad the little pest and other unpleasant plants doesnt let you accomplish that goal, so what to do in that troubled situation? Easy, just spray pesticide and it will keep them away, itll also kill weeds, but theres been issues with people not agreeing the use of pesticides since it may cause harm, decrease on biodiversity, and decrease of natural resources. Since this issue has been growing attentively it has come to many attention to start testing the differences and the negative/positive impact with organic farming: growing naturally without any use of pesticide, or conventional: use of any kind of chemicals. The two that was mention are farming methods used on growing certain vegetarian. Theres also another article that was written by a journalist from the CNN news media company, declaring if its really true that organic food are more nutritional than conventional; the resent study he researched on was the same as the first article mention above.

With changes due to farming, such as weather, loss of soil, and loss of land for critters that biodiversity is rapidly decreasing. To save such species and diversity of genetics, few plan has been enacted such as the division of lands to continually farm and still preserve biodiversity. Organic farming is beneficial since it preserves the natural resources, soil, water, and energy but it seems to have little impact on crops, while conventional has a positive impact on its growth, it protects the plant from pesticides and its way faster than organic food. Biodiversity is the main issue to preserving such life, its where we get our medicine and create such vaccines, but it can also impact how agricultural is done, especially since by 2050 there will be an increase on human population over 9 billion, such demands cant be slowed down even though its highly important we preserve biodiversity. (Gabriel, Sait, Kunin, & Benton, 2011) Theres was a test on the efficiency of conservative vs. organic on the growth of plants and the abundance of critters. Organic was concluded as low as 54% on the growth, but with positive impact with biodiversity: grass, earthworms, bumblebees, butterflies, and epigeal arthropods. (Gabriel, Sait, Kunin, & Benton, 2011). Comparing with conventional, it had an increase on plant growth with the same positive impact with biodiversity, but in a different study organic growth had a compatible association with the species, 35% higher than conventional, by examination plants were the only biodiversity that had a positive impact with organic farming and species density was doubled up in organic. (Gabriel, Sait, Kunin, & Benton, 2011) The relationship between organic and conventional have been proved that its not the method you used on how youre going to grow certain things, but its by the less productivity of yields. Its what generally impacts biodiversity because there was still low connectivity in organic farming with species and plants, same goes with conventional. Conventional has been underestimated by the benefits it produces but still has a negative impacts on yields since that is what significantly reduces biodiversity, but generally speaking conventional had the same positive impact just like organic, so theres no truth on telling if organic is generally way better than conventional, or if conventional causes any negative impact, but then again the test was only conducted on one farm.

In the CNN journal article the recent study that was searched on, was systematic review and meta-analysis. That means it wasn't a new clinical trial or report of laboratory research. It was a specific kind of analysis that allows for a "study of studies." Basically, researchers set out to find all relevant research in a field, and then combine all of it together into one big analysis. (Carroll, 2014). In 2009 there was a study that seemed reasonable because it was a study between livestock and crops, there was thousands of research and only a few was chosen. Out of those few, the results were compatible; there was no differences between conventional and organic grown, but its not reliable since there is some imperfection with the data. This data didnt worked out so greatly, so the journalist decided to look into Stanford University review and by reading their review there was no significant source proving organic food as more nutritionist than conventional farming.

The only conclusion that was made about organic grown food is that it had higher antioxidants, what it does that it removes damaging agents from a living organism. Antioxidants doesnt work the same in different parts of the body, its not considered as nutritious so it really does not make a difference if you decide to buy organic or conventional food, because both of them will provide the same kind of nutrient, just that organic grown food will provide the most antioxidant, but theres no results proving antioxidant will lead us to a better health. But even though there isnt sufficient amount of proof and reliable results if whether organic is better than conventional, the public still prefers/demands organic grown products; in my recent study, I submitted a survey about the convenience of conventional and organic grown. 82% preferred organic over conventional, even though they knew there was no real facts about conventional causing harm. Roughly out of the 82%, only 17% preferred conventional; there was 18 responses, which means only 3 candidates chose conventional, while 15 chose organic. With the facts being proven that conventional was safe just like organic grown, people still preferred organic because they believe organic is better since its naturally grown and doesnt know what the chemicals actually are and what they do.

It may seem as organic food are the best thing to eat since its grown fresh and naturally, and by consuming conventional food youre causing the most harm to your body and the ecosystem, but when such test is performed as youve seen the one above, it proves how there isnt a difference between these two, just different type of growing methods. There still needs to be more test performed to determine the truthfulness between organic and conventional, since the test was only performed in one farm. As it have been shown, conventional grown food may seem as more hazardous and less suitable since its sprayed with several chemicals and pesticides, but it does not mean that organic grown food is better, because if you study the chemicals that are used, it will not show you how unhealthy it is for a human to consume, because in reality it does not effect the human body in any sort of way.

Why should food labels be a big concern? And how has it changed?

Theres been recent outbreaks about food industries not being honest with its labels, people are demanding for changes, but the question is, would it have any effect on what people consume? And would there be any positive or negative outcomes if the label did change? Determining what people eat and their eating habits, and the reason why people are demanding for a better food labeling system and if they actually care about the food labeling system, would explain if such changes should occur and how would the future be if it did happen. The research I conducted will be explaining all of these questions, including the secondary research that was conducted through reading few articles. The Food system is a big industry that just keeps growing in new food production, companies, production of synthesize chemicals, and development of grown products. It has increasingly changed over the years, some say it has change for the better and others have said that it has gotten worse, because of what the food product is being made of, chemicals thats being used on it, DNA modification since only certain vegetation is grown during seasonal time, and how its being grown.

Its visible to see that the industry is no longer the same as it used to be. Before there was a need for food, because of the lack of production since they didnt have the improved advance technology we now have. How the food is now grown has change, we no longer have to wait certain season to grow a certain fruit or vegetables and we now have synthesize chemicals thats supposed to be taking care of the grown product and keeping it from pest and weeds, but over the years people have started being open minded on the food theyre consuming because they dont want unnatural chemicals in their body. Theyve openly announced how they wanted new improved labels stating whats in their food that theyre consuming, because they feel like their rights are being taken away. Some demand for labels, stating that theyre eating engineer crop that are essentially promoting the use of pesticide and others asks for labels concerning about health risks and what the effect can be. But why are such demands being asked if certain chemicals are tested safe? The reason would be because of the fact some labels dont precisely state its nutritional facts. Some Nutrition fact labels dont indicate the real nutrition it has, for an example would be the german cereal, how only 36% met the criteria of right labeling. Maschkowski, G., Hartmann, M., & Hoffmann, J. (2014). BMC Public Health

People demand for improved labeling because they want to know what kind of risk theyre indulging themselves and what theyre consuming, so basically they want to maintain a healthy life style since the food industry has changed so much that the calories were consuming are the wrong type of calories. Theres been cases of blood clots thats due to unhealthy eating habits and Obesity; the increasing popular health problem in the U.S. Obesity is one of the main problems there is in todays society, because of the fact people are consuming foods that are not appropriate to their health, but consumption of big amounts of sugar, and depression and lack of sleep can also cause it because youre altering with your body sugar levels and its maintenance. Obesity has been causing deaths, and body parts to be removed, that its a serious concern. Being obese increases the risk of many chronic conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, certain cancers, and an arthritis. Nearly 36% of all American adults and 17% of children are obese. (Kiszko, K., Martinez, O., Abrams, C., & Elbel, B. (2014). A Review of the Literature Journal Of Community Health).

This is when the primary research will explain if the labels should be improved, and the eating habits of todays society, because such changes cant be implemented if people dont take the initiative of changing its eating habits. The primary research was conducted to further investigate the reason for people eating habits, why they consume the food they eat, and to possibly explain the reason for related health risks among the society, especially in El Paso. In the journey of investigating the eating habits of El Paso residents, 61% out of 38% concluded checking their labels before purchasing a certain food item, of the 18 candidates that answered 50% confirmed that they trusted the food labels while the other 50% didnt, and 61% believed that food labeling is a big concern and it should be improved. In these results, there seems to be a common path. It seems like most people do check their labels and do believe that it should be improved, and that it is a main concern in todays society. Food markets arent the only source of food, fast food was also part of the research project. It was concluded that most people visit the fast food restaurants, twice a week and all the time, mostly two candidate have answered that they never eat at a fast food restaurant. The reason for the visit, is because of its quick availability and because its convenient since he/she is a college student, others have said because its easier, its the only food theyre provided with since they work at a fast food place, its what their friends want, and because they dislike the school food, and the rest were invalid answers. In the other responses 50% said, they lead a healthy eating style and the other 50% said no, while the second response, 61% have responded saying they wish to change their eating habits and 38% said no.

Vesga, H. (2015). Food labeling system. El Paso TX: Google Forms.

Even though most have said they lead a healthy eating style, they still wish to change their eating habits, because theres always room for improvement, to get in shape, to make healthy choices and to live longer, its healthier, and to lead a healthy lifestyle. It was interesting seeing how people were concern on what theyre eating, and how food labeling is important. This research helped so much, because it kind of concluded on whos the one with the health problems and whos overly concern about the food labeling mandate. After the results were done, there was a difference in age, gender, and Ethnicity/Race; 18-24 were the primary age range, male dominated the sex chart, and Hispanics ranged the highest out of the other race. It was concluded that it was Hispanic young males that are probably in college, that were the ones who were mostly concern about the food industry/labels and being part of an online survey. In the image below will provide percentages of who participated in the survey.

Vesga, H. (2015). Food labeling system. El Paso TX: Google Forms.

Conclusion

After finally answering the important questions for this research project, it has been shown that theres still no absolute data of food products, and if GMO has any side effects. Theres no real results concluding if certain food product arent safe; even though the food industry has change, it hasnt changed for the worse but neither for the better. Theres actual facts that the food being consume today cause unhealthy risks, but with the primary research that was recently conducted, stated that the ones who are mostly concern about food labeling system, and whose mandating for improvements are the ones with health risks, who are probably older than 30. For a sure answer about the food labeling system, chemicals, GMO, demands, and side effects, there would have to be a repeated procedure on different lands, society, plants, and the human body to actually determine the quality of our food and if such things should be labeled.

Reference

Carroll, A. (2014, August 5). CNN. Retrieved from Is organic food better for you?: http://www.cnn.com

center, P. o. (n.d.). History of food. Teaching the food system , 9.

Gabriel, D., Sait, S. M., Kunin, W. E., & Benton, T. G. (2011). Food production Vs. biodiversity: comparing organic and conventional agricultural. Journal of applied ecology, 11.

Vesga, H. (2015). Food labeling system. El Paso TX: Google Forms .

Institute for responsible technology . (n.d.). Retrieved from 65 health risks of GM foods : http://responsibletechnology.org

Kiszko, K., Martinez, O., Abrams, C., & Elbel, B. (2014). The Influence of Calorie Labeling on Food Orders and Consumption: A Review of the Literature. Journal Of Community Health, 39(6), 1248-1269.

Kimbrell, G. A., & Paulsen, A. L. (2014). THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATE-MANDATED LABELING FOR GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS: A DEFINITIVE DEFENSE. Vermont Law Review, 39(2), 341-409

Maschkowski, G., Hartmann, M., & Hoffmann, J. (2014). Health-related on-pack communication and nutritional value of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals evaluated against five nutrient profiling schemes. BMC Public Health

Pusztai, A. (2001, June ). Action Bioscience . Retrieved from American Institute of Biological Science : http://www.actionbioscience.org