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What's for dinner tonight?

Quamrul Haider
WHEN the great Persian poet Omar Khayyam wrote: "A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness—Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!" his loaf of bread was probably made from pure wheat flour and the wine was free of sulfites or aging enzymes.
That was more than 900 years ago. If you had a slice of bread with fruit jam for breakfast this morning, you unknowingly ingested a plethora of chemicals passed on as food additives, some of which are monoglycerides, calcium propionate, potassium bromated in the bread, and sodium metabiphosphite, sodium benzoate, synthetic food colour and citric acid in the jam.
If you had your favourite cereal for breakfast, you allowed a hard-to-pronounce carcinogenic petroleum-derived chemical (Butylated Hydroxytoluene) used in jet fuel and a waste product (Soy Lecithin) filled with pesticides and herbicides to enter your body. If it was a bagel or Danish, you downed a tongue-twisting derivative of urea (azodicarbonamide) commonly found in rubber products and synthetic leather. Although they do not add any nutritional value to the food, they have nevertheless become a significant part of our diet.
Gone are the good old days when food products bought from the stores or from the ferrywallas were nutritious and chemical-free. Nowadays, most of the foods we eat are saturated with preservatives, pesticides and chemicals. They are used to maintain the freshness and texture, and to enhance appearance and flavour of foods. They also give foods a longer shelflife. It's a truism that longer the foods' shelflife, the shorter is ours.
The effects of the additives extend well beyond their "intended" sphere of activity. There is an "unintended" sphere of activity which is, of course, the human body. Foods processed with chemicals can cause a world of health problems for us.
Listed below are some commonly used food additives and their adverse effects:
1. Aspartame: Commercially known by various brand names (Equal, NutraSweet and Splenda), it is used for sweetening diet soft drinks. It can cause seizures, headaches, mood disturbances, reduced mental performance and affect short-term memory. It can also cause cancer;
2. Sodium Benzoate: It is used as a preservative in a variety of processed food products and drinks. In soft drinks, it may react with added Vitamin C to produce benzene, a cancer-causing substance;
3. Sodium Nitrite: Used for curing sausages, smoked fish and canned meats, it might cause gastric cancer;
4. Olestra: A fat substitute used primarily in potato chips, it will interfere with the body's ability to absorb some crucial nutrients like beta-carotene and lycopene. It may also cause abdominal cramping and loose stools;
5. High Fructose Corn Syrup: When added to processed foods and non-diet soft drinks, it raises the risk of obesity and Type-2 diabetes;
6. Artificial colouring: Erythrosine, Allura Red, Tartrazine, etc., are known to cause increased hyperactivity in children. Allura Red is a dye manufactured from coal tar or petroleum;
7. Phthalates: It is a synthetic hormone found in dairy products and meats. It is an "endocrine disruptor" and can affect male reproductive development;
8. Propyl Callate: Used to prevent vegetable oil, meat products, chicken soups and chewing gum from spoiling, it can trigger allergic reactions, cause stomach and skin irritation, and possibly damage the liver and kidney.
The impact of food additive is far more complex than purists or adulterers would have us believe. Some additives, originally believed to be safe, were later found to be toxic. But there should be no doubt that most of the additives will damage our health. Many of the additives may cause cancer in different organs of our body. The cancer may not become obvious immediately because there is a latent period between the time of incipient damage and its expression in the form of detectable cancer.
So, what should you have for dinner tonight? It is easier to answer the question in the negative. "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognise as food."
The writer is Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.