ADDITIVES
-- LOOK BEFORE YOU EAT!
You
walk into a supermarket. On the delicatessen counter there
are some sausages whose label reads: 'not less than 100%
meat'; in other words, there is nothing in them other than
meat. But it also reads: 'contains herbs, preservative and
colour' so, quite obviously, it must be less than 100% meat
. It works like this. Say you have 5 lbs of raw meat, but
after cooking it, its weight has dropped to 4 lbs. The law
allows you to make up that other lb. with a cheap filler.
You now have 5 lbs of the mixture and, because it weighs
the same as the original meat, you can call it 100% meat!
Asking my butcher the same question elicited a different
answer. He told me that it did not mean that the whole product
is 100% meat, merely that the meat that is in it is 100%
meat. My local Trading Standards Department confirmed that
the supermarket manager's answer was the correct one. These
two answers show that even the trade is not sure what the
law means. But either way, it is a fraud -- and it's legal.
Once upon a time, most of the population lived close to
the land. They either had a few poultry or a pig and grew
their own food, or they bought it from a neighbour whom
they knew. Then came the shift from the land to living in
towns and food for the urban populations was brought in
from specialist businesses.
The
consumer didn't know the producer, and if there was a choice,
he tended to buy the cheaper product. Producers, to compete,
had to find ways to cut costs; but unscrupulous ones had
already found ways to reduce costs to enhance their profit
margins. To reduce the production costs of a loaf of bread,
bakers fraudulently added such things as chalk, sawdust,
and pipe clay. Used tea-leaves were collected from hotels,
taken to factories and 'recycled'. The once-used leaves
were dried carefully with other dried leaves from the hedgerows
added, and then coloured with anything which came to hand
so that they looked new. From staples such as bread, cheese
and beer, to the more upmarket wines and coffee, all were
adulterated. The situation became so bad that it became
almost impossible to buy real, pure food. The populations
of the towns were so far removed from the producers that
they could do nothing about it.
In 1820 an analytical chemist, Frederick Accum, wrote a
book which became a best-seller. Entitled Treatise on the
Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons , and with the
skull and crossbones on the cover, the book told of the
widespread fraud in food manufacture. It heralded the start
of a campaign by Accum, together with the editor of the
Lancet , Thomas Wakley and a number of others, which went
on for over half a century, in an attempt to get government
to legislate against such fraud.
Governments dithered while the manufacturers claimed that
what they put in their products enhanced the taste or made
it last longer or that was the way the public liked it or
if they didn't, it would have to be too expensive for people
to buy. But Accum and his fellow campaigners won finally
when legislation was enacted in 1875 in the form of the
Sale of Food and Drugs Act which made it illegal to sell
food which was not 'of the nature, substance or quality
of the article demanded'. Based on the 1875 act, the 1984
the Food Act added strength to it by making it an offence
to 'add any substance to food, use any substance as an ingredient
in the preparation of food, abstract any constituent from
food, or subject food to any other process or treatment,
so as to render the food injurious to health'. Manufacturers
and retailers had to comply with the Trades Descriptions
Act food labelling regulations and it was an offence to
sell any food which was not of the nature, substance or
quality demanded.
Unfortunately compositional standards and minimum meat contents
regulations for a large range of meat products were removed
at the same time. Despite improvements in labelling, Trading
Standards Officers found that the meat content of 22 products
had dropped dramatically from an average of forty-six percent
to thiry-one. One chicken in gravy product fell from a fairly
respectable seventy-five percent meat, to only forty-five
percent meat.
In 1990 a new Food Safety Act (FSA) became law, revoking
certain aspects of the 1984 Act. It was an important statement
of government policy and was billed as the answer to the
problems which have been discussed. This Act, which is criminal
rather than civil law, covers fair trading as well as safety.
Under the FSA, food has to be what YOU, the consumer, expect
and want it to be. In line with the 1875 act, it is an offence
to sell 'any food which is not of the nature or substance
or quality demanded'. (Sect.14). It is also an offence to
give a false or misleading description of a food on labels
or advertising (Sect 15). If food is 'injurious to health',
it is an offence under Sect. 7, and the responsibility for
safety is put on the producer or seller in a new'due diligence'
clause (Sect.21). This means that they have to show that
they did everything in their power to ensure that a food
was alright; and that if something went wrong, it was outside
their control. This due diligence clause was potentially
good news for consumers as it should have encouraged food
traders to review their standards and improve them, particularly
as both producers and sellers of food have to ensure not
only that food is safe in the short-term but also in the
long-term (Sect. 7.2).
Consumers
can use this against producers of products with known long-term
health problems.
To aid the consumer, Government legislation demands that
packaged food should be packed and labelled with lists of
ingredients and certain nutritional data. But how helpful
is this really? Before the information on a label is of
use, it must be intelligible to the reader. If you don't
know how the decipher the codes, and I suspect many people
don't, then they are of no use at all. How often do you
walk into a supermarket, pick up the packaged item of food
that you are considering buying and read the ingredients
on the label? More importantly, if you do read them, are
you thinking food or are you thinking chemistry. What are
all those E numbers and chemicals? what are they for? and
why are they in there? Would you, for example, buy a product
whose label declared that its ingredients were:
Raspberry
Flavour Jelly Crystals: Sugar, Gelling Agents (Carrageen,
Dipotassium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride), Adipic Acid,
Acidity Regulator (Cream of Tartar), Flavourings, Thickener
(Carboxymethylcellulose), Artificial sweetener (Sodium Saccharine),
Colour (Betanin).
Raspberry
Flavour Custard Powder: Cornflour, Flavourings, Colour (Cochineal).
Trifle
Topping Mix: Vegetable Oil (Hydrogenated), Sugar, Emulsifiers
(Propylene Glycol Monostearate, Lecithin), Modified Starch,
Whey Powder, Lactose, Caseinate, Thickener (Carboxymethylcellulose),
Flavourings, Colour (Beta-Carotene).
Sponge
Fingers. (There are no ingredients listed for these.)
Decorations:
with Colour (Cochineal). (Again, no ingredients.)
A lot
of people would -- and do. Those are the ingredients of
a well-known Raspberry Flavour Trifle Mix. If we look at
these ingredients in more detail, some appear to be foods
-- but are they?
Sugar
and Lactose are nutritionally poor, highly refined sweeteners
which cause obesity, tooth decay and diabetes.
Vegetable
Oil (Hydrogenated) can be any vegetable oil, there is no
way to tell which, but the word, Hydrogenated, tells that
it has been hardened artificially and that it is a saturated
fat laced with trans-fats. Trans fats are known to be the
major dietary cause of heart disease (although saturated
fats are generally, but wrongly, blamed).
Whey
Powder is a cheap waste product used widely as a filler.
Modified
Starch ; There is no way, from the packet label, to tell
what this is. But generally it is a cheap cereal filler,
to bulk the product out. Starch is a very useful bulking
agent but, untreated, it is difficult to use. So scientists
have devised ways of treating it with acids, alkalis and
oxidising agents to make it more soluble, or heat resistant,
or to give it a variety of textures. Like sugar, these modified
starches are high in empty calories with little or no nutritional
value.
The
rest of the ingredients are largely chemicals with varying
degrees of toxicity from none to such symptoms as hyperactivity,
hypersensitivity, allergic reaction and even cancer. When
grandma made trifles, she didn't use chemicals, her jelly
contained fruit, she made custard from eggs and milk, and
the topping was whipped real cream.
Through
stories which occasionally appear in the media, people are
becoming aware that some food additives are harmful: the
yellow colouring, tartrazine (E102), for example has been
shown to cause hyperactivity in children. But toxicity is
only part of the additive problem. They are also there to
make as big a profit for the manufacturers as possible.
In many cases, those chemicals are there to defraud. And
it's all legal.
The
current trend for high-in-polyunsaturates margarines, followed
by ever lower fat, low-fat spreads is a perfect example
both of toxicity and fraud. Their toxicity and cancer-causing
properties are well known but in modern margarines, with
the current government backed propaganda to reduce fat intake,
we also have the perfect climate for fraud. Mix the polyunsaturated
margarine with cheap, nutrient-poor waste products such
as skimmed milk or whey powder, or make an emulsion of it
with plain water, and you have a low-fat spread. They even
whip it up with air and call it something like 'lite'. It
couldn't be cheaper to produce and, since its price competes
with that of butter, it can be sold at a vast profit. The
public is buying rubbish and paying the earth for it. I
can think of no reason why anyone would want a low-fat spread,
but if you do, why not merely spread butter thinner? That
would be cheaper and it's a heck of a lot healthier than
any margarine.
Modern
margarines are not the only forms of food fraud by a long
way. Many brilliant (and well paid) minds are inventing
new foods all the time. They hydrogenate fats; modify starches,
then thin or thicken them to give a range of textures; they
add emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives and antioxidants
to stop them going rancid, artificial flavours because they
have no taste or the taste is pretty foul, colourings to
make them more appealing, artificial sweeteners (several
of which are known to cause cancer), waxes, oils, bleaching
agents and improvers. Some of these additives are there
to make the gunge acceptable to the buying public. Some
is there so that it runs through the machines more easily.
The food content is generally so poor that what you buy
in most cases is an appetising-looking product which is
lacking in real nutrients. In many cases you get no real
food at all. Lemonade doesn't contain lemons -- even the
flavour doesn't come from lemons; cheese and onion flavour
crisps contain no cheese and no onion. The food scientists
can synthesise just about anything; and the ad-men can sell
it. And if they tell you it has added vitamins and minerals,
you are more likely to buy it -- so they do. If it were
real food, however, it wouldn't need to have vitamins and
minerals added.
Then
there's that great con where they get you to buy a product
-- and you have to add your own food. One classic is the
fruit pie mix. They start with a homely name: 'Grandma's
Traditional Cherry Pie Mix', put it in a package with an
appealing picture, advertise it on commercial television
and it will sell like the proverbial hot cakes. When you
buy it and look at the ingredients and instructions, you
will read something like: 'Cherry flavour pie mix -- just
add sugar, milk and eggs'. What you have bought is a mix
of chemicals -- you have to add the real food yourself.
There
are a few clues if you know what to look for. In the trifle
example above, we see the words 'Raspberry Flavour'. The
clue is in the word 'flavour'. The law allows the word 'flavour'
to be used when all that flavour is artificial. If it says
'Raspberry Flavoured Trifle', however, there must be some
real raspberry in it -- although there may not be much.
If the label proclaims 'Raspberry Trifle' then there will
be more fruit, although again there may not be much. When
artificial flavours are used, the manufacturers have some
6,000 to choose from; but you won't know what they are because
they are not subject to any regulation and they won't be
specified on the product's label. And don't be fooled if
the label tells you that the product contains natural flavours.
These will have come from a laboratory too.
Artificial
flavours are used to disguise the taste of poor quality
products. Smoked bacon is comparatively expensive to produce,
but dye ordinary bacon and use an artificial smoky flavour
and you can make more profit.
And
that is only part of the fraud. Bacon spits in a frying
pan because of the amount of water in it. Water is also
added to many other meat and fish products. The packet may
say how much extra has been added -- but it lies.
anufacturers
are allowed to add a certain amount of water without declaring
the fact. The amount of water they declare does not include
the amount allowed; so if the label says 'with 15% added
water', it really means 'with 15% added water on top off
the amount I am allowed to add without telling you'.
People
are demanding leaner meat so the fat is cut off it -- but
it isn't thrown away. Manufacturers don't throw a potential
source of profit away. Once fat is cut off, it has little
value, so it is used as a cheap filler, stuck together with
additives to bulk out other products. We aren't eating less
fat, it is merely being sold to us in a different, and more
expensive, form.
Even
though additives have to be listed on product labels, those
labels may only tell half the story, for enzymes used in
the processing of the product do not have to be listed.
Enzymes are used to tenderise meat, to clean milk contaminated
with antibiotics, to make modified starches and in the baking
and brewing industries. Some of these enzymes are made from
plant or animal tissue but most are made by microbial fermentation.
Naturally the industry says that they are safe but there
have been a number of reports of allergic reactions to them
in workers in the industry. The government's Food Additives
and Contaminants Committee published a report on enzymes
in 1982. It recommended that enzymes should be regulated
and that many should be placed in 'group B' because their
safety had not been proven.
Another
example of where additives are not labelled is in the case
of cheese that is 'suitable for vegetarians'. The rennet
traditionally used to curdle milk in the cheese making process
is made from animal products. So it is unacceptable to vegetarians.
Many cheeses today are made suitable for vegetarians by
using a form synthesised vegetable rennet. In most British
cheeses this is genetically modified soya. European labelling
laws require that products containing genetically modified
materials shall carry that information on their labels.
Cheese 'suitable for vegetarians', however, rarely does
because it is not an 'ingredient' but a part of the process
of cheese making.
Additives
in food are not only used to defraud -- to make cheap substitutes
for real food at a profit, they do it in a way that can
have a profound effect on your health. Not just because
many are toxic but because real food is replaced with cheaper
ingredients and the fact disguised. Healthy, additive-free
butter is not a great profit maker, but chemical-laden,
unhealthy, low-fat spreads are. By replacing real food with
artificial we risk various forms of malnutrition and deficiency
diseases, a situation which is particularly worrying in
the most vulnerable section of our society: the young. For
children, the consequences are potentially catastrophic.
We
have had legislation designed to protect the consumer for
over a century and it has had almost no effect on the amount
we are conned by the food industry. How do they get away
with it? Well, government is advised by the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods (MAFF) various committees.
Many of the members of those MAFF committees are members
of the food industry. It is the food industry that advises
government and shapes policy. If the food industry wants
something, it gets it. Consumers appear to have very little
voice in the matter. The next time you shop in your supermarket,
look at the labels. If the first, and thus the largest,
ingredient is water, or if you can't find any food among
the additives on the label, don't buy it. If we all get
together and don't buy a product, the manufacturers will
soon get the message and change. Write to your MP as well.
If enough of us do that, we might get somewhere.
References:
Study
by Shropshire Trading Standards Department on meat content
of meat products, pre and post 1984 Meat Products Regulations
, 1986, Shropshire County Council.
Millstone
E. Food Additives . Penguin, London, 1986.
Aruoma
OI, Halliwell B. Free Radicals and Food Additives. Taylor
and Francis, London, 1991
