Swallow This (28 page)

A sobering assessment, but despite such warnings, the scientific ‘consensus’ needed to get regulators to act on the health risks of bisphenol A is not deemed to have been established, a situation not entirely unconnected with the packaging industry’s determination to quash any suggestion that its products might possibly cause harm. There are parallels here with the long war fought over proving the harm done by tobacco. Independent scientists were ringing alarm bells and regulators and consumers were acting on their advice, long before the damage caused by tobacco was ‘proved’ conclusively.

The same thing is happening with bisphenol A. However much the industry rebuts its critics and seeks to influence the bodies that regulate chemicals, the world is not wholly persuaded. Public concern has resulted in a ban on bisphenol A in packaging and reusable food containers, such as ‘sippy cups’, intended for children under the age of three in Canada, the European Union and the USA, and after a re-evaluation carried out by the French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, the French National Assembly and Senate voted to ban BPA from all food contact products by January 2015. Several cancer charities now advise people to avoid bisphenol A. Breast Cancer UK has called for a ban on bisphenol A in all food and drink packaging. Despite the determination of the packaging industry, the bad news about this chemical just won’t go away.

Another group of packaging chemicals, phthalates, has also been under the spotlight. These plasticisers, which are added to films and other packaging materials to keep them soft, have been shown to migrate into foods, particularly fatty ones; phthalates are ‘lipophilic’, that is to say, they like to hang out with fat. But fatty foods are not the only type of food that might be contaminated by phthalates. The highest levels of certain phthalates have been found in bread, not a fatty food.

Now the presence of phthalates in our bread, or any other food, is worrying because tests on animals link these chemicals to reduced fertility, and reproductive and testicular toxicity. And in people, increased levels of phthalates are associated with obesity and reduced masculinisation in newborn boys. Yet phthalates are all around us. In 2012 the UK’s FSA reported that 31 per cent of foods tested contained phthalates above the level set in European law. The contaminated packaging materials in question included a glass jar metal closure with PVC, a plastic container with a foil lid, a beverage carton made of paper, foil and plastic laminate, a foil-lined pouch, and several plastic bags in carton boxes. Just the sort of thing that all of us have in our kitchens.

And what about more commercial catering? When scientists at the University of Naples examined cooked food sent from a central kitchen to nursery and primary schools in sealed disposable dishes made from packaging materials with polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate-coated aluminium foil, nearly all of it (92 per cent) contained a phthalate. Fish and bread had the highest concentrations. This adds to the considerable body of evidence supporting the not revolutionary proposition that chemicals from packaging can leach into our food. Clearly, such exposure is not inevitable. Why not have kitchens in each school where paid people prepare fresh food on wood, steel, glass and ceramic? In this sense, the container-loads of throwaway materials that now swathe and embalm our food and drink are the packaging equivalent of the zero hours contract. They represent a disinvestment in permanency and durability, be that re-usable utensils or people, for an industrial food system that encourages disposability, a system based on short-term savings that doesn’t factor in the cost to human health.

Controversy over chemicals, such as bisphenol A and phthalates, has been aired for decades, but the same cannot be said for nanoparticles, an emerging technology. Nanoparticles, which are far too minute to see with a microscope, are derived from materials such as clay, silver, titanium, silica and zinc oxide, and are increasingly used in food and drink packaging. They can perform certain ‘smart’ functions: extending the shelf life of food by decreasing the permeability of plastics, acting as anti-bacterial coatings, or making packaging lighter and stronger. Nanosilver, for example, is used to coat plastic food containers so that anything stored within can be sold for longer. Nanoclays can be incorporated into the fabric of plastic bottles to prevent oxygen from migrating through the walls and shortening the shelf life of the contents.

A boon for the food industry and consumers, surely? Unfortunately, in echoes of bisphenol A and phthalates, it looks as if nanoparticles can also leach from packaging into food and drink. Researchers recently found, for instance, that aluminium and silicon nanoparticles migrated from plastic bottles into an acidic medium – of the kind you find in fizzy drinks and juices – and that this migration increased with time, and at higher temperatures.

Should we be worried? The potential health problem with nanoparticles is their minuteness. They are about one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair, which makes them more reactive and more bioactive than larger particles of the same substance. This means they can end up in places that larger particles would not – our cells, tissues and organs, where they can accumulate to ill effect. Nanoscale zinc oxide, for example, has been found to cause lesions in the liver, pancreas, heart and stomach in laboratory animals. The European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has warned that ‘clear positive toxic responses [in some of these tests] clearly indicate a potential risk [of nanoscale zinc oxide] to humans’. Other research suggests that nanoparticles of titanium dioxide can damage DNA, disrupt cell function, and interfere with the defence activities of the immune system. One emerging scientific theory is that nanoparticles absorbed in the gut may be a factor in the growing prevalence of inflammatory conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, and Crohn’s disease.

The European Commission acknowledges that nanoparticles could cause health damage. It cites evidence from laboratory studies that nanoparticles can promote clumping of protein molecules, a factor in a number of medical conditions. It also acknowledges that they can be transported from the upper lining of the nose [by inhalation] into the lungs and brain, a particular hazard for factory workers who have to handle nanomaterials. ‘Full evaluation of the potential hazards is still to come’, the European Commission reports, in a vaguely promising sort of way. In the USA, the National Academy of Sciences is more impatient and warns that ‘critical gaps’ in understanding [of nanoparticles] have been identified but ‘have not been addressed with needed research’. Basically, nanotechnology is out and about, and in contact with our food and drink. Regulators have been caught on the hop. The Institute of Food Science and Technology – the professional body of food technologists – has expressed concern that nanoparticles are being used in food packaging, despite migration rates and exposure risks being unknown, and it notes:

There does not appear to be a requirement for the supplier to specify the inclusion of nanoparticles in packaging materials and neither, due to the lack of end-product labelling requirements, is the consumer likely to be aware of the composition of the packaging material.

About 400–500 nanopackaging products are estimated to be in use now, and nanotechnology is predicted to account for 25 per cent of all food packaging by 2020. In fact, packaging is just the advanced guard for this novel technology; nanotech additives are already out in force on US shelves. Nanosized titanium dioxide, for example, is now turning up in products such as coffee creamer, cookies, cream cheese, turkey gravy, lemonade and chocolate. Fresh fruit and vegetables can also be coated with a thin, wax-like coating, containing nanoparticles, to extend shelf life.

Could nanotech additives also be in the UK and European food chain? The truth is that no-one really knows, and there has been no legal obligation on food manufacturers to inform us of their presence. In Europe, the labelling of food products containing nanoparticles has been a battleground. As usual, large food manufacturers and the nanotech lobby have been lobbying for light-touch regulation that would allow them generous room for manoeuvre. A European Union regulation that requires foods (not packaging) containing nanoparticles to be labelled with the word ‘nano’ in brackets next to the relevant ingredient or additive came into force in December 2014. In theory, this should flag up whether the silver in your cake decorations and up-market chocolates, or the titanium dioxide in your marshmallows and icings, have a nanohistory. But don’t expect the shelves to be flooded with such nanolabels. Food and drink manufacturers continue to wrangle with regulators over the exact definition of nanoparticles, arguing that they have been using the same materials for years. Titanium dioxide in its conventional form, for instance, already has an E number: E171. It is also extremely difficult to detect and test for ‘intentionally introduced’ nanoparticles in food and drink, so ultimately, manufacturers risk little legal wrath if they continue to use ingredients in their nano form in products without also using the word ‘nano’ on the label.

So nanoparticles may very well continue to be the ultimate mystery ingredients not only in packaging, but also in food and drink. Indeed, a considerable effort is under way to push nanotechnology deep into the fabric of our food chain. Many transnational food and drink companies are investing heavily in nanotech research and development, and going by their track records, will expect a return on their investment.

The thing is, whether you’re talking imperceptible nanoparticles, or the well-stocked pharmaceutical cabinet of chemicals that perform sterling service in the production of food and drink packaging, the obvious question arises – just how many minute doses of toxins can we be exposed to before our bodies abandon resistance and get ill? Toxins, just like bad luck and playground bullies, gang up, and when they do, the results aren’t pretty.

Who doesn’t know someone with a food allergy, or asthma, or irritable bowel syndrome, or with cancer, for that matter? Closed-minded toxicologists refer back to the philosophical musings of Paracelsus to justify an accommodating attitude to toxic compounds in our food chain and environment as they examine each one in splendid isolation from the safe confines of the laboratory. The rest of us, however, are right to question the comforting pronouncement of the imperturbable Paracelsus, frozen in the 16th century, that small doses of poison do us no harm. We can be open-minded enough to consider the very real possibility that by activating, blocking, hijacking or otherwise messing with the normal functioning of our bodies, engineered chemicals are contributing to a wide range of human health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, infertility and other disorders of sexual development. And if we do take this proposition seriously, then reducing our exposure by minimising the amount of packaged food and drink we consume is one obvious place to start.

Postscript

On the morning of 1 January 2014, I found myself standing in a blissfully quiet Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, looking at Floris Claesz. van Dijck’s inimitable painting,
Still Life with Cheese
. A table is draped in a damask cloth with a remarkably life-like meal set out upon it. Rough-hewn cheese, stacked in rugged halves, forms the centre point. Bowls spilling over with apples, pears and grapes flank the cheese. In the foreground, next to crusty bread rolls, lies a half-eaten pear on a pewter plate, some cracked nutshells, and a curling ribbon of fruit skin. A paring knife rests on the cheese plate behind a half drunk glass of wine or water, as if the person who was eating this simple yet generous meal had just left the table for a few minutes to do something else.

Van Dijck was a celebrated ‘alte meister’ of the Dutch Still Life school that flourished in Europe’s Low Countries in the 1600s, which was renowned, amongst other things, for its meticulous depiction of food. Throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, and in many of the world’s most distinguished museums, you can view paintings by van Dijck and other Old Masters, showing pomegranates, lobsters, cooked hams, quinces, steaks, fish smoked and raw, cherries, loaves, game birds, raised pies, crabs, lemons, and many other ingredients from the larder of that period.

The eerie thing about these works of art is just how real and present the food seems. Looking at
Still Life with Cheese
made me hungry. I wanted to pick away at that bunch of grapes, slice myself a wedge of cheese, and maybe tear off a chunk of the bread, before the invisible diner returned.

This painting is dated as circa 1615, but it had a potent contemporaneous effect on me. The food looked so honestly good, so wholesome in a sound, intrinsic way, that it put me in mind to visit one of Amsterdam’s cheese shops, then drop by one of the greengrocer’s stores that are still found in the city’s high-density residential areas, to put together my own little table-top feast.

A thought hit me then on that rainy reflective day that has not left me since. Even though it was painted four centuries ago, the food so carefully reproduced by van Dijck is food that I can still strongly relate to. I can instantly understand what it is. I can visualise where it came from, how it was made, grown, farmed or fished. That familiarity sharpens my appetite.

The same cannot be said for the burgeoning portfolio of modern manufactured food products that increasingly occupy the foreground of our diets. Presented with contemporary shopping trolleys filled with elaborate edible constructions, van Dijck, his contemporaries, and followers, would experience considerable difficulty finding something they recognised as food. ‘What’s this then?’ they might ask, as they rummaged through the low-fat spread and Coco Pops®, perplexed. And being so scrupulous in their faithful reproduction of natural detail, I could see them scoffing at the blatant disparity, so evident to the artist’s eye, between the eye-grabbing visuals on the packaging, and the drab, washed-out contents. I doubt that the appearance of many modern manufactured foods would spur them to put oil to canvas. There is so little beauty in ingredients that have been designed by food technologists and industrially processed out of their natural state.