<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
Although there are some food manufacturers are quite cooperative, in my 17
years of experience as a celiac doing **numerous** checks of ingredients
they are, unfortunately the exception more than the rule. The food
labeling laws in the United States are more or less of a (cruelty) joke -
with phrases like " contains _______ and/or ___________" , "contains one
or more of _______", "contains ________ing agents". They might just
as well say "contains ingredients". But even THAT is not the worst of
it: I don't know if it's still the case, but there used to be an
"industry standards" provision whereby, if an ingredient was included in a
food item by more than a certain percentage of manufacturers making that
product (I think 50% but am not sure), then it was considered an "industry
standard" and did not have to be listed AT ALL. More than two dozen
additives could be put into ice cream, for example, without being listed.
When I found THAT out I started avoiding processed foods altogether and my
health benefitted ENORMOUSLY.
Various food manufacturers associations and companies (chemical, etc.) than
manufacture food additives have lobbied long and hard to keep food labeling
laws watered down as much as possible. These lobbists have shown a
consistent and disturbing contempt for the food consumer, claiming that we
"don't understand" and "would be confused by" full disclosure. Problems
such as food allergies, celiacs, etc. are generally ignored or trivialized.
Many, if not most, food additives are included for the purpose of extending
shelf life which is generally INVERSELY proportional to nutritional
quality. Often the most nutritious part of the food is removed and then
used as feed for farm animals (our livestock eat better than we do (their
diets are also scientifically supplemented to encourage maximal growtth))
Examples of this are milling rice (removing the outer layer with most of
the vitamins etc.) to get white rice (which caused "epidemics" of beri-beri
in areas where rice was a major part of the diet - the nutritional
deficiency was cured by eating unmilled rice), milling corn to get "grits"
(almost pure starch) which led to high levels of pellegra in the southern
US (again a nutritional defficiency).
After thus destroying much of the nutritional quality of our diet, the
industry attempted to "solve" the problem by "enrichment" i.e.: adding
back a FEW of the MANY nutrients removed. The enrichment was usually done
with inorganic forms (which do not usually have the same biological
activity as the original nutrient removed) or chemicals which were only a
single factor out of a whole group of synergistic co-factors (example:
Vitamin C without the bioflavoids, ruten, etc, etc.) In doing so they
often hurt MORE people than they helped! Example: The routine
fortification of flour with iron - helps only about 6% of the population
(the percentage estimated to be iron deficient) but actively harms about
10% of the population (the percentage estimated to be heterozygous for the
hemochromatosis allele (iron overload). Many people have tried to alert
the government to this problem but they have been ignored. It seems that
private citizens and a few researchers just do not have the influence that
industry lobbys have. (Hopefully the internet will change this!)
The general tendecy is this: that industry and the government have a
strong tendency to treat us as if we were all alike but we AREN'T.
("Created equal" was an unfortunate CLUMSY phrase used to mean "created
with equal RIGHTS", it was NOT meant to be taken LITERALLY!) A
particularly egregious example of this was the government's use of AVERAGE
figures to compute the "safe" levels (according to THEM) of exposure to
radioactive isotopes in foods. The fact that some foods were consumed by
only a small portion of the population and therefor would be eaten by MOST
of those who ate them in much larger amounts than the "average" was pointed
out to the government but ignored. (For example (as best as I can
remember, it's been more than 20 years) artichokes are consumed by only
about 5% of the population. This means that the AVERAGE person who does
eat artichokes eats about 20 times the "average" amount eaten by the
general population ** and gets twenty times the dose of radioactive
isotopes that the "permissable level" was designed to allow**. This is
**not** an isolated instance - it is a very pervasive tendecy.
In the immortal words or Walt Kelly "we have met the enemy and he is us".
YES, we need to educate government and the food processing industry, and
yes, there will be some (but I doubt the majority) who will be genuinely
cooperative. But there will also be many who will attempt to feed us
bovine manure to get us "off their backs". This, after all, is the
essence of most politics in Amercia. The answer to that is to ask for
SPECIFIC ACTIONS and remember that anything that a politician says in a
letter or in private is totally meaningless (especially if it's a
non-specific promise to "consider" or "look into" it.) What counts
more is what they will commit to in public (even THAT is just a shaky
promise!). What really counts is HOW THEY VOTE and they have become adept
at hiding that (often the leaders vote the way you want, to keep YOUR vote,
knowing that it doesn't matter because they will kill it indirectly by
locking it up in committee, etc. etc. etc. So DON"T GIVE UP, DON"T NOT
TRY, but realized that it will not be easy, it will not be a short struggle
and it will probably take a long determined effort.
What we need is REGULATION. It is good, fair, APPROPRIATE, and URGENTLY
NEEDED regulation but it is regulation and we are currently in the throes
of a political dogma that maintains the absurd proposition that regulation,
per se, is bad! (Does this mean that it's bad to tell people not to kill
each other whenever they fell like it? Whether regulation is "good" or
"bad" has nothing to do with whether or not it is regulation! The key is
whether or not it's APPROPRIATE. What we need is FULL LABELING
REGULATIONS. They are needed, they are apropriate, they are our RIGHT as
consumers.
"Voluntary action" (translation: get off our back, we'll do it IF we
feel like it) will NOT work. Does anyone really expect ALL the
industries and ALL of the companies involved to volunteer? And if some
of them don't included everything on the label and don't say that they
aren't, what good does the rest of it do?
Sorry to spout off, but I'm suffering from 17 years of acute frustration,
first of YEARS of repeatedly getting sick from hidden traps and then from
the extreeme difficulty of trying to avoid all processed foods in this
culture (even FRESH VEGETABLES are processed (added waxes)!). And ALL of
that could be avoided merely by complete labeling laws. How many
person-hours have been unnecessairily wasted, how many careers
unnecessairily damaged, how many lives unnecessairily disrupted, how much
suffering unnecessairily endured and all because of the lack of a simple
basic human right, the right to KNOW, just simple complete labeling - and
NOT that expensive with currently available technology, even batch specific
labeling would not be that difficult. The only thing that makes it seem
like a needless expense is the FAILURE TO RECKON THE COST OF *NOT* DOING
IT.
Write your congressperson, Write food manufacturers. Promise your
consumer loyalty and support IF they cooperate. But DON'T accept promises
except on a temporary basis. Insist on concrete action.
Jim Barron
Chapel Hlll NC
[log in to unmask]
PS Just because something has a genetic basis does NOT mean that it does
not have an environmental CAUSE. Genetic alleles that cause no problem in
a normal environment can make one much more susceptable that others to
various environmental influences. This may or may not apply to celiac
(and if it does, probably would apply to some but not all). The point is,
that because we now know relatively little about celiac, we do NOT know
that it does NOT apply.
Personally I would maintain that there are strong indications that it DOES
apply. How else do you explain the extensive and wide variation, even in
those with the same alleles, in time of onset, degree of expression (how
much you show the trait) and even whether or not you get it at all?
Could part of the environmental influence (trigger, synergistice element,
whatever) be something added in our food? How could anyone hope to sort
that out if we don't even know what's there?
Many herbicides and pesticides are regulatory agents that are not supposed
to affect humans but recent research has shown that, when added together,
they may have synergistic effects (so that a combination of two may have
1,000 times the effect of either alone) strong enough to affect humans.
The average sperm count in american males is not less than 50% of what it
was in the past. How many other problems are being caused? How much
of Attention Deficit Disorder is caused by such environmental influence?
Maybe it's existed all along and we're just learning to identify it. Or
maybe WE are causing it. The point is, that we desperately need more
research NOW. Let you congress persons know that you will not tolerate
cuts in urgently needed research in the name of "cost cutting"
(translation - cost cutting: selling off our children's futures for
present "benefits").
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