Carbadox

FOOD - SAFETY

In the 1960s, the average Canadian grocery store carried about 300 items, of which two thirds were grown or processed within 150 kilometres of the store. Today, grocery stores carry thousands of items many of which are shipped in from every part of the world where standards of hygiene and inspection are not as high as they are in Canada

What's worse than finding a worm in an apple? Finding half a worm. Okay, so it's an old joke; would you rather hear the one about bat droppings? Along with paint chips, gravel, bits of glass, and other non-food items, these have all been found by Canadians in their food. So, it's not surprising that a survey in October 2001, found that three quarters of the people in Canada are concerned about the safety of their food.

Consumer concern goes beyond stumbling on a piece of metal or a fingernail in a can of soup. What worries Canadians most are the things deliberately added to our food.

Carbadox is one such ingredient. It's an antibiotic that has been used to treat disease in pigs and to help the animals put on weight during periods of stress, such as weaning. Hog farmers have been using Carbadox since the 1970s, although they are supposed to stop administering the drug 35 days before slaughter. This is so that any residue will be flushed out of the animal's system.

However, studies revealed that Carbadox can cause cancer in rats. That prompted Health Canada to put a ban on its sale in August 2001, although its use was not banned. Farmers were still allowed to use up their stockpiles and even to buy Carbadox in the U.S. or elsewhere.

People in the food industry point to the Carbadox ban as an example of how safe Canada's food supply is; a problem was identified and dealt with.

At the centre of that safety is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). This agency was created in 1997 by drawing together food inspection groups that were scattered around several federal departments.

With a staff of 4,600, CRA reports to the Minister of Agriculture and AgriFood and performs a lot of tasks. It:

Makes sure that food is labelled correctly and that animals are transported humanely;

Inspects food coming into Canada from another country to make sure it isn't carrying foreign pests or diseases;

Routinely monitors slaughterhouses and meat packing plants;

Tests food samples from all sources to make sure it's not contaminated and is safe to eat; and,

Performs laboratory testing and environmental assessments of seeds, plants, feeds, and fertilizers.

In January 2002, Canadians were alerted that undeclared peanuts might be in Spicydice sesame seed snacks; some people are so allergic to peanuts that ingesting even a trace can be fatal. There were 19 other safety alerts issued by CRA in that month alone. There were 16 alerts in December 2001, and 12 in November. These covered a wide variety of topics from the advice that eating too many of a specific kind of wild mushroom could be harmful, through the possibility of a choking hazard from minicup jelly products, to an alert that Matjes herring fillets in oil may contain dangerous bacteria.

However, despite the watchful eye of Canada's food inspectors, rogue substances do get through. In a 1998 article in the Globe and Mail, reporter Murray Campbell suggested as many as 15 million Canadians a year might be infected with a foodborne illness. He added that health officials estimate that between 200 and 500 people die as a result of food poisoning annually.

Now, some of those deaths are caused by improper food handling, storage, and preparation, but some are the result of something escaping the attention of the safety system.

There have been cases of E. coli contamination from unpasteurized apple juice. In the late 1990s, the parasite cyclospora was found on some raspberries imported from Guatemala that made it past the screening process. Slip-ups such as these attracted the attention of Canada's Auditor-General. What he found in his 2000 report should make most of us queasy.

There were some cases in which Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials identified food safety concerns, but didn't follow up on them. "We are concerned," wrote the AuditorGeneral Denis Desautels, "that a number of the problems had remained uncorrected for many months and in some cases, years. years.

Mr. Desautel found other problems:

Canada doesn't know exactly how much E.coli, salmonella, and other dangerous pathogens (see "The Bad Guys'" are in our food. "Without this information, it is more difficult to manage risks to food safety;"

Control over imported food is not tight enough. Canada imports $15 billion-worth of food a year and this is growing, yet CFIA hasn't properly assessed the risks;

A lot of food produced in Canada is in what's called the "non-federally registered sector." This includes: bread, soft drinks, cookies, peanut butter, and coffee. "This sector represents about half the food production industry in Canada and is involved in half the recalls for food produced. Yet, only some five percent of the agency's resources are allocated to the sector."

Most of these problems can be solved by adding staff - 500 people Mr. Desautel has suggested. But, in a story now familiar to Canadians, the federal government pleads a shortage of money. Citizens can have safe food or tax cuts but not both apparently.

We don't need more food inspectors to tell us not to eat a tuna salad sandwich that smells like week-old road kill and has green stuff oozing out of it. We can use common sense. But, what about stuff that's not so obvious?

To understand some of the labels on packaged foods a chemistry degree is needed. Not a lot of consumers know what calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, or calcium caseinate are or what they do. Yet, these are found in everyday packaged foods. We take it for granted that somebody has tested the additives and pronounced them safe for human consumption. But, then we read a Psychology Today report on an interesting study in 2001. Students enrolled in New York City schools showed a 14% improvement in IQ when preservatives, dyes, colourings, and artificial flavours were removed from cafeteria lunch offerings.

As consumers, we have the same view of the use of growth hormones and antibiotics in meat production, or herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers on food crops. These are used to create higher yields, which make food cheaper. Most of us feel a bit uneasy knowing these things are used but assume "They wouldn't let us eat it if it wasn't safe."

There are no reports of large numbers of people dropping dead from eating food that's produced with chemical inputs, but that doesn't stop many people from worrying. What concerns them most is the long-term effect of eating food with tiny, trace amounts of chemicals in them. True, they say, nobody goes into cardiac arrest immediately after eating an apple with a few picograms of Alan (a pesticide) on its skin. But, what about eating an Alan-tainted apple a day for 25 years? Might this and exposure to other chemicals be one reason why the cancer rate keeps climbing steadily year after year?

It's impossible to eliminate all the chemicals in our food. The World Health Organization estimates that 800 million kilos of pesticides are used each year around the globe. More than 2,000 different chemicals are used to make these bug-killers and some of them persist in the environment for a long time. Field run-off carries some pesticide residue into rivers and lakes causing genetic damage in wildlife. In a recent study in the St. Lawrence Valley, scientists found that birth defects among frogs living in uncontaminated ponds occurred less than one percent of the time. However, in ponds close to land where pesticides were used, 69% of the frog population had birth defects, ranging from extra legs to eyes growing on backs.

Once in the water system, the chemicals widely used on farms, bio-concentrate in fish, many of which make it onto the supper table. The remaining chemicals biodegrade or remain in the soil. Slowly, a background level of chemicals has been built up. The World Health Organization says the people of the industrialized world are already exposed to the maximum safe daily level of dioxins. These chemicals are a byproduct of the manufacture of herbicides, cannot be dissolved in water, and are linked to a number of illnesses including cancer.

Other chemicals are thought to interfere with the endocrine system, which is a complex control mechanism that regulates growth, development, and reproduction in all animals, including humans.

Canadians today have longer life expectancies than at any time in history; in part, this is due to access to a more nutritious and varied diet than ever before. Keeping that food supply safe is a job that requires constant vigilance from consumers and authorities alike.

SUGGESTED ACTITES:

1. Assign a team of students to read Eric Schlosser's 2001 book Fast Food Nation (published by Houghton Min Co.) and provide a synopsis of it to class. Does the theme of the book mesh with the experience of class members who have worked in the fast-- food industry?

2. More and more Canadians, concerned about food safety, are switching to so-called "organic food. " This food is produced without hormones, pesticides, or chemical enhancements of any kind. Have students investigate the availability of organic food in their community, try to determine if it is any safer.

Copyright Canada and The World Mar 2002
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