Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Ricardo Saenz-Arana
such as dyes, are still uncertain in the effects they could have in our health.
I can say that synthetic additives such as vitamins and preservatives.
Today, most countries have poor diets due to the popularity of fast food and
bad eating habits. Thats why the use of synthetic vitamins should be even
more extended than what it is now, if we had to rely only on the ingredients
in natural foods they wouldnt be enough, because most people dont really
have the knowledge of how to organize their diet with respect to the food
pyramid or in what aliments they can find the essential vitamins for
adequate functionality of the body. Preservatives are also very important,
because now with all the stress and fast paced society we have, cooking at
home is not an option for some people. That is why it is useful to be able to
preserve processed foods.
As a solution to the malnutrition in developing countries, I would propose
the same that McPherson proposed in his 1965 article. Synthetic foods
could indeed be the solution for world hunger. Even though in 1965, the
problem that was considered was if the future generations could produce
enough food to feed the rapidly growing population, today we know that
thanks to new technologies that have been implemented in the field of
agriculture, among other factors, we do have enough food to feed
everyone. The main reason for hunger in the world is poverty, and the worst
part is that an individual suffering from malnutrition has small body mass,
low levels of energy and limitations in mental functioning, which can only
contribute to deepening their poverty due to inability to work or learn. Even
though there have been continuous efforts to keep the international prices
for food at an accessible and stable price, there has been other factors that
have affected the price. In 2008, due to the worldwide financial crisis, the
price of basic aliments such as rice had tripled in some regions, which
affected both developing countries and advanced countries like Great
Britain and the US. (worldhunger.org, 2015)
Since poverty causes hunger, and hunger contributes to poverty, the only
solution is to make food more accessible to developing countries.
Considering the progress and development of synthetic additives
throughout the last decades, making entirely synthetic foods is a possibility
today. The industrial production of synthetic aliments rich in vitamins,
proteins and the rest of the substances needed for the efficient functionality
of the human body would have the potential of mass-producing accessible
and nutritional aliment that apart from reducing the number of people that
suffer from malnutrition, would also boost the economy, because those who
were not able to work due to poor health conditions would be able to
contribute to the economy and would have a brighter future ahead of them.
Now I would like to refer to the reasoning for my argument about how
synthetic vitamins and preservatives are beneficial to society, especially in
developed countries like the USA, where factors such as traffic and foods
like fruits and vegetables being too expensive make many parents opt for
not cooking in their house, but rather heating processed foods that are
already precooked or in a can.
In their study, Ames, Profet and Gold (1990), compare synthetic
substances to natural substances that are found in our food. Many
researchers argue that our defenses can keep us safe from the toxic
properties that belong to natural substances produced by plant as a
defense mechanism; however, they claim that our defenses cant keep us
safe from synthetic additives because they are unknown to our body. Ames
et al present evidence that even though man has evolved exposed to the
natural substances in food; many of these substances have still proven to
be carcinogenic.
Part of the reason why this happens is because we are not as adapted to
eating plants as we would like to think. Our diet has changed a lot in the
process of our evolution. The diet we have right now is much different than
what people used to eat 1000 years, and evolution is a process that can
take up to millions of years, so its not possible to assume that the natural
toxins than plants produce do us no harm.
Having stated this, I consider that having synthetic additives like vitamins
and preservatives in our food is not bad, These substances have proven to
be beneficial, because many people are not aware on what to eat to find
vitamins crucial to their health, they do not have the interest of looking into
what exactly they are eating and they are oblivious as to the amount of
vitamins they are consuming and whether its enough. In the study realized
by Devcich et al(2007), it is mentioned that those who prefer foods with
additional synthetic vitamins have less worries about health issues.
Therefore, I consider that synthetic vitamins are a good aspect of synthetic
additives.
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any remarkable effects of prenatal exposure to food colourings on
neurobehaviour and learning process in rat offspring? Nutritional
Neuroscience, 18(1), 12-21. doi:10.1179/1476830513Y.0000000095
McPherson, A. T. (1965). Synthetic food for tomorrow's billions. Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, 21(7), 6-11. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete
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artificial food dyes are everywhere. E: The Environmental Magazine, 23(2),
36-36. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete
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Retrieved from AcademicSearch Complete
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history, use, and identification of synthetic food dyes. Journal of Chemical
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Worldhunger.org