EU food is still heavily contaminated with dangerous pesticides.

The 2009 EU report on pesticide residues, published today by EFSA, shows food on the European market is still heavily contaminated with cocktails of pesticides. The percentage of EU food in shops and markets with multiple residues remains at a high level of 25.1%, meaning only a slight improvement in the last 5 years of reporting. The highest reported number of pesticide residues in one food item remains at 26: One sample analysed in the Netherlands (raisins from Turkey) with 26 different pesticides!
Read press release at pan-europe.info

Artificial transfats damage our sewers as well as our health!

Artificial transfats damage our sewers as well as our health! Read this excellent Guardian blog article.

Artificial transfats are such an insidious poison. They shouldn't be there in food, of course. They are not necessary for our bodies; they are damaging, of course, and the cumulative damage results in degenerative disease. This degeneration causes personal suffering and public expense in dealing with the avoidable illnesses that result. It's interesting to read in this article how as well as clogging up our blood vessels, these toxins also clog up our sewers and cause nuisance and expense there too.

Are you wondering why poisons are added to food products like biscuits, cakes, fast foods, processed meals, takeaways, etc? It's because transfats increase the shelf life of these products, and thereby add to the profits of the Food Industry. And the government (and, indeed previous administrations too) favours food company profits over public health. - It's the same with salt added to manufactured food, but that's another shameful story.

The Food Programme Radio 4: Transfats are poisonous. Why is the Food Industry still allowed to put them into our food?

The transfats to which I refer are the artificial transfats that are added to food products, mainly in order to increase their shelf-life. In other words, they increase the profits of the food manufacturers. Artificial transfats are not a natural constituent of any food whatsoever. The body does not have a natural way to metabolise them. It cannot use them as food, because they are not food. They are toxic to the body. Toxic is a synonym for poisonous. For most consumers it is next door to impossible to know whether some of the foods they buy contain any of these poisons or not, and if they do contain any of these poisons, how much? and how much harm will they do? They damage your body and your brain. They contribute to your risk of stroke, heart disease, memory problems, dementia and more.

On the Food Programme on Radio 4 this week "Sheila Dillon investigates the issue of trans-fats in our food, and asks whether a voluntary agreement by the food industry to eliminate them by the end of the year is enough to prevent the kind of health problems associated with a diet heavy in industrial cooking fats." - I can tell you the answer to that question right now: it isn't...)o: - No way! No! It is not!

If you listen to this programme on iPlayer you will hear Sheila Dillon ask pertinent questions and you will hear slithering responses just as oily and toxic as the transfat content the apologists seek to defend. And do not be fooled by the talk of small quantities and of small percentages of calories from these transfats. They are very harmful even in very small quantities. And the damage they do is cumulative. - Remember the old adage: poison comes in small packages!

If you eat shop-bought biscuits, cakes, bread, pizzas, margarine, vegetable shortening, ice-cream, puddings & pudding mixes, ready-made pies, some confectionery - this list is not exhaustive - then you will almost certainly have eaten artificial transfats. Some groups of people are more reliant on processed foods than others are, and some groups of people, e.g. people whose health is already compromised by degenerative disease, are more vulnerable to the harm that artificial transfats cause in the body.

Unfortunately, the groups most at risk from these transfats are of minor importance to UK legislators. Otherwise there would be a BAN on adding these poisons to our food. Adding these poisons to our food swells the profits of the Food Industry, i.e. big business. Food Manufacturers are the groups whose welfare is important to our legislators. Their welfare is paramount.

That processed foods so often contain artificial transfats is yet another reason why, as far as you can, you would do well to avoid processed food, and eat fresh food that you eat raw, or that you cook yourself.

Seriously, why are we even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt?

Seriously, why is anyone even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt? See today's Sunday Telegraph article. - Do you really fancy a bit of dental plaque(!) mixed in with your ready-meal? your cornflakes? your slice of toast? - Of course you don't!

The Food Standards Agency should stop playing about, and so should the Dept of Health and Andrew Lansley. They should all get it made illegal to add salt to processed food and thereby do what they are purportedly paid for, i.e. protect the health of UK citizens against the self-serving interests of the Food Industry. - And while they're about it, ban the addition of transfats too! - Come on, Mr Lansley! - Show us what you're made of! - Prove that you are not influenced against such a ban because of a conflict of interest that favours food manufacturers.

Dangerous chemicals lining some junk food wrappers are being ingested along with the food

"University of Toronto scientists have found that chemicals used to line junk food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are migrating into food and being ingested by people where they are contributing to chemical contamination observed in blood." - Read ScienceDaily news item here.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is in our food as well as our bodies

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — about six pounds weight per American per year. More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike. Now it turns out it’s in our food.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

DEFRA is sneakily allowing further GM potatoes trial

DEFRA (Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs) is sneakily allowing further GM potatoes trialling as the Telegraph reports here.

There is, of course, strong resistance within the British public to the idea of GM crops being tested/grown and GM food being imported/sold in the UK and environmentalists, when they are aware of GM crops being test-grown have tended to interfere with the trial plants, partly because of the risk of the GM plants contaminating the genes of native crops.

The report contains this sinister information: "Under current EU rules, scientists have to publish the map reference for every GM field trial. However ministers are understood to be reviewing the rules so more trials can go ahead without threat of disruption."

Makes me wonder whether/which ministers are in the pocket of the biotechnology industry...

Contaminated honey from China is causing concern.

US officials crack down on Chinese 'honey laundering'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The US Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on honey launderers amid fears that dangerously contaminated honey could slip into the US market and harm consumers. Efforts to tackle honey laundering have also been launched in Russian, India and Australia.

The Post-Intelligencer claims, however, that US inspections of honey imports remain rare and federal officials have yet to adopt a legal definition of honey which makes it hard to keep substandard honey from being sold.

The concern about Chinese honey stems from the use of a toxic antibiotic to fight a contagious bacterial epidemic that raged through hives across China in 1997. The outbreak reduced the country's honey production by two thirds.

The drug, chloramphenicol, has been banned from all food products by the FDA. The administration says tainted honey from China is at the top of its watch list and has issued three "import alerts" to port and border inspectors about tainted Chinese honey.

Officials have also found other antibiotics in Chinese honey and blends of honey syrup and recently warned that corn or cane sugar could also be tainted with bad honey."

Further melamine contaminated food: Japan finds melamine in Chinese-made pumpkin steam buns

Japan finds melamine in Chinese-made pumpkin steam buns
Telegraph article

Extract:

"An investigation was launched after traces of the chemical were detected in buns which were made in China and served in Japan by the buffet restaurant company Nilax Inc.

Milk tainted with melamine, a substance commonly used to make plastics and tan leather, has been linked to the death of four babies in China and sickness among tens of thousands of children.

While there were no reports of illness among Japanese consumers, the nation's confidence in the food industry has been severely dented by a raft of scandals, ranging from tainted rice to faked best before labels."

High levels of melamine, the chemical in the China milk scandal, have been discovered in Hong Kong in eggs from the mainland.

China milk scandal spreads to eggs
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"The authorities on the island said that the eggs contained twice the legal limit of melamine, an industrial chemical which made over 50,000 infants ill and killed four when it was discovered in powdered baby milk over the summer.

Melamine, which is more commonly found in plastics, was added by unscrupulous traders to "bulk up" milk and make it appear richer in protein.

However, the chemical triggers the formation of kidney stones."

"Hong Kong has started testing meat and vegetables coming from the mainland. One theory is that the chickens may have eaten feed contaminated with the chemical.

It has also emerged that cyromazine, a derivative of melamine, is widely used in pesticides and animal feed. This could have been absorbed and pass upwards through the food chain.

"As we have found melamine in eggs, we shall also test chicken meat and we shall also look at offal, for example chicken kidneys and pig kidneys," said Mr Chow."

"In Japan, a major food producer announced a recall of 2.7 million pizzas and packs of sausages after it discovered three times the government limit of cyanide in its water supply. Itoham Foods put advertisements in national newspapers apologising for the contamination. Last Friday, the country's largest maker of instant noodles, Nissin, recalled its Cup Noodle line after a woman was taken ill with insecticide poisoning."