Food: why we don’t get the best (1999)

From the November 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Food matters to everyone. People have been led to revolt if unable to obtain enough. But quality, rather than quantity, is just as important. Politicians, their profit-chasing overlords and the marketplace that unites them, are attracting unfavourable scrutiny after successive well-publicised poisonings, adulterations, scams and animal abuse cases. 

Following salmonella, E. coli, BSE and a spate of more recent food scandals, people are unsurprisingly alarmed over just what they are eating and just what can be done to ensure meals are safe. Here are just four disturbing news reports of late which emerged in less than one week: 

The [Pesticide Safety Directorate] working party on pesticide residues found that some of the largest retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Safeway, sold produce that had levels of pesticides above the maximum residues limit, including illegal growth regulators and known carcinogens (Guardian, 17 September). 

Food hygiene inspectors from the European Commission are to start an urgent investigation into standards in French rendering plants following allegations that untreated water, blood and discharges from animal carcasses, and sewage have been used in making poultry and pig feed. The Commission and the French government have been anxious to play down the accusation for fear of sparking a new European food crisis . . . The common factor in this summer’s crises has been manufacturers’ failure to maintain hygiene standards in the highly competitive food industry (Guardian, 18 August) 

Children who eat fishfingers are being fed ‘undesirable’ levels of two of the world’s most feared poisons, reveals an official report. Dioxins and PCBs—believed to cause cancer and have ‘gender bending’ effects—were found by Government researchers in all the samples of fishfingers bought in different supermarkets. Higher levels were found in the fresh fish on sale, particularly in oily fish such as herring which the Government has been urging people to eat for health reasons . . . Despite the fears, the Government has decided against issuing any warnings when the research—the first of its kind by the Agriculture Ministry—was published quietly in August on an official website (Daily Mail, 20 September). 

Belgium yesterday warned the EU that tests carried out on meat for export . . . show that livestock reared on farms near industrial plants carries higher levels of dioxin contamination . . . Belgium’s food crisis in May caused consumer panic after the revelation that animal feed had been contaminated by potentially cancer-causing dioxins at a food plant in Flanders which allegedly mixed motor oil with fats to bind the feed . . . the Belgian crisis of confidence in food safety worsened yesterday after revelations that sewerage sludge had been mixed into fodder, as in France . . . sludge from toilets and showers, water from slaughterhouses and cleaning products had got into the food chain (Guardian, 22 September). 

The September 18 “highly competitive food industry” reference says it all, and should enlighten concerned shoppers to the total incompatibility between access to continuously high-quality comestibles and competitive production for financial gain, due to market forces always tending to value profits ahead of excellence. 

There will never be a time when most people become wealthy enough to buy only the very best, since while competitive production exists so, too, will competitive employment. And with competing employers, driven by those same market forces to hold down wages and salaries (and taxes that provide welfare benefits) so as to favour profits and stay in businesses, there will always exist a great many working and non-working people with limited incomes who nevertheless must purchase sustenance. This section will vary in size according to the needs of capital. 

Official DSS figures released in February showed that, after deducting housing costs, no fewer than 14.1 million people had below half the average income. While food producers are going to be keen to obtain this poorly-paid group’s money, competition to grab a greater market share by supplying the least expensive food means there will be an ever-present pressure to minimise quality, because superior ingredients, more thorough procedures, better trained employees, etc all cost more. Include today’s international intensification of competitiveness through deregulation and the steady removal of tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in pursuit of a correctly functioning global market, and the seemingly endless appalling procession of scandalous headlines becomes perfectly clear. 

Uncompetitive regulations 

The Blair Government knows that inferior and dangerous food means antagonistic voters; a situation to be earnestly avoided. Labour certainly doesn’t want to end up like the former Belgium government of Jean-Luc Dehaene—booted out of office largely due to carcinogenic dioxin at up to 700 times permitted “acceptable limits” being found in eggs, chickens and then pigs, just weeks before a general election. So what’s their approach? A proposed “independent” Food Standards Agency. 

The FSA proposal emerged not long after Blair came to power. Large retail firms and manufacturing interests were soon applying pressure, insisting the agency be made less regulatory. Then businesses caused the agency to remain on the drawing board longer by complaining that the FSA should not be funded through levies on their food outlets. And despite the BSE catastrophe under Tory rule, the Ministry of Agriculture—which former minister Edwina Currie said “had long ago set itself up as a trade union for producers”-was once again siding with the food industry. Yum, yum: prole food Yum, yum: prole food. 

There is to be publication of an annual report from the Working Party on Pesticide Residues, who will have a small number of food samples tested, and name retailers selling produce with residues above the “maximum residue limit”, and identify the goods concerned. However, this can be nothing more than a show to dispel the public crisis of confidence in food. 

Can consumers turn to organic foods? Perhaps some will be able to keep paying higher prices to reduce their contamination levels (except from equally dangerous airborne chemicals). But the majority can never have high quality organic food and freedom from various other sources of pollution, because of the international competition that is an integral feature of capitalism. Britain cannot go “green” alone. The additional financial burden on capital to establish and maintain a far safer and healthier environment would result in an economic crisis in no time. Britain simply cannot impose rigorous standards on producers without increasing their costs, and in a global market, that would spell disaster for UK firms. 

Everyone concerned about avoiding dangerous and inferior produce has to ask themselves this question: “What did I vote for at election time?” Since, whenever the electorate empower yet another bunch of politicians to—unavoidably—cater to the needs of business as the priority, the very conditions that give rise to food scandals will remain in place. If different competing groups retain ownership of productive resources, they must continue exploiting those assets in the most profitable manner in order to sell and prosper from what is produced. One result? BSE and 43 people dead (that we know of), and a renewed chilling warning this September from Professor Liam Donaldson, the government’s own chief medical officer: “What is absolutely certain is that the present relatively low number of cases [of nv-CJD] should not lead anyone to conclude that the worst is over. Levels of human exposure at the height of the BSE epidemic would have been high.” 

Misuse of GM technology; pesticide-induced cancers; animal maltreatment; cover-ups; no or inadequate labelling; abysmal hygiene standards. None of these need happen. We do not have to futilely hope profit-biased governments will impose uncompetitive regulations and strict enforcement. There is another option to capitalism’s inability to deliver continuously high-quality food for all. If we all own the means of producing food, then we all own the produce, which means never buying it or having any financial restraints on its quality.

Max Hess

Fit for consumption? (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under capitalism food supplies are manipulated to increase profits regardless of the consequences to health. This is because food, like all other goods, is produced for its exchange-value and, therefore, supplied according to the dictates of the market instead of for social needs.

Profits from agriculture are maximised in the following ways: destroying or storing food when there is a surplus that cannot be sold at a profit, regardless of the number of deaths from starvation or malnutrition; cutting back on food production to prevent unsaleable surpluses in subsequent harvests; farming land more intensively by using artificial fertilisers and pesticides; extending the number of processes which food undergoes.

Although about a quarter of a million old people in Britain suffer from malnutrition and there are obscene inequalities of wealth in the rest of the population, generally speaking there is relative affluence compared with underdeveloped countries and the problem for food manufacturers is to try to persuade people to buy more in order that the market can be expanded and profits increased. Normally manufacturers can persuade the public to buy more by the skilful use of advertising, playing on the fears and insecurity of consumers in an aggressively competitive, acquisitive society. But food presents a greater problem because, beyond the level of satiety. people do not eat more as a result of increased wealth. Nevertheless, profits can be increased by extending the number of processes which food undergoes and adulterating it with cheaper additives.

In 1969 a Lancet editorial pointed out that, on average, three pounds of chemical additives a year were consumed in food by each person in this country and that the number of additives exceeded 20,000, but by 1985 this number had increased to 35.000 and the consumption of additives was a staggering 8-11 pounds a year! Indeed, a new term — 'junk-food' has been coined to describe the artificially flavoured, highly processed food that is increasingly consumed today. Additives are used to provide colouring, enhance flavour, inhibit mould, emulsify, sweeten and provide uniformity of ingredients in the products sold.

The extent of the profits that can be made from expanding the processes which food undergoes can be seen in the sale of potato crisps which cost forty or fifty times more than the same weight of potatoes. Fish fingers and chickens are treated with polyphosphates (E450) to absorb more water, while fish and prawns are dipped in water before being frozen to increase their weight. It has been estimated that the public pays nearly five million pounds a year for water! (Walker. C. and Cannon. G. 1985. The Food Scandal, Century Publishing). All of these practices are perfectly legal: the 1984 regulations only require water to be declared in uncooked cured meats if it exceeds ten per cent.

The addition of water alone in frozen fish and prawns has no detrimental effects on health but polyoxyethylene monostearate, an emulsifier used in bread to make flour absorb water, causes cancer in rats. Cancers can be caused by some synthetic food colours. The use of amaranth, a red food dye, is permitted in Britain although in 1970 a Russian study showed that in its pure form it possesses carcinogenic activity. Amaranth was banned in the USA in 1976. Its continued use in Britain is a feature of additives in that there is a complete lack of uniformity of products permitted or banned from one country to another. Commercial considerations determine which additives are permitted, however harmful, while public awareness of the dangers of certain substances and consumer pressure in refusing to purchase certain products restricts or modifies their continued use.

The production of meat involves a number of processes which are potentially injurious to health; milk and meat may become contaminated from the routine doses of antibiotics given to cattle to prevent infectious diseases. The modern methods of rearing cattle cause them to be considerably fatter than wild game; the fat is also higher in saturated fats, which contribute to heart disease. and lower in polyunsaturated fats. But meat products present the greatest threat to health. Profits are boosted by using hide, skin. bone, preservatives and large amounts of fat in sausages. Most processed meats not only contain preservatives and colouring but consist of two or three per cent salt by weight while salami consists of as much as five per cent salt. Processed meats and bacon contain nitrates which interfere with the body's ability to convert carotene into vitamin A and combine with amines, occurring naturally in food, to produce nitrosamines which can cause cancer.

It is estimated that about twenty times more salt (sodium chloride) is ingested in this country than is needed for the maintenance of health and that an excessive intake is, at least in part, a causative factor in the production of high blood pressure. But salt is added to a wide range of products besides processed meats, including cereals, tinned vegetables. soups and bread.

Sodium also occurs in the diet by the wide use of monosodium glutamate, a flavour enhancer which permits smaller amounts of more expensive foods to be used. It was also widely used in baby foods until a study at Washington University in 1969 showed that in large doses it damaged the brain cells of baby mice. As babies have a poorly developed sense of taste its use was clearly directed at the mothers who "tested" the food to ensure that it was suitable. The publicity that resulted from the study led to some manufacturers (but not all) withdrawing monosodium glutamate from their products. The extensive use of monosodium glutamate in Chinese cooking can lead to side-effects such as palpitations, general weakness, gall bladder discomfort and numbness of the arms and the back of the neck and has become known as the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome".

Table salt, itself, is not free from additives but may contain sodium ferrocyanide and magnesium carbonate to prevent caking. In addition, sodium is consumed in the form of sodium citrate in soft drinks. It is, therefore, not surprising that a study in Scotland in the 45-64 age group found that one-fifth of them suffered from mild hypertension.

Sugar is an invaluable additive to the food manufacturer, it provides bulk cheaply, preserves, thickens and sweetens. Every man. woman and child in Britain consumes an average of two pounds of sugar a week. Tooth decay, obesity, constipation, diverticulitis, gall bladder disease, chronic digestive disorders and diabetes have all been implicated to some degree with the excessive consumption of refined foods in industrialised countries. By contrast. adult-onset diabetes is rare in rural Africa where a diet high in unrefined carbohydrates is eaten.

The food industry is also making more use of dextrose in food: more than 16lbs of glucose (dextrose) a year, on average, is consumed in processed foods. Fructose, a naturally occurring sugar which is twice as sweet as sucrose (white sugar) has been used in the food industry in the USA and could be an improvement in health terms because only half the amount needs to be used. But health needs under capitalism are always secondary to the requirement of profitability and the Common Market placed an import quota on high fructose com syrup to protect sugar beet production.

Highly refined foods provide more calories, but less nutrients (unless artificially added) and do not induce satiety as readily as unrefined food, tending to lead to higher consumption with greater profits for the manufacturers. White bread is made by the highly mechanised Chorleywood Bread Process which avoids the hours of fermentation that traditional bread requires. It also contains more air and water than the traditional loaf as a result of using additives that are potentially harmful. Polyoxyethylene monostearate, potassium bromate, propionic acid, ammonium sulphate, chlorine dioxide, nitrosyl chloride, benzoyle peroxide, sodium propionate. L-cysteine hydrochloride and azodicarbonamide are all used in refined bread. Agene was used for bleaching flour for nearly thirty years before it was linked with nervous disorders in humans and in 1968, 600 people in Johannesburg were poisoned by bread containing one per cent potassium bromate (Grant. D., Your Daily Food, Faber and Faber. 1973).

Even when additives are present in food at what are considered to be "safe" levels there is still a risk to health. The American Food and Drug Administration found that two chemicals taken at the same time can enhance the effect of each other; for example. silicone when used with an emulsifier makes the cells of the gut more absorbent and susceptible to poisoning.

There is also considerable contamination in food from the use of insecticides. In 1984 the Association of Public Analysts found that one third of fruit and vegetables were contaminated with DDT (despite being banned), aldrin (a carcinogen), dimethoate and mevinphos.

Although consumer pressure has resulted in a few dangerous substances being withdrawn from food the number of additives used has increased considerably in the last twenty years. Additives will continue to be used while it is profitable to do so. Only a socialist society which puts people first can stop the threat to health which capitalism imposes.

Carl Pinel

Profits from diseases (1986)

From the March 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

All over the world ill-health and premature death are caused by capitalism's ruthless drive for profits. It is tragic that this should be the case, given technological advances and medical knowledge of the causes of major diseases in both the "underdeveloped" and industrialised countries.

Cancers are a common cause of death in the West but are mainly preventable, being related to smoking, occupational hazards, environmental pollution or diet. Every year more than 50.000 people in Britain die prematurely as a result of cigarette smoking, or from diseases to which cigarette smoking substantially contributes. Although the habit is known to be directly linked with lung cancer, heart disease and chronic bronchitis there has never been any attempt to regulate the highly profitable tobacco industry. The treasury receives about £4,000 million a year from tobacco tax and in return makes a token gesture of warning the public of the dangers of smoking. By contrast the tobacco industry spends £80 million a year on advertising to persuade the public that smoking is either manly or the hallmark of sophistication and success.

In underdeveloped countries the problem is worse: in the absence of information of the health dangers of tobacco consumption and unrestricted advertising, cigarettes, often with a high tar content, are marketed in a quite unscrupulous way. The expansion of tobacco growing has also taken land from socially more necessary but less profitable food production.

In Britain there are about 2,000 deaths a year as a direct result of working in the asbestos industry or living near an asbestos factory. The industry employs over 20.000 people and is worth £200 million. But in spite of knowledge of the dangers of asbestos for the last eighty years, regulations to control the levels of asbestos dust have only been introduced gradually and inadequately since 1932 and. in a number of cases, not properly enforced. The Asbestos Information Committee, faced with public pressure and fears over the dangers of asbestos in the 1970s. spent about £500,000 advertising the cheapness, usefulness and "safeness" of the material. But public anxiety over blue asbestos led to the closure of some British factories and the transfer of mining to countries where the absence of regulations allows greater profits to be made, at the cost of workers' lives.

A number of other industrial processes are hazardous. Exposure to benzene can cause leukaemia; angiosarcoma (a rare liver cancer), cancers of the lung, digestive tract and brain can be caused by working with vinyl chloride; working with acrylic fibres increases the risk of developing lung and colon cancer; pesticides, particularly 2,4,5.—T, are dangerous carcinogens and. in some cases, cause severe birth defects in later generations.

The response of the chemical industry has been unvarying: to deny the health risk; to withhold information (the report on the causes of the Seveso explosion was not made available to the Health and Safety Executive in Britain or the trade unions); to put pressure on governments by claiming that the cost of pre-market testing and implementing safer working methods would be too expensive and lead to factory closures. And, as was the case with mining blue asbestos, multinational firms often move their factories to countries where controls are more lax if profitability is threatened. The tragedies of Bhopal and Seveso illustrate the devious ways in which multinational industries evade safety regulations in countries like Britain and the United States by exploiting workers who are inadequately protected by safety laws.

  . . . by offering compensation, the state recognises the risk to workers. However, it also accepts the continuation of the risk at its existing level and as a result it is the British worker who bears the burden of proof. Such flagrant discrepancies are not due to lack of information. but reflect the influence of industry on the regulatory process and a lack of commitment by government bodies to the removal of unnecessary cancer hazards from the workplace (L. Doyal and S. Epstein (Eds). Cancer in Britain, Pluto Press)

A number of food additives have been shown to cause cancer in animals yet they continue to be used to make food more attractive. mould resistant, or sugar-free in the case of saccharin. The production of food is grotesquely and artificially manipulated under capitalism to provide maximum profits. The European Economic Community maintains a policy of restricted food production. having recently cut back milk production by nine per cent, while 82 million acres of land were taken out of food production in the United States in 1982.

All of this happens despite millions of deaths from starvation or diseases associated with malnutrition because it is the ability to pay, and not social needs, that determines who will eat under capitalism. But, in the more “affluent" countries profits are increased by extending the number of processes which food undergoes. Easily digested junk-foods with a low-fibre, high-fat and high-sugar content are sold at inflated prices. Obesity, heart disease, bad teeth, constipation and cancer of the bowel are all problems which have, in some degree, been blamed on the refined foods consumed in industrialised countries. The health conscious person can buy — usually at a higher price — products such as bran, which have been originally removed in the refining process. To charge more for not adulterating food must be one of the most brazen forms of profiteering imaginable.

There are nearly 7,500 drug preparations available, a figure which has more than doubled in the last 20 years in spite of the fact that the majority of health problems could be treated with less than 200 drugs. The proliferation of drugs has not been due to their effectiveness; indeed, the reverse is the case, with nearly one in thirty hospital patients in Britain being admitted as a result of the side-effects of drugs.

Drugs such as Thalidomide and Debendox have caused severe birth defects; oral and injectable contraceptives have caused cancers of the liver, breast and uterus; female sex hormones have led to birth defects and cancers; anti-arthritic drugs frequently lead to ulcers, and "Opren" resulted in 61 deaths in a two-year period. Products of dubious benefit, or even those which are positively dangerous, are marketed with callous disregard for the well-being of the consumer. Drugs which are only available on prescription or restricted in Britain are sold over the counter in underdeveloped countries, allowing extra profits to be made at the cost of people's health.

The environment has been damaged in the quest to produce goods as cheaply as possible to undercut competitors. Inner city pollution leads to higher rates of chest diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema; the smogs of the 1950s forced some legislation to control smoke emission from factories, but with competition to produce goods more cheaply in a time of recession there have been calls to relax environmental controls. Dangerous chemicals and radioactive waste are dumped with scant regard for public well-being, while in the vicinity of nuclear power stations deaths from leukaemia exceed the national average.

Ill health and premature death are inexorably tied to the profit system; drugs could be safer; dangerous food additives need not be used; the pressure on young people to smoke and the stresses of employment which reinforce the habit could be removed; food could be produced for all of the world's population; working with chemicals could be safer; pollution of the environment is not inevitable; the elderly need not die from the cold. But it will require the abolition of capitalism and of production for profit: only a society which produces for human needs can stop workers' lives being squandered.

Carl Pinel

Give it the E (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Squeaky trolleys, muzak and the dreaded cash desk confront workers each week at the supermarket. Rows and rows of tinned foodstuffs, packaged and preserved for cheap transportation, compete for space with mountains of liberally sprayed fruit. Endless brands of washing powder with new formulas attempt to entice us with promises of "5p off your next buy".

This is all very familiar and has been the way of things for quite some years now. Supermarkets mean low-cost retailing (bulk buying and selling, fewer shop workers, efficient use of floor space) and fast- speed spending for the consumers. Capitalism devotes huge resources to telling us exactly what we should consume — and convincing people to buy things they might not really need is no simple task. We all know from experience that packaging often belies the nature of the product itself, but in the last couple of years companies have been employing a new selling technique.

Although food adulteration is hardly a recent feature of capitalism, millions of workers have become aware of the danger of additives. It has been shown that the "E" numbers on the back of most food packets can cause or exacerbate a whole host of health problems, including hyperactivity in children and breathing difficulties. One of the most infamous is the yellow colouring Tartrazine (E 102). which is used in a large variety of packet convenience foods, cakes, sweets and sauces. Reactions to it include bronchospasm, skin rashes, rhinitis and blurred vision (M. Hanssen. E For Additives, Thorsons Publishers. 1985) and it is particularly dangerous for those who are asthmatic or prone to allergies.

After a number of books were published and TV programmes warned of the dangers, consumers started consciously to check the ingredients of food packages before buying. Products with potentially dangerous additives like Tartrazine started to lose out, and so was born a new selling gimmick. Now emblazoned across lurid tins and bottles everywhere are the magic words “Free from additives" and “No artificial colourings or preservatives". Food purity is now big business. It's almost as if products without these catchy little phrases on the front are admitting that they might make your hair fall out or bring on a rare chest complaint. So every company that wants to keep its share of the market is forced to juggle around with its ingredients until it can plaster on the obligatory “No additives".

A "jumbo sized" soft drink I recently bought from the supermarket was a prime example of this. “Free from artificial flavours and sweeteners" and most importantly "Tartrazine free". All well and good. However, in the list of ingredients were two colourings — the sublimely entitled Sunset Yellow and the not so sublime Ponceau 4R. The former is in fact additive E 110 which carries the risk of allergic reaction, especially in people sensitive to aspirin, producing gastric upset, vomiting and skin rashes. Ponceau 4R, a red colouring, should be avoided by asthmatics and anyone with aspirin sensitivity. Tartrazine, scourge of the health conscious, has been widely replaced as a colouring agent by two additives which are likely to produce similar, if not worse, effects. Of course, if companies consider it in their interest to put “Free from Sunset Yellow’ on their labels in future, they are just as likely to replace it with something as bad.

Behind neatly stacked shelves and glitzy packaging lies the reality of poor quality goods notable for their chemical rather than nutritional content. The colourings, anti-oxidants and preservatives present in so much food and drink are there to facilitate and prolong shelf-life. In short, food manufacturers and retailers are more concerned with preserving their profits than our health.

Dave Perrin

Additive eating (1989)

From the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The addition of foreign substances to food for profit is as old as capitalism. In medieval times the production of food was subject to quality control by the guilds who regulated their members' trade practices. Food inspectors spent a good deal of time making sure wine, ale, flour and oil were of an acceptable standard and quality. The fourteenth century German "pure beer" laws are an example of this. 

The development of industrial capitalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century led to increasing numbers of people crowding into towns and cities. The adulteration of their food and drink was accepted as a matter of course and practiced with impunity. Like other wealth creating activities food production took on its modern mass-production character — that of a commodity to be produced for sale on the market with a view to making a profit.

Controls were swept away to such an extent that by the 1850s a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, called upon to give evidence before a Parliamentary Committee, could report that he had found adulteration of food "very prevalent". It occurred, he said 

". . . in nearly all articles which it will pay to adulterate, whether of food, drink, or drugs. There are but few exceptions to this rule . . . The adulterations practised are very numerous . . . The majority consists in the addition of substances of greatly inferior nature, for the sake of weight or bulk. Other adulterations consist in the addition of various colouring matters; these are employed either to conceal other adulterations, or to heighten, and, as it is considered, to improve the appearance of articles. Lastly, a few adulterations are practised for the purpose of imparting smell, pungency, or taste to certain articles ..."
(Quoted in Royston Pike, Human Documents of the Victorian Golden Age, 1974, page 295.) 

That this steady stream of adulterants had a debilitating effect on the health of the working class can hardly be doubted. It must have been in part responsible for the fact that during the first world war 41 percent of workers conscripted to defend their masters interests had to be rejected as unfit. Seventy years later government reports still point to the inadequate nutritional levels of the poorest members of the working class, except that adulterants have been up-graded — they are now called additives and have pretentions to respectability. 

Researchers from the DHSS found in 1986 that children were eating more crisps, chips and potato products than any other single food. Biscuits and cakes were the second most popular item, being eaten more by weight than vegetables. Little fresh fruit was eaten. Commenting on the report Andrew Veitch, medical correspondent of The Guardian, noted:

"Children of families on Family Income Supplement and Supplementary Benefit had the lowest nutrient intake and were significantly shorter than others. (4 April 1986, emphasis added.)

The "state of the nation's health" is still a subject of concern. The employing class clearly does not want a clapped-out working class suffering ill health because of their diet. On the other hand, there is a great deal of money to be made peddling food given an added value and therefore a bigger margin of potential profitability. 

Increasingly too consumers — workers who stump up at the cash register — are asking the question, What is it that we are really eating? Complacency is being replaced by concern. Worried families pressurised by advertising and lack of time and money into buying the cheaper processed foods are questioning the need for additives, as the campaign to remove artificial colouring matter demonstrates. With limited money to spend it does not need a degree in economics to work out that a shopping basket of products less likely to contain processed, additive-rich food, will cost more than one including a preponderance of beef-burgers, pot-noodle and fruit squash. The outlay for a family of four eating a "healthy" as opposed to a typical diet was compared recently by Isobel Cole-Hamilton, a dietician working for the London Food Commission, and Anita MacDonald from the University Hospital Leeds. Not surprisingly the healthy diet costs a great deal more — £48.04 as compared to £37.09 (more than 25 per cent.) MacDonald also pointed out that:

" . . . it would be impossible for a child to obtain the minimum nutritional requirements laid down by the DHSS from the amount of money available for food from supplementary benefit — the allowance simply isn't large enough." (The Guardian, 18 October 1986.) 

Food and drink manufacturers have an annual turnover of £6bn and account for 10 per cent of all manufactured output. They spend an estimated £231 in a year on food additives. Seventy per cent of what is spent on food buys processed products. There are no exact figures for the amount of additives consumed per head but Erik Millstone of Sussex University estimates it to be between 3 and 7 kilogrammes annually. It could be considerably higher in some cases — 10 or 15 kg per head a year because not all people consume the same quantity of processed food. As The Guardian survey quoted above showed, food purchases of those with less money to spend will almost invariably be made up of processed food because it is cheaper. 

Why are additives used in such vast and increasing quantities? As far as food manufacturers and processors are concerned they fulfill a number of important technical needs. They improve the look of food products, they modify their texture to increase acceptability, they inhibit mould and bacteria and extend "shelf life" (which means the product can be kept in circulation from machine to mouth longer before it decays and loses its value). Flavours lost in the manufacturing process can be regained or reinforced. These needs are real in a system where increasing amounts of food are industrially processed before consumption. For example, Erik Millstone estimates that 45 major food distribution centres handle some 80 per cent of all the food marketed in Britain, "Hence the ability of preservatives to give food a long shelf life is of enormous economic value to the food industry . . ." (New Scientist, 18 October 1984). 

The Consumer Association have looked into the use and need for additives in food, and as far as flavours are concerned state that:

"In a highly competitive industry, keeping down costs while maintaining sales is essential for survival. Even though manufacturers might acknowledge that the most wholesome products would include natural ingredients . . . substitution of flavours for ingredients is one of the easiest ways for them to reduce costs . . .  Undoubtedly when raw material costs increase, manufacturers may feel under pressure to lower the quality of some products in order to maintain their position in the market." (Understanding Additives, Which? Books-Consumers Association/Hodder and Stoughton, £6.95.) 

In the case of preservatives they admit that:

"Hygiene in factories is not always as high as modem standards would demand. Bacterial spores are commonly found in food processing plants, and preservatives may need to be added to food to prevent contamination during processing . . .  The financial benefit of extending the shelf-life of products is likely to be greater than the cost of adding individual preservatives."

Scientific research coupled with public pressure have led in recent years to the abandoning of some artificial colouring matter in food. This was almost always added to make the product look attractive. But according to the CA: 

"Manufacturers would not have replaced synthetic colours with more expensive natural ones unless they were able to recoup or absorb the additional cost. Companies which felt that there was a commercial risk in excluding colours have, on the whole, retained them . . ."

As far as additives as a whole are concerned an anonymous representative of the food manufacturing industry is quoted as saying that "We do produce some products with fewer artificial additives. This is purely for marketing purposes" (emphasis added). This puts into true perspective what the CA identifies as the consumer's overriding need " . . .  to be able to obtain a nutritious and balanced diet, at prices they can afford . . . " (emphasis added). To which it is reasonable to retort — "It may be cheap, but is it safe?". 

Another response to criticism has been the provision of more "information" on food packaging. However this sop to public opinion still fails to give relative quantities, excludes flavourings, and often does not specify additives used in production prior to the final processing. For example museli, that prime example of health conscious eating, may contain fruit treated with mineral oil or preserved with sulphur dioxide, the presence of which is not indicated on the label! 

Of the use of sulphur dioxide, the most widely used antimicrobial preservative, Erik Millstone and John Abraham say: 

".. it is of enormous technological, industrial and commercial value, but we know that it is harmful to at least a few people, and that it may be harmful to many people." (Additives: a Guide for Everyone, Erik Millstone and John Abraham, Penguin Books, £3.95.) 

Other entries in this "dictionary" of chemicals used in food manufacturing make grim reading. In their assessment of the supposed safety of over 200 additives the phrase "presumed safe" occurs with frightening regularity. The possible long term effect of the continuous intake of small doses and the consequences of taking combinations of chemicals (the so-called "cocktail" effect) will be costly and time consuming to ascertain. The Food Additives Council (a body which regulates the use of additives) has no funds of its own and has to rely mainly on research carried out by the food industry itself £ a bit like a gamekeeper trusting the poachers.

The results of research are secret or difficult to verily. Experiments on animals do not produce results which can be readily transferred to humans primarily because the methods are imprecise. Millstone and Adams, summing up this state of affairs, say: 

". . .  the entire regulatory system rests on an undisclosed base . . . Secrecy is defended by industry and government on the grounds that disclosure might adversely affect the commercial interests of companies."

Indignant as one may feel at being poisoned for profit — at being forced by economic circumstances to consume inferior food — it must be realised that this is simply part and parcel of the production for sale and profit system. In a society of production for use the incentive to adulterate food would disappear. 

Gwynn Thomas