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Food Pollution Risks

Food pollution risks depend on a variety of factors, including:

  • Type of pollutant – while any pollutant present in food may pose a health risk, the pollutants that are persistent and bioaccumulative are those that pose the higher risks because they may accumulate in food over time resulting in concentrations much higher than in a surrounding environment (e.g., accumulation of persistent chemicals such as organomercurial compounds or PCBs in fish). Hormones in food may also pose serious risks that are still uncertain. For example, contamination of caw milk with an artificial hormone (rBGH) used to increase milk production may be linked to some types of cancers in humans. Thus, a safe alternative is to avoid, if possible consumption of food with hormones.
  • Type of food – fish are more dangerous than other food due to their potential exposure to a higher variety of contaminants and the accumulation and concentration of certain compounds in fish. Also any bird or animal consuming polluted fish may become contaminated itself and thus transmit the pollution further through the food chain.
  • Each individual person’s health – children, elder people, as well as pregnant women are usually more sensitive to food pollution. So are people with chronic food diseases or illnesses, for which food pollution risks are higher. However, healthy individuals may also develop food-poisoning diseases and anyone may be at risk.

How Does Pollution Affect a Food Web?

Pollution from environment (soil, sediments, water and air) gets into the food web by polluting plants or animals that come in contact with environmental pollution. For example, water pollution may accumulate and concentrate in fish. Fish may be consumed by birds and other animals and the pollution gets transferred through the food chains until it reach humans. By the time food pollution meat reaches humans, the pollution may be substantially increased as compared to original concentration. Thus human intoxication cases may be serious.

Safe Food Alternative

An alternative that may insure production of less polluted food was recently proposed in Japan. Thus, it was proposed to grow vegetables in factories which would eliminate the unpredictable effect of environmental pollution, unpredictable weather, or pests. The process would be all computerized controlling various factors affecting growth. Such safe food alternative is proposed by Ozu Corporation in Tokyo. Would this constitute the future of agriculture? Only time will tell… In between we are still dealing with food grown on dirty land subjected to various food pollutants, pests, and unpredictable weather! Food pollution risks are everywhere and all we can do is minimize individual exposure to polluted food by informing ourselves and taking action. The information on this website has this as a main aim! We look forward to continuously improving the information and adding up-to-date news. We also look forward to your feed-back.