It is a hot, summer day in South Carolina. There is a slight breeze as you walk down Main Street near the State House. In the distance, you see a man selling ice cold drinks. You approach him and ask for a Sprite. After paying, you open your cold drink and take a large gulp from the bottle. Immediately, you notice the soda has a flat taste and it is not as sweet as usual. Furious, you return the drink to the vendor and ask for another one, and another one, and you have the same experience time and time again. It sounds like a bad dream, but this is exactly what happened to me a year ago as I was a tourist in Germany. I noticed the drinks were not as sweet, even though they had the same name and logo as they do here in the states. I could not help but wonder “why?” and eventually, I got an answer. Germany has banned many of the chemicals we as Americans have grown to know and love. These sweeteners, artificial colors, preservatives, and so on, are referred to as food additives and frankly, they are killing us. Food additives should be further researched and extensively tested before being put in our food and drinks. What exactly makes certain food additives “bad” enough for Germany to ban them? After conducting research, several European countries could not confirm that certain additives were safe, therefore these chemicals are not allowed in the food Europeans eat - it really is that simple (Eng 2). Scientists continue to research these additives and until they reach a final conclusion, the European Union is being safe rather than sorry by restricting them all together. The United States government also conducted research on some of the same food additives Europe banned, but ran out of funding to continue the research. Therefore, instead of taking action like Europe, we simply decided to leave products on grocery store shelves for consumers to purchase without actual knowledge of the harm these chemicals can cause. Most food additives have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, while others can be “approved” by experts hired by the manufacturer. See the problem here? The only logical explanation for this system is simple: greed. The American government and the FDA do not want to fund research and therefore, we are further exposing our citizens and consumers to dangerous chemicals that are, in most cases, life threatening. Not to mention there are huge corporations who would rather pump hazardous chemicals into our food rather than spend the extra money to produce organic food. Americans have also become eerily comfortable and addicted to several types of sugars and other additives found in our day-to-day diet.

As humans, we have basic needs, and as Americans, we have rights. The mere purpose of food is to nourish our bodies. We need food that will do just that, and not have to worry about it deteriorating our bodies and organs at the same time. The next time you buy something at the grocery store, read the label. Most people say, “if you can not pronounce the ingredient, you should not eat it.” While that is true in many cases, it is not one-hundred percent accurate. Some of the most common food additives that you may see on food labels are: artificial food colors (yellow, red, blue, etc.), high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG),  sodium benzoate, sodium nitrite, and trans fat, just to name a few. Some of these food additives have been tested and proven to cause unwanted human misbehavior such as ADD, ADHD, anxiety, autism, heart disease, and gastric cancer among other illnesses. Chronic consumption of some food additives can cause birth defects in children and cause long-term health issues.

In 2007, Donna McCann conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study on children to test whether artificial food coloring and other food additives affected childhood behavior. This study was based on a similar study conducted thirty years ago by Ben Feingold, a renowned pediatric allergen physician. Both studies found that artificial coloring in food and drinks, compared to the placebo-controlled food and drinks, caused hyperactivity and misbehavior in children who were tested almost every time (Mccann). In McCann’s study, she tested 153 3-year-olds and 144 8/9 year olds by giving the children different drinks. Each of them contained either artificial food color, sodium benzoate (food preservative) or a placebo mix. The children’s behavior was monitored by their teachers and parents, plus a computerized test of attention for the 8/9 year old children (Mccann). The results came back and proved the children who had consumed the artificial food color or sodium benzoate (or both) in their diet had increased hyperactivity and a lower attention-span than those who had consumed the placebo-mixture. My hope is that more scientists and researchers will conduct studies like these in order to help solidify the fact that we should get rid of these additives and eat pure food, the way it was meant to be eaten. Why ignore the facts?

Not only are food additives harmful, but some pesticides including diphenylamine (DPA), can become very dangerous to consume. DPA has been used in increasingly alarming amounts in American produce recently. The Environmental Working Group or EWG, conducted research on chemicals (DPA) farmers use to prevent apples from turing brown. Studies found DPA not only on apple and pear skin, but inside the apples and pears as well. In turn, applesauce and apple baby food were both found to have alarming amounts of DPA in them. DPA has not been found to be extremely harmful alone, but when exposed to nitrogen, an element ubiquitous in the environment, it can turn into nitrosamine, a cancer-causing agent found in processed meats and other processed foods. In 2012, the European Commission banned DPA from all of their food due to gaps in testing results. The European Commission could not find enough evidence to support treating their produce with this pesticide without it causing harm to the human body. The United States Department of Agriculture hired scientists to conduct a study in 2010 to test levels of DPA in apples sold in the United States. Tests found that 80 percent of apples were positive for excessive amounts of DPA. If Europe can take a stand and just say “no,” why can America not reciprocate? My answer remains the same: greed. 

Karen Curinga is an established writer for Livestrong and published an article about advantages and disadvantages of food additives in 2015. In her article, Curinga describes some advantages of food additives could be to help reduce spoilage, improve the appearance of food and increase the availability of foods throughout the year. While I can agree that my milk not spoiling as fast or my apples having less brown spots would be nice, I cannot say I would rather bargain my health for those more attractive-looking foods. While Curinga argues that a longer shelf life could be an advantage of food additives, I have to disagree. In my research, I learned that some fruits and vegetables we eat daily could have been picked or harvested up to one year previous to being placed on the grocery store shelf. I would much rather have “seasonal” fruit than last year’s fruit if that means I am ridding my body of the chemicals that could potentially cause cancer later in life.  Curinga also brings up the point of having more attractive food by using preservatives. I will admit, I love brightly colored foods and I am more attracted to them opposed to a dull-looking, less colorful food. But, that does not mean I am not willing to buy the less attractive food simply because it looks different. If I know what I am eating is going to nourish my body and provide all the vitamins and minerals I need without killing me in the process (literally), I am certainly going to buy the less attractive food over the shiny, bright one. Think about it: would you like to have an attractive, bright green or red bunch of grapes, or a fresh, maybe less-green or red bunch of grapes? All of these foods are planted by farmers, sprayed with layers and layers of pesticides, then harvested and coated with more chemicals to preserve them and prepare them for their weeks or even months of travel to the grocery store where they sit in storage. After all of this, they are put out in grocery stores all across the world and some of these food items will sit for months and even years until purchased by you and me. It is so easy to go to the grocery store and buy any and everything we can think of but we are not thinking twice about the actual product. How long will it take before we actually read the nutrition facts or the ingredient labels? Will it take receiving a diagnosis or an irreversible illness?

In 2013, The Chicago Tribune published an article about a fifteen year old girl named Sarah Kavanagh who loved Gatorade. She discovered that the well-known sports drink brand, produced by PepsiCo, used an emulsifier called  brominated vegetable oil, or BVO in their drinks. Brominated vegetable oil shares the element, bromine, with some flame retardants used in plastics and furniture. Some studies show that BVO has been linked to reproductive and behavioral problems by building up fatty tissues. Sarah did a lot of research and discovered that PepsiCo only used BVO in the drinks they sold in the United States, not in Europe, due to BVO being banned in Europe. After launching a petition and having more than 200,000 people sign it, fifteen-year old Sarah wrote a letter and asked that PepsiCo remove BVO from the Gatorade sports drinks being sold in the United States. PepsiCo did not respond immediately, but a year later, PepsiCo removed the chemical from their American-distributed Gatorade drinks. Gatorade’s spokeswoman, Molly Carter, refused to admit BVO was dangerous, but instead stated that even though some consumers have a negative perception of it, BVO is permitted for use in North America by the Food and Drug Administration. Carter also made it known that the reason PepsiCo changed the ingredients used in Gatorade was due to earlier customer complaints. This story gives hope that change can happen and shows that the generation coming up now cares about what they are consuming and truly want to make a change. I believe we are beginning to see a shift in power from big companies like Gatorade to customers like us who are starting to have a voice that cannot be ignored. If all it takes is a petition and a willing company, why can we not continue this trend? 

Another large corporation, Panera Bread Company, is a great example of what can happen when people do their research and actually care about their costumers instead of the dollars they will make. Panera Bread’s CEO, Ron Shaich, learned that food additives were harmful to the body and decided to conduct years of research to find a way to remove additives form the company’s menu entirely. After four years of testing ingredients and recipes, Panera Bread revealed their brand new, clean food initiative in January of this year. Shaich says they reviewed more than 450 ingredients reformulated 122 of them in order to get rid of food additives including artificial flavors, sweeteners, preservatives and colors. He says it costs to provide good food, but in the long run it is worth it: “The largest single cost was the thousands of man hours to do it, we are spending more money on our food. Good food costs more, but we think consumers get it.”  I agree with Mr. Shaich. I do “get it” and I certainly appreciate it. There are thousands of other companies who could make the changes Ron made at Panera Bread, and in the CNBC article, he personally offers to help any other restaurant in the industry make this transition to a one-hundred percent clean menu. Ron Shaich proves that corporate companies recognize the health problems some food additives can cause and the fact that they are willing to take action, even if it takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. 

During my research, I found that there are many food additives, some good and some bad. Notice I have not stated that all food additives are bad. I do believe some added vitamins such as vitamin D (added to whole milk) are essential to our bodies and are completely fine and not detrimental to our health. It is simply the unnecessary, and under-researched ones that I am truly concerned about. As Americans, we should use our rights to urge the Food and Drug Administration to further look into food additives that have previously been proven to cause cancer and illness. The FDA has sat on this long enough, and it is time to make a change. The United States Department of Agriculture has had some of the same excuses of running out of funding and used the same lingo as the FDA. If we petition and write to our government as constituents, I believe there is no way they can ignore us and silence us as a whole. The first step is to educate the American people on the studies that have already been conducted. Once we are educated, we can petition and rally to alter the food industry. If we can prevent sickness and premature death by changing what we eat, we could truly change the world. 
