ITHACA, NY. - America’s food
supply is safer now than ever
before. So concluded a panel of
scientists who participated in a
recent Cornell University sym
posium on “The American Food
Supply: Are We at Risk?”
There afe exceptions, but these
are not the risks the public worries
about, the speakers said. Existing
laws and regulations have dealt
effectively with the problems of
the past, and they continue to
provide Americans with the most
carefully regulated food supply in
the world.
What worries the public? What
are the real risks? How are risks
assessed and managed?
Symposium speakers addressed
these questions and related issues
during the two-day conference, co
sponsored by the Institute for
Comparative and Environmental
Toxicology, the Institute of Food
Science, and the Division of
Nutritional Sciences, all at Cornell.
“Americans are concerned
about the safety of the foods they
eat,” said Isabel Wolf, a consumer
nutrition consultant.
Although the cholesterol, sugar,
and sodium content of foods and
the relationship between diet and
health worry Americans, she said,
the leading consumer concern is
the presence of chemical residues
in food.
The real risks from the food
supply, however, are not those
perceived by the public, said Virgil
Wodicka, a food technology con
sultant who was formerly director
of the Bureau of Foods in the Food
and Drug Administration.
Citing the major hazards, he said
that disease-causing
microorganisms in food are the
most important risk, and that
malnutrition is another important
hazard.
Pesticides and food additives
were last on his list because the
incidence of adverse health effects
from these substances is low and
because the problems they present
are under control through effective
regulatory measures, Wodicka
said.
Many natural chemicals present
in foods may be more hazardous
than synthetic chemical residues,
according to William Havender, a
California-based consultant on
environmental carcinogens.
Evaluation of naturally occurring
food 'chemicals with the same
criteria used to assess the car
cinogenicity of synthetic
chemicals, he said, showed that
many kinds of natural substances
may be involved in causing cancer.
The potential cancer hazards
posed by natural chemicals in
bacon, mustard, mushrooms, and
shrimp, for example, far exceed
hazards posed by the daily dietary
intake of DDT, PCB, or EDB, he
claimed.
“Food additives and chemical
contaminants individually are
most likely to play only a minor
role in cancer risk in the United
States,” said Sushma Palmer,
executive director of the Food and
Nutrition Board of the Commission
of Life Sciences in the National
Academy of Sciences.
Discussing the association
between diet and cancer, Palmer
said that certain dietary com
ponents such as fat and large
quantities of cured, pickled, or
smoked foods appear to be linked
to increased cancer risk, yet the
reasons for these effects are poorly
understood.
Eating unwisely may be the
most serious health risk, according
to Victor Herbert, chief of the
Hematology and Nutrition
Laboratory at the Veterans Ad
ministration Medical Center,
Bronx, NY.
Disease, nerve damage, birth
defects, and even death result
from fad diets whicn are im- ;
moderately high or low in one or
Scientists say our food supply is safer than ever
more of the four basic food groups.
Some people try to get their
nutrition from “pills, powders,
potions, poultices, and per
fusions,” Herbert said.
“The important lesson is that
less is better, and we should do
whatever we can to reduce our
exposure to unnecessary
chemicals,” said Sidney Wolfe, the
founder and director of the Health
Research Group in Washington,
DC.
Chemicals that occur un
necessarily in the food supply are
food dyes, which have no
therapeutic or preservative
benefit, he pointed out.
Regulatory agencies that
monitor the safety of the American
food supply face many dilemmas,
said Christine Chaisson, director of
Technical Assessment Systems
Inc., Washington, DC.
Only recently has the govern
ment begun to consider the effects
of food processing on the nature
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and amounts of chemical residues
in food, she said.
“The laws regulate at the farm
gate. Unfortunately, you don’t eat
at the farm gate,” Chaisson said.
“You eat at home after your food
has been washed, bleached,
concentrated, heated, frozen, or
mixed; this can change the content
and the nature of the chemical to
which your risk was calculated,”
Chaisson said.
Because there will always be
risks in the food supply, how much
risk is acceptable becomes the
cornerstone of regulatory policy
toward food contaminants, said
Paul Hopper, corporate director
for scientific affairs, General
Foods Corp.
Hopper stressed that Americans
must be educated to distinguish the
real risks from the specter of risk
often raised in the news media.
By following the USDA’s
‘.‘Dietary Guidelines for
Alfalfa growers
demand
ebest.
Alfalfa growers expect the most
■om their alfalfa variety Like the
iighest yield, the best quality and
iiiltiple pest resistance That's why
lore and more growers are planting
'imarran Alfalfa
Profit with a pi oven variety
unarron is consistently a top pro
uciniJalfalfa both on the farmand
i university tests- not only in total
leld but in crude protein content and
DN It's an e\U a leafy/full season va
ety with excellentstand persistence
C imarron offers resistance to a
broad spectrum of diseases and
insects such as Phvtophthora root
rot bat lena! wilt. Fusanum unit,
mlhracnose, SderoUma crown and
stem rot Stempfn hum leaf spot,
i-ommon leaf spot, pea aphids, spoi
led alfalfa aphids and the alfalfa
weevil No other \anet\ can match
Pimarron s (nmbined pest
"esistance
IHOULDN’T YOU DEM
Cimarro
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Americans” with moderation,
balance, and variety, Americans
can enjoy the healthiest and safest
food supply available, he said.
Other speakers and their
presentations were Stephen
Taylor, an associate professor in
the Food Research Institute at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison,
on food-related allergies; Alan
Rulis, assistant to the director,
Division of Food and Color Ad-
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dittoes at the FDA’s Center for
Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,
on the FDA’s priority-based
assessment of food additives
project; Mark Hegsted, professor
emeritus of nutrition at Harvard
Medical School, on the role of diet
in disease; and Sidney Green,
associate director of Laboratory
Investigation, FDA’s Division of
Toxicology, on future research
needs.
"All the alfalfa on our farm is Cimanon
says Charles Moyer of Bernville Pa We
took four cuttings of Cimarron this year
and could have taken the fifth but we
didn t need it Our Cimarron haylage
tested 22% protein and I like that when
you consider the tonnage weie getting
Only Cimarron has been planted on this
farm for three years and I m going to keep
on planting it until something bettei
comes along