Food Pollution

Food Pollution

Generally speaking, pollutions are conceived as contaminations, which threaten the environment: pollutions of air, soil, noise, water, and other sources, engaged in breaking the equilibrium of nature. However, what if there is a pollution excluded from those stereotypes? The contemporary event of tainted milk powders in mainland China has brought about the attention to food contamination worldwide. As we know, the environmental pollutions might not affect people directly; by contrast, food poisoning can harm human beings while eating and drinking. For instance, people who have been drinking the tainted milk are at the risk of getting kidney stones. According to the New York Times, more than 54,000 Chinese babies are sick at toxic milk and have received the hospital treatment. Thus, we should express our concerns to the safety of food products.

There are mainly three factors, which may affect levels of contamination of the food products: environmental conditions, manufacturing processes, and transport conditions. The environment for food-making is important. The environmental factors, such as water and land quality, determine whether food is contaminated or not. Let's say, a fish farm cannot keep its fish in the place with polluted water. Moreover, the sophisticated manufacturing process relies on production techniques. For example, a dairy factory needs to "pasteurize" its raw material, milk, to destroy the bacteria by heating the liquid. Last, transport creates the potential hazard of food pollution since the products make contact to outside world during the delivering. That is, the food products might get tainted from the contaminated transportation or places.

Food contaminations happen every day all over the world: The United Nations agency receives about 200 reports of tainted food products each month in its 193 member states. Hence, Government officials must give the high priority to the regulation of food handling for the food industry. Many developed countries have high level of political commitment on food safety.
For example, in Britain, the Food Standard Agency, responsible for food safety, announces its news about polluted food and decisions on food policy in open meetings accessible to the public. In other words, consumers or businessmen can react to this process in action by questioning the board directly. Unlike developed countries, developing countries need to strengthen their regulatory frameworks, for their food safety systems might be outdated. Like mainland China, the case of the tainted baby formula, made by Sanlu Group, has been reported to the local government from December, 2007. But the central government is informed about this report eight month later after the local government has "taken over" it. Therefore, government should treat food regulation seriously and should take it as a public interest, not political benefits.

"You are what you eat", a slogan for dietary habits, is no more singled out just for the nutrition of food we take but also for the safety in relation to food.