10 - Food

Abstract

Food along with air and water is essential for survival. Much of human culture is centered around food preparation and consumption. Persistent organic pollutants are pervasive in our environment. They are present virtually everywhere in the world, including the arctic environs. Mercury in its elemental form is a liquid that is vaporized upon heating. It is a component of fossil fuel and is found in airborne emissions from fossil-fuel burning plants. Antibiotics are used by meat producers to improve animal production and treat diseases. Food additives are chemical substances, other than basic foods, used in commercial food preparation to achieve preservative, flavor, color, stability, and esthetic effects. Very little published literature addresses the toxic effects of chemical mixtures in foods. This section addresses the absorption of xenobiotic chemicals via plant and animal growth and by the addition of toxic chemicals to food and pharmaceuticals during their preparation and packaging. Though not foods, the “inactive” ingredients in pharmaceutical products, vitamins, and mineral supplements contain many of the same chemicals added to commercially produced foods. Acute toxic events resulting from ingestion of food that has either been environmentally contaminated or prepared with toxic additives are less common than chronic exposure effects. Toxic chemical mixtures can also arise from a combination of food ingestion and environmental exposures to different molecular species. The reactions to xenobiotics can be idiosyncratic and functions of one's state of being or health.