1 Corinthians 6:19, tells us: “Don't you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.”
Good afternoon, my name is Olivia. I would love to have your attention for about 7 to 8 minutes.
Who has not feasted its eyes over gorgeous food presented to whet your appetite, that makes you drool and inspires the culinary adventurer within you?
To most people, I myself included, food plays an important role. Whenever there is a new restaurant or snack, I am always the first in line to try it out. On the Internet the art of visual presentation of food has been taken to next level. Living in Indonesia the creativity and effort people put in a dish or food-item, never seizes to amaze me.
Many times I wondered why we did not have such cool snacks like cakes displaying all colours of the rainbow in Holland. And it certainly triggered my curiosity to find out more about it.
Digging deeper into this matter I was shocked to find out the reasons why.
Did you know that products you may have bought might actually contain a substance which is banned in some other countries? And did you know that there is a legitimate reason for it to be banned? Most of these dangerous chemicals actually may cause more harm to our body than we imagine!
After having read research reports and after having gone through all the facts I can only be left with one conclusion: CLEAR LABELLING SHOULD BE REQUIRED FOR EVERY PRODUCT.
I opened this presentation with a quote from the bible. As a Christian I strongly believe in our body being a temple of God Himself. A temple is a place of worship; hence it should be kept pure and clean. In order to benefit from its full potential, we should refrain from poisoning our body with substances which may obstruct being able to gain this ‘full potential”.
The worst part of this is that most people are actually not aware what exactly they are putting in their body. To give you an example: “Did you know that the chicken meat that was on your plate yesterday might contain a dangerous chemical called Arsenic? Now as some of you may already be aware, Arsenic is also used in rat poison. It is known to cause cancer. And what about sports drink that you drank today? Did you know it might contain a substance called Brominated Vegetable Oil? Another dangerous substance linked to thyroid issues, such as hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, and cancer. Maybe some of you already know all this, but I dare bet that most people are totally unaware of this.
The reason why so many people are still unaware is because of the improper way of labelling. We all have look at the back of a packaging and found ingredients such as “Spices” or “Flavouring”.
Food industries use these terms to name certain dangerous chemicals and in a way disguise them so they will appear less harmful, but what they are actually doing is selling us a lie.
Despite all this going on, the Food and Drug Administration, better known as the FDA, has not taken any actions against this form of deception. Yet the FDA claims their duty is to protect our health and promote healthy products.
The reason these substances are allowed is cause they help us or the company to save a lot of money ( by making them more attractive or increasing shelf-life). Yet, we might actually save a lot more money if we just prevent the usage of these substances, as we could lower the medical bills by preventing illness from happening instead of curing.
“Don't judge the appearance, judge the food!”
Now this is easier said than done! While many of us like to believe that we are not easily deceived, our sense of taste is often fooled by our sense of sight. This is because humans have certain expectations of how food should look. When a food's colour is off or is different than what we expect, our brain tells us that it tastes different too. So, although sight is not technically part of taste, it certainly influences perception.
Fortunately there are many, healthy alternatives, to make food look more appetizing and appealing.
For thousands of years many different cultures all over the world used food colourings to enhance their food. The ancient Romans and Egyptians used colourings from vegetable and mineral sourced such as: paprika, turmeric saffron and copper sulphate.
The food-industry just has to be more creative!
Well, why don’t we just simply ban these ingredients you might ask. Although it might seem like a more straightforward and easy solution, the truth is, banning is easier said than done. The government has attempted multiple times to ban other dangers such as alcohol and tobacco, but failed each time.
The first thing we should consider when banning something is that the substance not just disappears, it’s use will just be illegal. Yet people might actually still find ways to get these products into their food.
Have you ever heard of Al Capone? Around 1920, the US government tried to ban all alcohol resulting in a lot of illegal alcohol smuggling on a massive scale by him. Yet, as this alcohol was not meant for human consumption (but for paint etc), a lot of people died. Instead of helping the people, this ban did exactly the opposite.
Then, just like how it is with tobacco and alcohol, banning takes away the rights of freedom people have. Though we are banning these products to help people get healthier, we shouldn’t forget that it is also their body and not ours, and that they should have a choice to do with it whatever they want. We can’t just simply ban everything that comes with dangers. Banning this would be the same as banning knifes, just because you can kill yourself with knifes.
Although I honestly do believe these chemicals should eventually be banned and would be a lot easier to ban than addictive substances such as tobacco and alcohol, I don’t think banning them straightaway will do any good to neither the food industry nor the people, and I think we should work in small steps to be successful. Simply raising awareness must be the first thing we should do before making big decisions,
I believe everything starts with good information. Good labeling designed to inform people, especially children, about food, where it comes from, what is in it and how it affects our bodies and our health because the food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison. (Ann Wigmore)
Thank you very much