Last year, a stick of butter was purchased from a regular old grocery store in Texas. The University of Texas School of Public Health ran some tests and hey! What do you know? High levels of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBD), a common flame retardant for electronics, were found. Lead researcher Arnold Schecter states, in case you didn't know, that "Flame retardants were not meant to be eaten. They're made to slow down the smoke in fires. They're not a food component."
Little is known about the health effects of PBDs, but they are believed to be linked to liver cancer and neurobehavior. But, apparently 95% of Americans have traces of fire retardant chemicals in their systems. Americans are just so healthy!
What do you think about these facts? Should there be an investigation into the processes involving the manufacture of butter?
11 comments:
Oh definately! There should be an investigation. Why should people be eating things that aren't meant to be eaten? What I don't get is why the health inspectors of these foods don't stop those fire retardent chemicals from being in food...
There should definitely be an investigation of the issue of PBD in the manufacturing of butter through the FDA. Here's a quick semi-syllogism: All organisms must consume energy to live. Energy is found in food. Foods that provide energy can be burned. But since PBD, which is found in the butter cannot be burned, it therefore does not provide nutritional value, and is potentially dangerous to the human body.
This reminds of the fact that we all have some traces of DDT in our bodies because of the pesticide. This makes me wonder what the FDA was doing when they checked the butter. Or did it just get lost in the bureaucracy? Also, I think people should just eat less butter in general...
All I can do is laugh at this. There are dangerous chemicals in food that people regularly eat and yet there are people who push for GMO foods. I think this speaks to how much society doesn't know about the dangers in our foods. I think we really need to crack down on these things faster and ensure safety before putting things out in the market. But I guess the best thing to do right now is to do an investigation and get rid of the harmful chemicals.
There is no question that there needs to be an investigation. Any sort of hazardous chemical in a food should not go on tolerated, even if 95% of people already have the chemical in their system. If the manufacturing companies used their heads, they would try to avoid the possibility of people getting sick and perhaps sue them in return. Let's just use some common sense here; a fire retardant in any sort of food that we then dispose into our body should not be ignored, and certainty not something to second guess looking into.
what I want to know is how many different kinds of butter manufacturers make their butter with this fire retardant. Once that is known then the FDA should just close them down SUCKA!
Before everyone goes gung-ho on the food industry for a wide range of issues I'm already seeing mentioned pesticides, GMOs, carcinogens, its liberty's in production, etc. has anyone thought this may be an isolated incident? I mean they tested ONE butter stick they randomly picked at the store. Just ONE and who knows maybe that stick was just different. Also in the case of carcinogens in the food I really take such little notion to that as a "hazard" now because it seems to me everything now has a chance to cause cancer and that really since we don't know for sure we are just making chance connections and accusations of products as carcinogens.
To add to our “muckraker”-esque calls, here is a fact from the article that I found to be very shocking:
“A 40-pound child would need to eat only 3 percent of a stick of contaminated butter to exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's daily safe exposure level for PBDE-209, the main component in PBDE.”
Naturally, we wonder how in the world the company (which remains unnamed) could allow such a harmful chemical to land in our food. As LuShuang mentioned, this is relevant to what we discussed in government class today – how messages can be twisted and “lost in translation” up the levels of bureaucracy, which makes the company unhealthy and ineffective because the workers at the lower levels don’t want to carry bad news.
I’m also wondering about the credibility of the researchers who discovered this dangerous stick of butter. Did they really only buy one stick of butter? If they were doing an experiment or study of some kind, wouldn’t they buy more than just one stick of butter? It is possible that the researchers happened to buy one single butter stick that was unrepresentative and had unusually high levels of PBDE.
I agree with chris chan, there needs to be an investigation. If we are unaware that we are consuming products that can effect our health negativly causing cancer and other issues, many people will be put into harm. Especially because PBD has no nutritional value, why consume it? On the other hand, we eat foods every day and the long foregn names that we see on the ingredients dont really phase many cosumer. I believe by cracking down on the companies who the investigation has tracked down, they can eliminate or punish them for their wrong doing. ps. dont laugh, i now i cant spell...
I agree with Sarah; I am a bit hesitant about the credibility of this research if they really based all of this information on just one stick of butter. But if this information can be verified by better research, then I believe that extensive investigation should definitely be made for the benefit of people's healths.
If this turns out to be true of that type of butter, then I am sufficiently creeped out, but also a little curious. There has got to be a reason for the presence of PBD in that butter and I'd like to know what it is. I think that there should definitely be an investigation if more evidence is secured. Depending on what the purpose the PBD served, similar uses might be a reality in many foods/products. I do find it odd that this is popping up an entire year later though...
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