Let me quickly use this first paragraph to explain the title
of this post to you. Like I have mentioned in two of my articles in the past —
every thing that we eat and consume could be viewed as a poison, the amount
(dose) that we have taken in is what determines if it would cause disease or
become lethal (cause death). Almost every food I have seen has a component,
that can cause adverse health effect in everybody or some specific group of
people.
If this is not really clear, let me use this analogy of a
drug called Indocid. When I mentioned this name, what would come to the mind of
many people here in Nigeria is its use in killing mice and rats in the house.
Well, the drug was actually designed to help relief the painful condition
involving inflammation of joints or muscles. It could be arthritis. When rats
take that amount we put in foods for them, it is lethal but not for human.
This analogy is true for every food component that has been
labelled ad dangerous or risky — they all have a dose at which they are lethal
in the body. We only have to eat enough of it to see adverse effect in our
body. This is not to say that we should not care about the dangers every food
pose, in fact we have to endeavor to find out about them. This way, we can
know the hazards posed by the food component, at what quantities it becomes
dangerous and the problems it causes when its adverse effects start to
manifest.
This post is juts to enlighten us to know about what we eat
and to let us know that, when we mention that you should be wary of the dangers
of a food. We are not telling you to stop eating it — just avoid it as much as
you can so that you would reduce your chance of reaching the lethal dose or the
dose that can cause illness.
Some of these substances are present naturally in foods and
some are added to serve a functional purpose, but bring along these undesirable
toxins with them.
For example, Monosodium glutamate is a substance found in
natural foods such as tomatoes and cheese. They are also a major ingredient in
food seasonings such as Maggi, Knorr, Ajinomoto, Vedan and almost every
seasoning cube you would see in the market.
Regulatory bodies in many parts of the world has classified
MSG as a food ingredient that’s “generally recognized as safe,” but its use
remains controversial because some people reports adverse health effects after
consuming foods containing MSG.
For this reason, when MSG is added to food, it is widely
required that it be listed on the label. This way, people that don’t to consume
it will avoid it. It is the reason my colleague mentioned it in an article that
explained the funny habits people indulge in when cooking.
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