Organic foods challenged by IFT president
Roger Clemens, president-elect of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) said beliefs such as hazards of sodium, high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats, and the benefits of organic and local foods. were all myths.
There isn’t a significant difference between the nutrients in organic and conventionally grown foods, Clemen said.
“How do you feed 7 billion people?” was the opening question of Clemens’ presentation to USU students, Thursday. Clemens’ presentation, titled “Feeding a Nation: Reality vs. Fallacy,” was an evidence-based rebuttal to the popular documentary “Food, Inc.” which was released in 2008.
Clemens was the associate director of the regulatory science program at the USC school of pharmacy, and has a long list of other professional positions and accomplishments.
“He has a broad view of what’s going on in technology related to food,” said Donald McMahon, a professor in the Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science Department (NDFS).
“A lot of what we hear about food is based on emotion; people really go over the edge,” Clemens said.
He said he feels that many of the decisions made with regulations regarding the food industry are perception driven, and not founded upon evidence.
The film “Food, Inc.” contends that the agricultural industry is largely unregulated, and is allowed to use hormones, chemicals and pesticides, factors that contribute to the health epidemic plaguing our nation. The makers of the film provide solutions for Americans, including eating locally grown organic foods, and avoiding shipped and processed foods.
“You can’t feed 310 million people in your backyard,” he said. “We have the healthiest food supply in the world, and processing assures us that the food will be safe.”
Clemens said processing in the food manufacturing industry is no different than what is common to other industries, such as pharmaceuticals. One of the examples he used was insulin, which utilizes several processes to be manufactured.
He said, “We will take an injectable medication, bypassing every barrier of safety, but when it comes to food, we won’t accept it.”
Clemens presentation was replete with statistics, graphs and reports that indicated organic and conventionally grown crops have few nutritional differences. Even the claims that organic foods are hormone- and pesticide-free are misleading, he said.
“We can’t say that organic foods are pesticide free; they just use pesticides approved by the EPA,” he said, and that these are as potent as any other pesticide.
“It’s a mind game with the consumers today,” he said.
Clemens said his solution to these misconceptions is to get the politics out of the food industry, and let the scientists do their research.
“We have a desire to have as much as we can for as little as possible,” McMahon said. “We use food manufacturing industries in order to produce the quantity of food you want.”
In order to have a successful food business, safety must be a priority, he said. Professor Charles Carpenter, department head of nutrition and food sciences, said USU is very much a part of finding ways to improve food nutrition, health and safety.
McMahon said: “The biggest message I think is that the foods we eat and the lifestyle we have is very dependent on large-scale manufacturing of foods, learning about how our foods get on the table is going to be essential for knowing what we can do regarding the health of society in general.”
– keaton.reed@aggiemail.usu.edu