ABSTRACT
The consumer is constantly blitzed by the media about some toxic substance. For food, there are claims that it is overprocessed, oversalted, oversugared, and oversaturated. The media has also claimed that the food is devitalized, filled with chemicals, drugs, and synthetic ingredients, and polluted by agriculture and industry. So, for many, it is hard not to succumb to the belief that a food safety crisis exists. Unfortunately, picking on chemicals makes for good press. In many media outlets, the definition of the term
chemical
has become almost analogous to
toxic substance
or
poison
, and conjures up images of cancer, birth defects, or tragic diseases. This chemophobia is based on the consumers’ perception of what makes up the risk that chemicals are bad and more is worse (Figure 6.1). Consumers with a better understanding of science want to know how hazardous a substance is to their health during their lifetime. Exposure to a myriad of human-made (anthropogenic) chemicals and natural chemicals is an everyday event. How much or how little is too much? How hazardous is the exposure to one’s health during a lifetime? These are questions that consumers often pose. Risk is associated with the chance of injury, damage, or loss. Risk can be physical, monetary, or even psychological — it can be anything that adversely affects people. There are no quantifiable limits of how big or how small a risk may be. Humans tolerate varying degrees of risks and may even ignore highrisk situations voluntarily. For example, the risk of death by motorcycling is 20,000 per 1,000,000 or death attributed to smoking 20 cigarettes/day is 5000 per 1,000,000. Each year, the sixth most frequent cause for accidental death in the U.S. is choking while eating, but it is rarely that the consumer would consider voluntary starvation over choking. Thus, there are acceptable risks that the consumer is willing to take voluntarily. However, there are other aspects of our lives, such as eating foods, which some believe should be risk free.
