The Truth behind Processed Food Essay

One of the most unhealthy diets in the world is that of an American. It is made up of processed foods and a good amount of television. America easily has the most fast food restaurants in the entire world. Leave it to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King or any other fast-food restaurant to serve extremely cheap and even unhealthier food at any time during the day or night. ”It tastes good so why not?” That seems to be the question many people are asking now-a-days. Because it is so easily accessible and processed, it is made to be very tasty and extremely unhealthy. Many Americans find his or herself indulging on the these fatty foods of America on a day-to-day basis. While it may taste good at the time, it has a terrible effect on your body

With this increase in the productivity of farmers, came a proliferation of food processing industries and fast food restaurants. These food processing industries and restaurants capitalized on the abundant, overly cheap commodity crops to their advantage; to make profit, and to the disadvantage of poor Americans. During processing of these commodity crops, the natural nutrients that give these foods their natural flavors are destroyed. To replace these, food additives and flavorings are added to restore their taste and prolong their shelf life. Often these chemicals contain some harmful elements that affect the way our bodies use food. These highly processed foods, dense in calories,

There are a lot of problems with using plastic water bottles. One of those problems is Bisphenol A (BPA). A lot of health problems have been heavily linked to BPA, including brain problems, premature birth, less fertility in women, defects in newborn babies, and some types of cancer. There was a study which showed that 96% of women had BPA in their bodies. Water bottles also have phthalates. Phthalates are used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which makes bottles more flexible. However, it does harm to the human body. PVC has a chemical called dioxin, which disrupts the human reproductive system, as well as messing up the hormones of the endocrine system.

When tested in rodents it has shown a change in obesity, which may correlate to humans, but more studies must be conducted (Rosenmai, Dybdahl, Pedersen, Wedebye, Taxvig, & Vinggaard, 2014, p. 1). Alternative analogues have been developed; two of which include Bispehnol S (BPS) and Bisphenol B (BPB). BPS has been found in, canned soda and food. Similarly, BPB has been found in canned tomatoes, soft drinks and canned beer. Found in appendix A are the chemical structural comparisons of the three analogues. There is limited information currently on the hazards of these analogues. All the compounds have similar structures, which generally can be assumes they have similar affects. Toxicology profiles have shown BPA to be carcinogenic, genotoxic, effects on metabolism and oxidative stress (Rosenmai, Dybdahl, Pedersen, Wedebye, Taxvig, & Vinggaard, 2014, p. 2). Based on the information found, analogs should be used with caution. More information still needs to be gathered to determine their affects on humans and if they can be used as a safe alternative in consumer products, such as thermal paper in receipts.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a monomer used to synthesize polycarbonates and epoxy resins for the manufacturing of products to which we are exposed in daily manners. BPA is considered a xenoestrogen because of its high affinity for estrogen receptors and related receptors, also, because it is known to have a disruptive effect on blastocyst implantation when ingested or injected in doses 10,000 times the effective dose of E2.

Research into the effects of BPA is ongoing, but many individual countries have restricted its use, particularly in packaging of foods and beverages intended for consumption by young children.

Everyone one at some point in their life has drank from a plastic bottle, whether it was a baby bottle, a plastic disposable water bottle, or just a water bottle you have used for exercise. If you were to show someone one of these thing they would know what it is, but what they might not know is that it can be harmful to them. A while back a lot water bottles used to be made with something called BPA, which has been proven to have many side effects on people when it get absorbed into from the plastic to your water. In this paper I will be informing you on BPA, what it is on how it gets into your water, what side effects it can have on you, and are water bottle safe for you now.

There are scientific concerns about the exposure of BPA has risen in the last few years. THere are a few cities and states in the United States who have banned BPA since they found it in baby bottles. LIttle is known wheather or not BPA really effects peoples babies. THere has been scientific studies on wrine leavles to find out if BPA has an effect on humans.

1993). Soybeans have the highest amount of isoflavones across food found in a vegetarian diet; isoflavones are considered phytoestrogens. Phyotestrogens are plant derived non-steroidal compounds with structure similar to estrogen and cause an estrogenic effect (Xu et al., 1998). Isoflavones have shown to have an antagonistic effect on endogenous estrogen while also being able to cause biological action (Morito et al., 2002). Soybean isoflavones have shown to have the same affinity to receptors ERa and ERB as estrogen (Morito et al., 2001). The binding of exogenous phytoestrogens in the form of isoflavones cause a reduction in endogenous estrogen synthesized. Studies have shown the diminishing effects of isoflavones on estrogen. In an earlier study it was concluded that endogenous estrogen levels were 15% lower amongst subjects with the highest amount of soy protein intake compared to those with low soy protein intake (Wu et al., 2002). This negative effect of soybean isoflavones on endogenous estrogen may lead to a disruption in growth of the long bone at the epiphyseal plate. In order to find the correlation and relationship of soybean isoflavones (a soy-vegetarian diet) on pre-pubertal epiphyseal plate growth on humans, a mouse model will be used. Bone formation has been mediated by isoflavones with precipitous mineralization of long bone at the epiphyseal growth plate (Morris et al., 2006). This study aims to find whether isoflavones from a high soybean vegetarian diet plays a role in prepubescent human females at the epiphyseal growth plate by using mice as models. Estrogen receptors will be quantitatively assessed in order to find whether isoflavones have an upregulation of those receptors. Lastly, an evaluation of the epiphyseal growth plate will be performed by hematoxylin and eosin staining and immunohistochemical

As a result, evidence was proven that the lab animals tested with the endocrine-disrupting chemicals, distinctively increased in size and weight. From the University of California, Bruce Blumberg was one of the first scientists to notice a link between the disrupting chemicals and obesity in the lab animals; resulting in his theory to be that “obsesogens” were causing the animals to gain fat. Obsesogens are classified as common chemicals found in our environment and are endocrine-disruptors that appear to be most dangerous when taken in small quantities. From the University of Missouri, Fred Vom Saal was researching on the effects of Bisphenol-A (an endocrine-disruptor) and injected them with a small dose of BPA equivalent to the amount a human would ingest in a day. Results have shown that it had caused reproductive abnormalities of weight gain. From the U.S National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Retha Newbold studied the health effects on D.E.S, which is a hormone replacement drug, have found to be linked with ovarian cancer. Newbold’s research experiment was to inject the rats with D.E.S, and results significantly showed the animals became obese due to the chemical. All the experiments conducted, had shown that the endocrine disrupting chemical did indeed include a link to the obesity in the lab

Goodman described the discovery as, “epic” due the potential damage it may cause to the commercial food industry. The scientist’s study consists of an evaluation of the synthetic chemical levels of inorganic and organic samples. Afterwards, tracking those chemicals development over humans in a long-run period.

In a generic infant soy formula a concentration of 19 221 μg/100 g of phyto-oestrogens was found in comparison to a concentration of 59 μg/100 g in non-soy infant formula. In the study by Kuhnle et al. (2008) the dramatically higher concentrations of phyto-oestrogen in soy products were primarily attributed to an extremely high level of isoflavone phyto-oestrogen class.

Chemicals are also suspected to cause breast cancer. Xenoestrogens are chemicals with estrogen-like effects, they are found in pesticides and other common industrial products. Other estrogen-like chemicals that have a stronger association with breast cancer include dieldrin and beta-hexachloraocyclohexane. Although these chemicals are very weak estrogens, one study showed that exposure to single weak-estrogen compounds isn’t a big risk but a combination of two or more chemicals result in extremely high estrogenic

Xenoestrogen are estrogens that are not found in the human body. They are members of a wider class of chemicals, endocrine-disrupting compounds, that hamper with normal functioning of the endocrine system. One examples of xenoestrogen is bisphenol A (BPA) which is used in the manufacturing of plastics and is found in the linings of food cans. Studies have shown that females exposed to BPA in utero or during early life had changes in their developing mammary glands that could predispose them to cancer in adulthood. Another example of xenoestrogen is phthalates which is used to make plastic soft and flexible and can be found in cosmetic items to cleaning materials. They can bind weakly to both the estrogen receptor and the androgen receptor and can cross the

In 1984, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) evaluated the safety of methyl, propyl, and butylparabens, stating that they were “safe for use in cosmetic products at levels up to 25%,” which is a generous limit, considering the approximate level for parabens ranges from .01 to 3%. However, there are still claims that parabens do more harm than good. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported in December of 1999 “the chemical preservatives called parabens—methyl, propyl, butyl, and ethyl—displayed estrogenic activity in several tests.” Essentially, they found that parabens have the capability to mimic the body’s own hormones, which can lead to disruptions in the endocrine system, developmental and reproductive toxicity, allergies, and immunotoxicity. Even though parabens occur naturally in low levels in foods, like strawberries, blueberries, onions, carrots, etc, they are metabolized when consumed, making them less estrogenic. Yet, when the