I hate it when they put stuff in my food without telling me....

[ImSoNotTelling]

government criticises food industry over nanotechnology

I never realised that nanotechnology had uses in food industry (not surprising really!), and that it is already being used despite the govt saying not enough work has been done to check it is safe . Doesn't sound great to me.

Then towards the end of the BBC piece the chap who did the enquiry into nanotechnology and the food industry recommends that the govt do more research into safety. Shouldn't the food industry be doing this? Preferably before they start using it?

The whole thing has rather surprised me - one of those moments where it turns out that how you assume things work is completely wrong, and the way things actually work seems utterly illogical.

The food industry shouldn't be behaving like this should they?

No, and it's really worrying. It also shows what an absolute sham the Food Standards Agency is.

well it is simple to avoid. don't eat processed food.

I avoid the clothes with nanotechnology as well, but you have to be pretty alert. Annoys me that you have to read the blimmin labels.

My point though is that they haven't told us that they are there in the first place, so no-one has been able to make a decision about whether they consume them or not.

Fishie I find your approach unrealistic for the majority of the population and unhelpful. Not eating processed foods at all is really really hard. I love bread and cheese for example they are probably my staple. Most people do not have the time, inclination or skill to consume only unprocessed foods.

Do they label the food then when it contains nanotechnology? Thing is if it's microscopic partices of "normal" substances, then you won't be able to tell from the label that they are in there.

I mean it might well be perfectly safe (I'm a scientist and not uncomfortable with advances generally) but the problem is they don't actually know and yet they are using them

My last post came out a bit stroppier than I meant it to! Ignore the "my point is though" part and replace with "It worries me that"!

I find it a bit shocking that they don't have to say that its being used. People have a right to know what they are eating.

yep, I don't make my own mayonnaise every day and I like hellmans so it would freak me out to find out there was nano's in it and not declared.

Your freakout at undeclared nano's made me giggle laurie. Nice turn of phrase!

I'm going to have a little google and see if I can find out what foods contain them.

It's just so bloody complicated, what with palm oil and bad fishing practices and battery farming and feeding animals the same ground up animals and on and on without them bloody adding teeny tiny possibly unsafe stuff and not even bloody mentioning it

I usually reckon that buying organic means you don't get any nasty stuff. You can't do it 100% though - how about when you nip into a cafe for a bite on the run?

I hate it when they put stuff in our food fullstop.

I don't see the need to mess about with it tbh. I don't even know what half the ingredients on labels are. It's certainly never anything I stock in my kitchen.

I now refuse to use store bought apple sauce after seeing a jar with an ingredients list half a mile long. Surely it's just 'apple, water, sugar'? I don't like the dds eating frozen or processed foods either, but that's an ongoing battle with DH whereby we have compromised that they only have the high quality stuff and only occassionally.

You have to wonder what all this stuff is doing to us. Our bodies were not designed to digest 'transfats' or 'nanotechnology' or 'enumbers'

I read that article too and it surprised me that the food manufacturers don't have to in form consumers about it.I wouldn't want to b e eating stuff that hasn't been adequately tested.

I disagree with you here I'mso

'Fishie I find your approach unrealistic for the majority of the population and unhelpful. Not eating processed foods at all is really really hard. I love bread and cheese for example they are probably my staple. Most people do not have the time, inclination or skill to consume only unprocessed foods.'

Eating unprocessed food is a piece of piss.
Don't buy it.
Noone holds a gun to your head and forces you to fill yer trolley with Potnoodle and ready meals.

If one is too lazy/ill disciplined/stupid to sort it out, then so be it.

And its' not cvomplicated at all.
As have said many times on mN, all you need to ask before buying something is
'Has anyone fucked about with this?'

If yes, then put it back.If no, then buy away.

Moondog you think people should make their own bread and cheese, as a matter of course?

Grind their own flour?

Butcher their own meat?

That is not possible for most ordinary people.

You also miss the point that the nano thing might be a "normal" ingredient, but its teenyness makes it behave and interact in an unusual way.

For example, the articles I looked at talked about nano salt - the label would just say "salt" it wouldn't mention the nano-ness. So you wouldn't know, yet the nano-ness might later the way it interacts with your body.

And if they are not prepared to grind their own flour, make their own cheese, make their own bread, butcher their own meat, then they deserve to be sujected to untested additives by the food industry?

That is arse about face I'm afraid, rules should be there to protect the vast majority of people who do not make their own cheese and butcher their own meat.

Also rather callous. You are effectively comfortable with the population being experimented on without their knowledge.

People deserve to be told honestly what their food contains, without misdirection, omission or ignoring the spirit of rules for the sake of profit.

jedisnon re the organic thing, see the above point about salt, it could easily comply with organic labelling protocol while being "nano".