Is
Mac And Cheese Really So Risky? Perhaps. But There's A Larger Issue At Play
Comfort food has had a bad few weeks. Last month, French fries took a
hit, with a new study finding that of all the potato preparations, fries and
fries alone were linked to death risk over the years. This week, many people’s
favorite comfort food (not to mention a staple in many kids’ diets), macaroni
and cheese, was condemned:
The boxed versions in particular contain a variety of harmful phthalates,
which are known endocrine disruptors, especially for males, and as such are a
particular risk to pregnant woman and young children. While the new study is
alarming in some ways, it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know:
Hazardous chemicals are more prevalent than we like to admit, and we're exposed
to them in ways we don't always think about. The bigger issue is what we do
with that information.
Here's
a quick rundown of the new research. It focused on the chemicals in 30
different types of cheese product: 10 types of cheese powder from macaroni and
cheese, five types of processed cheese slices and 15 types of actual cheese of
different varieties, including blocks, slices, string and cottage cheese.
Macaroni and cheese powder had four times the phthalates that natural cheese
did. Even when fat content was adjusted for, it still had twice the amount.
Processed cheese slices had about three times the phthalates that natural
cheese did.
“Products
with higher phthalates in fat,” the researchers write, “likely pick up more of
these chemicals during food processing and packaging.” This last part is an
important point: Phthalates aren’t added to foods intentionally—they’re
unwitting additives that come from plastic tubing or other part of the
machinery involved in processing foods.
So
what is the takeaway from a study like this? It's probably not that our
favorite comfort food has betrayed us. There are a couple of other, more
important points. One issue, says David L. Katz, founding director of Yale University’s
Prevention Research Center, is that chemicals are just a drop in the bucket
when you take into consideration our average dietary pattern of people in the
U.S.
“I would say this is a bit like worrying about lead poisoning...by being
shot with a lead bullet! The bullet hole is the bigger problem in that context.
So, too, here.”
In
other words, we’re focusing on the wrong part of the problem. The issue
isn’t so much that macaroni and cheese powder contains chemicals, it's that we
eat a lot things that are terrible for us—perhaps far worse for us than the
chemicals.
“Most
of the packaged mac 'n' cheese products are variations on the theme of
hyper-processed junk, although some are certainly better than others,” says
Katz. “Still, a good diet would mostly avoid such products—and to the extent
occasional bad exposures show up in a good overall diet, it is the effect of
the overall dietary pattern that all but invariably predominates. I think a
fixation on specific chemicals in specific foods is just a welcome excuse to
ignore what we know about the massive influence of dietary pattern on
health—and our apparent unwillingness to do much of anything with that
information.”
The
other issue is that mac and cheese certainly isn't the only way we take
phthalates in (they're found in everything from shampoos to flooring), and
they're certainly not the only type of hazardous chemicals we're exposed
to. It's hard to know where we're exposed to them, how to avoid them,
and even if they affect our health in any real way.
Those who
are worried about the chemicals in processed foods and can afford it can
buy organic and hormone-free products make their own, healthier versions.
Even these won’t be totally harmful-chemical-free, but it will be
better than the processed versions. But not everyone can afford to do this, and
this is another problem again.
The study
may then be just a good example of how prevalent chemicals are (and
perhaps how bad our diets are in general). Some compounds we may be aware of,
some we may ignore—and some we may not think of at all. But studies like
this, zeroing in on one of our favorite go-to foods, sure make
the issues hit home. Perhaps now it's a matter of how we, and "big
food," will respond.
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