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Is Food Science Harmful or helpful?

       Nowadays people care more about what they eat especially when the companies started to add food additives in every kind of food, and the way of create food has been changed. We always ask ourselves if these changes are good or harmful? No one deny that there is connection between science and the nutrition. This link has influenced what we eat in many ways. The question is how could science influence on nutrition? There are advantages and disadvantages of the influenced of science on nutrition.

            The Positive Effects of Science on Nutrition:

      Science has improved what we eat in different ways. First, many kind of foods have been created without some important contents that could cause allergy for some people. For example, People how have allergy of Gluten used to not eat bread, and people how have allergy of lactose used to not drink milk. However, food scientists have created new Technique that could allow to produce Gluten free bread and lactose free milk, so people can eat any kind of foods without warry about the allergic reaction. Second, food scientists have created new type of milk that has all the nutrients that the baby requires, so the babies will get what they need to have by just drinking it. Also, we could find foods that has low-fat, more protein and vitamins even in chocolates because of science, so we will have the daily amount of vitamins and protein easily. Science food is very helpful to us, but does it have downsides?

The Negative Effects of Food Science:

     Food science has downsides that could affect our life negatively. First, food science provides us food labels, which mention all the ingredients that the item has. These food labels should be helpful, but they are more harmful than helpful because every company wants to sell their products, so they write the food labels of their products in confusing way that can mislead the people according to the article “Eating Well: Less science, more common sense”. Second, some food additives have side effects that could cause health problem in long term. For example, MSG, which use in many kind of foods as a flavor, could cause damage in the brain’s cells, which are known as neurons. Also, some researches show that there is a connection between eating food that has MSG, and having headaches and eye damage. Third, Because of food science, genetically modified food has been created.  GMOs is food whose genetic makeup has been modified. GMOs has many side effects such as causing food allergy, increasing toxicity and decreasing Nutritional Value, so many countries has banned it. Also, it has unknown side effects.

      In conclusion, food science has influence nutrition in both good and bad ways. We can get food that has low fat, more protein or more vitamins. Also, we can eat certain food without warry about allergic reaction. On the other hand, some kind of foods could have side effects that could cause health problems, so we should choose our food carefully to avoid the bad effects of them.  

Sources:

1-      http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/21/msg-is-this-silent-killer-lurking-in-your-kitchen-cabinets.aspx

2-      http://enhs.umn.edu/current/5103/gm/harmful.html