Artificial and Laboratory Foods: A Threat to the Global Wellness or Innovative Solution

Globalization is one of the key factors that have led to the processing of the artificial and laboratory food. It has altered most of the cultural ways of processing food. Globalization has resulted in modernization of the food industry economy hence leading to influence in eating habits that have contributed to artificial and laboratory foods. One of the major threats to global security and health is globalization. Specifically, cultural globalization which resulted in lifestyle illnesses, associated with mass-consumption and food market trends (International Food Information Council Foundation, 2000). There are two primary outcomes of globalization. First of all, increasing mass consumption of high fat and high sugar foods, that causes diseases like diabetes, obesity and heart illnesses, and damage to the environment.

Secondly, artificial and laboratory food is an alternative to it. Even today, a certain degree of fear of artificial and laboratory foods still exists. Artificial and laboratory food may have an advantage or a disadvantage on the health of the consumers. Most of the side effects of artificial sweeteners have made most of the consumers to stop using them. Artificial sweeteners have become a significant product in most of the manufacturing industries. Artificial sweeteners are mainly recognized in the body as a toxin. Increases of these toxins in the body tend to interfere with the body organs like the liver. This paper will mainly focus on the question about whether artificial and laboratory food is a threat to global wellness or a solution for its improvement.

Most severe and widespread decreases in the world are closely related to peoples diet for example heart drops; the digestive system falls, diabetes, urinary tract defects, and kidney diseases today, there are many diet-balancing methods, which help to minimize the risks of development of those diseases. One of the primary methods is artificial and laboratory food. However, with the elaboration of the food industry, peoples prejudices against innovations in this field, such as artificial ingredients, has increased dramatically. Though, in fact, fresh plastic food is not only safe but more beneficial for humans.

Plastic food can give people, who have allergies or diabetes a chance to be still able to enjoy any food. Specifically, artificial sweeteners were created to make it possible. A research review argues that Coke, for example, contains 36 grams of sugar, and, therefore becomes a forbidden product for diabetics, while a Diet Coke, being made with aspartame (artificial sweeter), is safe for people with diabetes (International Food Information Council Foundation, 2000). Someone can argue that aspartame contains methanol, which is toxic to humans. However, other researchers suggest that there are many natural products, like tomatoes, which contain far more methanol than aspartame (Mills 2006). Specifically, development of artificial sweeteners production is essential for global health security as well as for prevention and treatment of diabetes and other insulin-related diseases. It is especially important for children, who suffer from these kinds of conditions and have a small degree of self-control to maintain a strict diet. It is a long-term problem because wellness of future generations depends on children. Artificial sweeteners are one of the principal components of the artificial and laboratory foods.

Artificial sweeteners are one of the food components that add value to the obese and the diabetic patients. These sweeteners tend to control sugar cravings and also controls the about of starch intake in the body hence not interfering with the blood glucose level. Artificial sweeteners have also helped in controlling calorie intake in the body which is one of the challenges faced by the obese people. Any food with artificial sweeteners has low-calorie content. Artificial sweeteners have an advantage to the dental sectors. Since these sweeteners have low sugar content, they have reduced the issue of dental problems. Though, there are certain problems in that area, like overuse of artificial sweeteners and lack of determination whether the use of artificial sweeteners in particular cases is necessary and helpful or not. Therefore, international regulation of artificial sweeteners utilization and education about it are required to enable the artificial sweeteners, consumers, to have more knowledge about them (International Food Information Council Foundation, 2000).

Finally, artificial ingredients are necessary for the products that they are added to. In fact, US Food and Drug Organization reports that there are three primary goals of the use of artificial ingredients: to maintain or improve safety and freshness by slowing spoiling processes in products that can be caused by many factors. To improve or maintain nutritional value by adding and controlling the amount of nutritious in food, which helps to prevent over-consumption of some elements such acids and fat and to increase the number of elements that are in deficit such as vitamins. In addition, it improves the taste, texture, and appearance, makes food more delicious and attractive to consumers (International Food Information Council Foundation & Cogent Research, 2006). First two goals are essential for the contemporary world because they help to maintain public health and safety by preventing problems related to excessive consumption and deficit of nutritious as well as food poisoning.

The point is, artificial food is safe and sometimes even safer than natural products. Artificial foods are being produced in laboratories is tested several times before it appears in supermarkets. Moreover, most importantly their strict requirements and control for such production in comparison to natural food that does not have that many regulations (Mills, 2006).

Another example is a cluster of food that simply cant be produced without harm from natural resources. Some of the research illustrates this idea by explaining that raw soybeans, from which soy sauce is made, are toxic (Mills, 2006). The artificial equivalent which is widely used around the world is made from Acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein, not boiled soybeans. In this case, artificial replacement helps to avoid dangerous consequences for the environment.

There is another example of laboratory food production, which is beneficial for global security and food consumption in many ways. Recently production of laboratory meat has the same qualities as the meat obtained naturally from the animals which are not genetically interfered with (Schmid, 2009). This innovation solves several contemporary problems at once. First of all, meat remains an essential and part of many peoples diets, yet, it is still non-accessible for most people, especially in developing countries. Secondly, meat production is a threat to the global agricultural sector and global environment. Lastly, it is expensive, inefficient and inhumane. The enormous growth of globalization and technology will improve techniques that will enable the scientists to produce genetically constructed meat, which will allow skipping most of the problematic steps of meat production and directly creating the final product (Charalambous, 1984). For example, it will be possible to generate and grow cells of a particular part of an animals body, which will allow, for instance, to develop a steak avoiding unpleasant steps of meat production like raising an animal, immunization, slaughter and storage. The issues of safety and jobs loss still exist in this method; however, they are soon to be resolved.

In conclusion, artificial and laboratory foods can be dangerous in case of excessive consumption. Excessive use of these sweeteners can lead to a risk of cancer. Most of the cancer disease associated with these sweeteners is bladder cancer (International Food Information Council Foundation, 1990). The bladder is mainly affected by excessive consumption of the artificial sweeteners since it is the one that removes excess glucose from the body. Most of the artificial sweeteners are made from chemicals which can be harmful to those bodies which are allergic to the chemical content. However, it does not mean that they should be banned, limited or excluded from the market.

In many cases, artificial ingredients improve the safety of production. Besides, they can be the only way to stay healthy for people with strict diets. Moreover, even for those, who do not have any problems with health, the artificial ingredient is a safe method to prevent diseases. Also, artificial food provides an opportunity to customize any product and to increase its quality by maintaining nutritious. Lastly, artificial foods help to avoid environmental damage and skip unpleasant and undesirable steps of food production in order to improve global security and global health. This sector of global security is promising and imperative, thats why it requires government funding and private investments (Gavroglu, 2014). Artificial sweeteners have been of help to the health care sectors since it has assisted in controlling the chances of diabetes, obesity by minimizing the amount of sugar intake. This paper comes to a conclusion that artificial and laboratory foods have been more of an innovative solution especially to the health care sectors than being a threat to the global wellness.

References

Charalambous, G. (1984). Analysis of foods and beverages. Oxford: Elsevier Science.

Gavroglu, K. (2014). History of Artificial Cold, Scientific, Technological and Cultural. Issues.Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

International Food Information Council Foundation. (1990). International Food Information Council Foundation: IFIC Foundation. Washington, D.C: International Food Information Council.

International Food Information Council Foundation. (2000). Low-calorie sweeteners and health. Washington, D.C: International Food Information Council Foundation.

International Food Information Council Foundation., & Cogent Research. (2006). Food & health survey: Consumer attitudes toward food, nutrition & health. Washington, DC: International Food Information Council Foundation

Mills, C. (2006). Managing allergens in food. Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing Ltd.

Schmid, R. F. (2009). The untold story of milk: The history, politics, and science of nature's perfect food: raw milk from pasture-fed cows. Washington, DC: NewTrends Pub.