January 9, 2008
Health Food Safety Tested on Animals
By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Network
Mixing messages, scoring an own goal and shooting oneself in the foot are all clichés that spring to mind when considering the wisdom of manufacturers who think testing new health food products on animals is a good idea.
Home Office figures in the U.K. show an increase from 862 to 4,038 experiments on animals to test food additives, sweeteners and health supplements from 2005 to 2006, according to The Times. Over the past year alone, the newspaper reports, there has been a rise of over 300 percent in laboratory experiments. It then goes on to specify which ingredients and products have been tested as well as where and on what animals.
Hospitals and universities in Glasgow, Aberdeen, London and the U.S. were cited as having researched the effects of raspberry juice, fish supplements, ginkgo biloba, cabbage and Teavigo, a purified green tea extract, on rodents as well as rabbits, guinea pigs and dogs. Gerhard Gans, director of regulatory affairs at DSM Nutritional Products, which produces Teavigo, explained that it is “sometimes necessary to use dogs, they are in some aspects more similar to humans than rats.”
A spokesman for the Home Office said tests on food are needed to meet regulatory requirements. Home Office statistics show that in addition to the experiments for additives there was a 30 percent increase to 7,477 tests on animals for other foods from 2005 to 2006.
Animal welfare groups responded by saying that many of the experiments are either unnecessary or could be performed on humans. Michelle Thew, chief executive of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said in The Times, “The rise in testing of food on animals in the race to find the next lucrative ‘super-food’ is a hidden scandal. People are unaware of the animal suffering behind the headlines.”
Discussion questions: Overall, how sensitive do you think consumers are to animal testing on food products? As consumer demands for transparency increase, can any company promoting food products for their healthy benefits justify testing them on animals? Is such a policy too contradictory to be acceptable?
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I have incredibly strong feelings on this subject. What is the hubris that allows us to use so many forms of life for our “experiments”? I suppose we can debate the fine points of cosmetic testing, etc…but this is food. As someone said above “What are we serving exactly that requires TESTING?”
The same consciousness (or lack thereof) that decides that species extinction caused by our environmental and industrial actions and decisions is acceptable collateral damage, or even worse, “progress” brings us to this.
It’s just not right.
I think this is complex issue that does not warrant simple answers. Most of the tests described in the article were conducted on rats and mice. Lab rodents are bred and killed in large numbers every day in research labs, largely unaffected by animal rights discussions. There is little call for slowing down cancer and other types of medical research in order to save the lives of mice.
Further, most of the experiments described seemed designed to understand the health benefits of the products. Similar to medical research, you can’t feed gingko to humans for 20 years and then slice open their brains to see if it did anything. I think most people agree that sacrificing mice is the right way to go there.
Finally, you have the rabbit testing for eye sensitivity and force-feeding dogs. Those are the experiments that will get the most publicity and the greatest negative reaction from the public. I’d have to agree that companies risk significant backlash when those tests come to light.
But the comments here that ask why we should even be looking at food products that have to be “tested” are naive. Sure we can all go back to growing our own food, but I think that’s unlikely. Most people welcome food supplements and ways to enhance their nutritional intake. We want to know whether certain foods or ingredients are really beneficial. We do want to know whether a concentrated food product will blind our kids if they accidentally rub it in their eyes. In order to move ahead in those areas, foods need to be tested. How they are tested and the impact of that testing is open to debate.
The requirements of polite society and the rules on this website prevent me from expressing my true feelings in regard to why we’re even coming up with foods that even NEED to be tested on animals to see if they’re safe for humans.
If we’re making “synthetic” foods now, out of chemicals that we’re not sure are safe for human consumption, the question just has to naturally arise: Why are we trying to foist them on the public in the first place?
Maybe we should simply stop coming up with new chemical additives and preservatives and supplements and substitutes and go back to just selling food instead of chemicals in the first place. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about being poisoned OR about torturing animals.
I think it’s OK. I would certainly want foods tested on animals before humans. Naturally we don’t want to see any cruelty.
No way am I going to buy any foods that have been tested on animals, no matter how they say it. The thought process moves backward.
Brands that boast “No animal testing” can charge higher prices. Yes, the volume goes down when the prices rise, but the margins are superior. The audience isn’t just PETA members. People love animals. Let’s face it: the HBA brand marketplace is crowded with a multitude of brands, all trying to be heard above everyone else’s noise level. Every bit of positive positioning helps.
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I have incredibly strong feelings on this subject. What is the hubris that allows us to use so many forms of life for our “experiments”? I suppose we can debate the fine points of cosmetic testing, etc…but this is food. As someone said above “What are we serving exactly that requires TESTING?”
The same consciousness (or lack thereof) that decides that species extinction caused by our environmental and industrial actions and decisions is acceptable collateral damage, or even worse, “progress” brings us to this.
It’s just not right.
I think this is complex issue that does not warrant simple answers. Most of the tests described in the article were conducted on rats and mice. Lab rodents are bred and killed in large numbers every day in research labs, largely unaffected by animal rights discussions. There is little call for slowing down cancer and other types of medical research in order to save the lives of mice.
Further, most of the experiments described seemed designed to understand the health benefits of the products. Similar to medical research, you can’t feed gingko to humans for 20 years and then slice open their brains to see if it did anything. I think most people agree that sacrificing mice is the right way to go there.
Finally, you have the rabbit testing for eye sensitivity and force-feeding dogs. Those are the experiments that will get the most publicity and the greatest negative reaction from the public. I’d have to agree that companies risk significant backlash when those tests come to light.
But the comments here that ask why we should even be looking at food products that have to be “tested” are naive. Sure we can all go back to growing our own food, but I think that’s unlikely. Most people welcome food supplements and ways to enhance their nutritional intake. We want to know whether certain foods or ingredients are really beneficial. We do want to know whether a concentrated food product will blind our kids if they accidentally rub it in their eyes. In order to move ahead in those areas, foods need to be tested. How they are tested and the impact of that testing is open to debate.
The requirements of polite society and the rules on this website prevent me from expressing my true feelings in regard to why we’re even coming up with foods that even NEED to be tested on animals to see if they’re safe for humans.
If we’re making “synthetic” foods now, out of chemicals that we’re not sure are safe for human consumption, the question just has to naturally arise: Why are we trying to foist them on the public in the first place?
Maybe we should simply stop coming up with new chemical additives and preservatives and supplements and substitutes and go back to just selling food instead of chemicals in the first place. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about being poisoned OR about torturing animals.
I think it’s OK. I would certainly want foods tested on animals before humans. Naturally we don’t want to see any cruelty.
No way am I going to buy any foods that have been tested on animals, no matter how they say it. The thought process moves backward.
Brands that boast “No animal testing” can charge higher prices. Yes, the volume goes down when the prices rise, but the margins are superior. The audience isn’t just PETA members. People love animals. Let’s face it: the HBA brand marketplace is crowded with a multitude of brands, all trying to be heard above everyone else’s noise level. Every bit of positive positioning helps.