Eating Safely in a Polluted World

updated 01/18/2008

by Leo Galland M.D., F.A.C.N.

(Author of Power Healing: Use The New Integrated Medicine to Heal Yourself, Random House, 1997)

Epidemics of parasitic infection from contaminated water and of bacterial food poisoning from chicken or hamburger serve notice that the U.S. food and water supply is not safe. Pesticides and preservatives provide no protection from the current crop of microbes and pose health hazards of their own. There are several simple, effective measures you can follow to protect yourself and those you love from the effects of eating contaminated food and water, avoiding both microbial and chemical contaminants in food and drink and building resistance to them if you are exposed.

Part One: Resisting Food or Water-Borne Infection

1. Avoid Antacids and Acid Lowering Drugs. The body's first line of defense against intestinal infection is the acid produced by a healthy stomach. Stomach acid kills most of the bacteria and parasites that are swallowed along with meals. Strong suppression of stomach acid increases the risk of intestinal infection. If you are troubled with frequent heartburn, gastritis or ulcers, there are potent alternatives to acid lowering therapies which are described in my book, The Four Pillars of Healing.

2. Avoid Unnecessary Antibiotics. The second line of defense against intestinal infection is the normal intestinal bacteria, especially Lactobacilli residing in the small intestine. Antibiotics decimate Lactobacilli. In so doing, they increase the risk of subsequent intestinal infection. Strategies for avoiding or reducing antibiotic use are also described in The Four Pillars of Healing and will form the basis for a future column.

3. Supplement your diet with friendly bacteria, especially if you must take antibiotics. A large body of research over the past ninety years has demonstrated the preventive value of eating foods fermented with Lactobacilli (like the well known Lactobacillus acidophilus) or their cousins, the Bifidobacteria. Eating these friendly bacteria helps to prevent antibiotic-induced diarrhea and travelers diarrhea. The daily dose should be between one billion and ten billion viable bacteria. More may cause gastrointestinal irritation. Lactobacillus plantarum, a species of bacteria that grows on plants, is the only Lactobacillus not harmed by antibiotics and can be taken simultaneously with them. Lactobacillus plantarum grows naturally in fermented vegetables like sauerkraut and is also available in pill form.

4. Eat a diet high in fiber. Fiber is the term that describes remnants of plant cells that are resistant to human digestion. The usual sources are vegetables (especially beans, peas and winter squash), whole grain cereals and breads (made from whole wheat, brown rice or whole oats), nuts, and seeds. Among fruits, one gets the most fiber per serving from apples and berries. High fiber diets support the growth of Lactobacilli and other friendly flora in the large intestine and inhibit the ability of disease causing bacteria and parasites to attach themselves to the intestinal wall.

5. Carrots, carob, blueberries and raspberries contain complex sugars (oligosaccharides) which interfere with the binding of pathogenic bacteria to the intestinal lining. Juices made from these plants have been used in Europe for centuries for the treatment or prevention of diarrhea.

6. Use antimicrobial herbs and spices. Before they were used as seasoning, culinary herbs and spices were most likely used for food preservation. Antimicrobial activity of garlic has been repeatedly demonstrated against many species of bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses. The dose of garlic needed to obtain significant benefit is at least ten grams (about three small cloves) per day. Onion lacks the potency of garlic but can be consumed in much larger quantity, so that its antimicrobial benefits may be equal to those of garlic if consumed regularly. Turmeric relieves intestinal gas by lowering the numbers of gas forming bacteria; it also has anti-fungal activity and has been traditionally used for relieving inflammation. The effective dose is about one gram per day. Ginger, which contains over four hundred chemically active ingredients, has long been used for the treatment of digestive complaints. It protects the intestinal lining against ulceration and has a wide range of actions against intestinal parasites. Sage and rosemary contain the essential oil, eucalyptol, which kills Candida albicans, bacteria, and worms. Oregano contains over thirty biologically active ingredients of which twelve have antibiotic, antiviral, antiparasitic or antifungal effects. Heating at 200 degrees (Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes destroys the antibacterial activity of most of these spices. They should be added to food at the end of cooking, just before being eaten.

Following these guidelines will significantly reduce your exposure to disease provoking microbes in food and drink.

• Always wash your hands carefully with soap and water when returning home from outside and before handling food. Hand washing is a very effective way to remove pathogens. Regular hand washing also protects against catching colds or flu from other people.

• Do not drink tap water that has not been properly filtered or kept at a rolling boil for at least five minutes. Chlorination does not kill the cyst forms of parasites like Giardia or Cryptosporidium. Use water filters that are certified by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), an independent non profit organization, under their Standard 53 for "cyst removal". No water filter practical for home use will remove bacteria. Have the bacterial concentration in your drinking water tested by an independent laboratory. Call the Water Quality Association at (708) 505-0160 or the American Council of Independent Laboratories at (202) 887-5872 for the name of a certified laboratory near your home.

The quality of bottled water is completely unregulated. Some bottled water comes from municipal water supplies. To discover the source of any bottled water, call the bottler and request documentation about the nature and purity of the source. Bottled water that comes from municipal water supplies or lakes should be treated by reverse osmosis before being bottled, if it is to be considered safe.

Avoid using ice unless you feel secure about the purity of the water from which it was made. Remember that automatic ice makers use unfiltered tap water. Freezing kills most parasites but does not kill bacteria.

Use pure water for brushing your teeth and rinsing your toothbrush.

• Peel all fruits and vegetables, unless they are to be thoroughly cooked. Wash your hands afterwards. If you cannot peel them, soak them for fifteen minutes in a solution made by adding one teaspoon of three per cent hydrogen peroxide to two quarts of water and then rinsing thoroughly with filtered water.

• When eating out, only eat food that has been cooked just before it is served to you. In many restaurants and delicatessens, soups, sauces and stews are frequently stored in large containers, often left uncovered on the floor and reheated in a microwave oven. Microwave cooking does not kill Salmonella and other strains of pathogenic bacteria. It is safest to eat food that is fairly plain and to avoid soup, unless you know how food is handled in the restaurant where you are eating.

• Avoid salad bars. At first glance, salad bars seem like a good place to get healthy food in a hurry. Look again. Some years ago the Wall Street Journal sent a reporter to investigate the cleanliness of salad bars in different parts of the country. Problems were rampant and they lay not only with the restaurant but with the clientèle. People are unsanitary in their use of salad bars. They sometimes sample food and put it back. The handles of the serving utensils frequently fall into the food trays, providing an opportunity for contamination.

• Do not eat food that has been prepared by a street vendor.

• Avoid restaurants where there are flies. Flies can spread parasitic cysts and pathogenic bacteria.

• Remember that uncooked meat, fish or poultry are often contaminated with pathogenic bacteria. When preparing your own meals, always keep raw flesh foods away from other food that will be eaten raw, like salad. Cook meat, fish and poultry well and wash your hands after handling them. Also wash the utensils you use to cut them. People have become ill by handling chicken contaminated with Salmonella (as most American chicken is), and then using a contaminated knife or contaminated fingers to prepare other food that was not to be cooked. To kill Salmonella on utensils, soak them in a solution of chlorox for fifteen minutes, then make sure you rinse the chlorox thoroughly away. Do not use dishrags to wipe off kitchen counters, stoves, sinks and tables. Dishrags actually spread germs around. Use recycled paper towels to mop up the bacteria-laden juices from meat, poultry and fish and either use paper towels or sponges to wipe surfaces. Run the sponges through the dishwasher every day to thoroughly remove bacteria.

Fish is one of the most perishable foods, readily spoiled by bacteria and by natural enzymes contained in the fish's flesh. An investigation by Consumer Reports in 1992 found that almost half the fish they tested were contaminated with fecal bacteria, a sign of improper food handling. When you buy fish, make sure they smell fresh. Cook them well, within a day of their purchase.

Tofu is increasingly popular as a substitute for meat. Tofu that is bought floating in water has high levels of bacterial contamination. Wrapped and sealed tofu is safer. To kill bacteria, tofu should be cooked to an internal temperature of one hundred and sixty degrees.

• Watch out for toxic molds. Mold toxins (mycotoxins) may suppress the immune system and cause cancer. Mold toxins frequently contaminate U.S. breakfast cereals, especially bulk delivered organic cereals sold in health food stores and food coops. It is best to buy cereals in vacuum packed, sealed containers. All peanuts and peanut butters are contaminated with mycotoxins called aflatoxins, which are among the most potent promoters of cancer ever studied. Aflatoxin levels are highest in the fresh ground peanut butters found in health food stores and supermarkets. In southern Georgia, heavy consumption of peanuts and grains likely to contain high levels of aflatoxins was associated with an increased rate of mental retardation among local children. Aflatoxin production is inhibited by treating food with sorbic acid, a naturally occurring antifungal, first isolated from unripe berries of mountain ash trees in 1859. Peanut butter preserved with sorbic acid is safer than "fresh" peanut butter.

Refrigerators are a haven for mold, which loves to grow on bruised fruits and vegetables. If a hard food that is uncooked becomes moldy, cut and discard the moldy part and at least one inch of the food in each direction from the site of mold. ("Hard" foods include apples, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, hard cheese in chunks, garlic cloves, onions, pears, potatoes, squash and turnips.) If a soft food, juice or cooked leftover becomes moldy, throw it all away; do not attempt to salvage any of it. Refrigerated leftovers not consumed within forty eight hours should be discarded even if they are not visibly moldy.

Recent alarms have been raised by worldwide pollution with these chemicals, which include: the pesticide DDT, banned in the U.S. in 1972 but still sold by U.S. corporations to other countries and still found in our own soil and water; the herbicide dioxin; and PCBs, which have been widely used in making electronic equipment, plastic, inks, adhesives, rubber and carbon less duplicating paper. Food, milk and water everywhere contain organochlorines.

The Trouble with Fish

Organochlorine contamination may have seriously affected the safety of seafood. Although fatty fish are an excellent source of essential fatty acids, most pollutants tend to accumulate in fatty tissue, so that fatty fish are no longer safe to eat on a regular basis, especially if they come from lakes or rivers.

Solution: The safest fish to eat are low-fat fish caught off-shore, such as cod, haddock, pollock, flounder and yellow fin tuna. Many fish farms are found in agricultural areas where drifting pesticide sprays and agricultural runoff can be a serious problem, so, if you eat fish from farms, you must know your source.

Problems with Breastfeeding

In the ultimate environmental horror story, organochlorine contaminants have been found to either mimic or block the effects of human sex hormones. Hormonal effects of organochlorines have been blamed for increased rates of spontaneous abortion, toxemia of pregnancy, endometriosis, breast cancer and testicular cancer. If male fertility really is declining, as some scientists assert, organochlorines may be to blame. The high levels of organochlorines found in human milk raise frightening questions about the safety of breast-feeding.

Solution: I urge my patients not to lose weight while breast-feeding, but to eat heartily. Weight loss releases organochlorines stored in body fat, which travel into the blood and from there into breast milk. Weight loss should take place after weaning, not before. Because organochlorines appear to be most toxic to infants in the womb--but the effects of this toxicity are not apparent until adulthood--the extent of the organochlorine catastrophe will not be evident for at least another generation.

Hazards of Chlorinated Water

Chlorination of municipal water supplies dramatically reduced the death rate from typhoid fever, a bacterial infection which is spread through drinking water. But chlorine reacts with organic matter dissolved in water to form cancer-promoting organochlorines like the trihalomethanes (THMs), of which the best known is chloroform. Drinking chlorinated water increases the risk of developing cancer of the rectum or the bladder, the risk increasing the more water is drunk.

Solution: filter your tap water through activated charcoal, which removes the vast bulk of chlorinated compounds. Charcoal filters also remove other chlorinated contaminants of tap water, like trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreaser which enters municipal water supplies after being dumped in the soil.

Pesticides

Over a billion pounds a year of pesticides are still used every year in the United States alone. Environmentalists, farm workers, federal agencies and food growers continue to disagree about what constitutes "safe" levels of the twenty thousand registered pesticides. Since many of the most toxic agents remain in the environment for decades, and are most harmful to the young, their full impact has not yet been realized.

Solution: The obvious solution is to buy food that is organically grown in compliance with the standards of a state certifying organization. If these are not available, or to expensive, follow the advice of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., which has rated forty-two fruits and vegetables for pesticide contamination, based upon a study of fifteen thousand samples conducted by the FDA during 1992 and 1993. They used seven rating criteria, including the percentage of each crop with detectable pesticide residues and the known toxicity of each type of residue. The group calculated that fifty per cent of food pesticide exposure occurs through consumption of twelve foods. The vegetables with the greatest contamination were bell peppers, spinach, celery, green beans, and cucumbers. They recommended substituting less contaminated vegetables for these. The safer vegetables included green peas, broccoli, asparagus, romaine lettuce, carrots, radishes, brussel sprouts, and potatoes.

According to this same report, the commercial fruit most highly contaminated with pesticides were strawberries, cherries, peaches, Mexican cantaloupe, apples, apricots, and Chilean grapes. Less contaminated fruits included nectarines, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, watermelon, and seasonal domestic cantaloupe or grapes.

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