By Kay Whatley, Editor
Love those shiny pastries in brilliant colors? Grab that tasty candy for a snack after lunch? Depending on how your food was made, it may be bad for you on a whole new level.
Some foods get their shine naturally. Sometimes, however, a shine is added by including ingredients that contain “nanoparticles”. Nanoparticles are extremely tiny objects with large surface areas. They are used in food, medicine and cosmetics, in addition to having some industrial uses.
The issue with nanoparticles used in food is that little is known about their impact on health. The particles are so small that they can migrate inside individual cells of the body, kind of like grains of sand migrating into a bathing suit; except, there is no complete method for cleaning nanoparticles out of the cells.
Impact on the human body requires further study.
Issue date: Sept 13–26, 2013
