Food Production and Animal Testing

It is easy to forget how important food production is when most of us take for granted that the food we buy and eat has actually been subject to stringent safety checks. The process for a prepared food to reach us is even more onerous than simple fruits and vegetables. Many people are unaware that animal testing can play a major role in ensuring that the foods we consume are safe and hygienic, both in the short-term and the long-term. In fact, the use of animal testing for foods, food additives, nutritional supplements and sweeteners tripled from 2005 to 2006. The massive increase has led many people to ask just what price is required for human health. They also wonder if there are better ways to ensure that foods are safe - ones that do not require animal testing.

Using Animals for Food Tests

The vast majority of food tests are performed on laboratory rodents but some are also performed on guinea pigs, dogs and rabbits. The tests may involve oral administration of a foodstuff or application to the skin or eyes. Some procedures can be painful for the animals and may involve the forced creation of damage or an injury to analyse and investigate the effects of food or various supplements.

Keeping Livestock Healthy

In addition to ensuring ready-made meals and nutritionally enhanced foodstuffs are safe and live up to their claims, animal testing is also used to develop vaccines and other preventative and treatment methods for livestock. This ensures that our meats are safe to consume and that any illness occurring in the livestock is less likely to spread, which could potentially create a shortage of the food if it reached epidemic proportions. This type of veterinary testing is vital and links up to the food production industry.

Healthier Eating Paradox

The trend in recent years to eat healthier foods has led to a massive demand and surge in the marketplace for such products. Ironically, this has led to a similar increase in the number of laboratory animals used for testing of food products, which includes additives and various health formulations. Claims that a specific margarine can aid in cholesterol reduction or that a yogurt can help to improve digestion all require animal testing and then clinical trails to show the validity of the claims prior to their approval. Some laboratory tests require that an animal be fed a particular substance and then killed, which allows researchers to dissect the animal and investigate where the substance is concentrated and how it affected organs.

Necessity of Animal Tests for Food Production

The recent increase in laboratory animals used for food tests has, as expected, led animal welfare groups to perform their own investigations and conclusions regarding this area of animal testing. Some groups have suggested that not all tests are necessary and for those that are, they cite that testing could easily occur on humans rather than animals. Those in support of the testing - mainly the government and scientific community - purport that the tests are all necessary to meet regulatory requirements. Some are asking if the increase is avoidable at all and if it will only continue on an upward trend. As more people become concerned with health and nutrition, the demand for easier improvement of health through nutritionally enhanced foods will likely continue, which unfortunately for animals means that their use will become more important than ever. In the meantime, it is hoped that the development of alternative methods for animal testing will also continue, which can ideally allow for more healthy foods to receive approval and less animal use in the process of food production testing.

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