Have you ever noticed a peculiar, acrid odor in fruit and vegetable markets? This smell may very well be coming from the crates used to pack citrus fruits, which are impregnated with fungicide. This is a good way to stop the growth of molds on cartons but can cause serious health problems for those inhaling the vapors. One patient, Doris Meredith, carelessly took a peck of citrus fruit in a fungicide-impregnated case into her home. Every time she entered the part of her house where the cartons were stored, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath and began to wheeze uncontrollably.
Her husband eventually suspected that spray residue on the oranges was the cause and therefore washed each orange in hot, soapy water, drying each fruit separately. The odor still lingered, however, and continued to cause Mrs. Meredith to have acute respiratory symptoms.
Somewhat later, when she and her husband were moving to a new home, she became acutely ill and was confined to her bed, complaining of asthma and headaches. Her husband then recalled that her asthma had started shortly after the packing cases (citrus boxes) were brought into the home. Her symptoms subsided after the boxes were removed but recurred when the same boxes were brought back into the house (this time without her knowledge).
This woman also became depressed for days whenever she ate commercially available oranges. Her depression was so severe that she had contemplated going to a psychiatrist. However, treatment by the methods of clinical ecology was more effective in locating the cause of her problem, namely, fungicide residues, and in eliminating future such instances. She found, for example, that she could eat organic oranges with impunity—that is, oranges which had not been sprayed, dyed, or packed in fungicide-treated cartons.
We are just now beginning to understand the full power of these chemicals. For example, we now know that packing cases and express cars which have been contaminated with insecticides retain this contamination for long periods of time and may subsequently contaminate other loads.
This type of “second-hand” contamination may explain why some people are made ill by wheat which is shipped in paper or cardboard containers for long distances but not from the same organic wheat when it is shipped in metal containers. Some of the pesticides in the railroad car or truck manages to seep into the grain which is packed in porous paper.
Although cases such as Mrs. Meredith’s are extreme instances, the fact that they occur underlines the need for chemically susceptible patients to have local sources of supply, so that food can be transferred from producer to consumer without becoming contaminated.
A more common source of container problems is the ubiquitous “tin” can, now usually made of aluminum or steel. Certain patients react to canned foods, while tolerating the same foods raw or uncanned with no trouble. I had made this observation often enough but could not figure out a way to separate the contribution of the can and its golden-brown phenol lining from that of the various sprays and chemicals found in processed foods. Phenol-containing compounds are used on the inside of tin cans to prevent the metal from bleaching the color of the food. I was finally able to make this distinction when a relative who lived in the state of Washington sent me some salmon which she and her husband had caught and “put up” in glass jars, as well as some tomatoes which had also been home-grown and packed.
When these foods were given to selected patients, they had no reaction. But when these same patients were later given salmon and tomatoes from commercial cans, lined with the golden-brown coating, they all became sick.
These patients have been able to eat fresh or home-packaged salmon or tomatoes since then with no difficulty. It is only when they try to eat such food in cans with phenol lining that they run into trouble.
Admittedly, only a minute amount of the resins and other chemicals used to line cans gets into the food. Is this really enough to cause a reaction? Yes, it is! Think of the difference in taste between canned and uncanned salmon, peaches, or other foods. Some of the characteristic “canned” taste of these foods comes from the substances in the lining, which seep into the food itself. If you can taste it, it can certainly have an effect on your health as well.
Patients who have suffered from depression, asthma, headache, and other symptoms have found relief of their long-term problems by avoiding chemicals and also by eliminating canned foods from their diets.
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