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Junk food and its ingredients are such major health hazards that products with excessive amounts of sugar, salt and saturated fats should be labelled as “pathogens” — a word normally applied to viruses and other disease-causing bugs, suggest three Alberta experts in a provocative new commentary.

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Official terminology that exposes the pathogenic nature of some foods might help change both personal behaviour and government policy that effectively condones harmful diets, the cardiologist and two public-health professors argue in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

Authorities and the media grab public attention now when they report the spread of traditional pathogens — like Listeria or E. coli — in contaminated food or water, and should similarly highlight food ingredients that are responsible for killing vastly more Canadians, says the article.

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“It’s really just a nomenclature to attract attention to the fact we have a problem here and something needs to be done about it,” said Dr. Norm Campbell, a University of Calgary cardiologist and co-author of the paper. “It will hopefully … result in an evolution of our food so it’s again a source of health, not a source of disease.”