June 11, 2009 Update: The Organic Consumers Association has published an article about the use of nanosilver. You can read it here.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted by Cheeseslave and is a special “Earth Day Edition.” Also part of the all things eco blog carnival.

Up to a challenge?

Up to a challenge?

Silver is old. It’s been used for centuries to slow the spoilage of food and help heal infections in the body. People in Ancient Rome and Greece used silver coins in jugs of water and wine to preserve it. Doctors in burn wards use silver cream and dressings to prevent infection, and it wasn’t until very recently that hospitals stopped dropping silver eyedrops in a newborn’s eyes. So, when I saw Oso Fresh Food Storage Containers at the store, I was curious. I came home and did some research.

It turns out the silver used in these containers is also called nanosilver or silver nanoparticles, because the silver particles are so incredibly tiny. Nanosilver is currently in use in toothbrushes, deodorants, fibers used in clothing, pacifiers, cutting boards, lightswitches and is inching its way into more and more products. There are currently several food-related patents for nanosilver products, including produce bags (for shipping the produce from the field to the market), meat wrappers, inner bags of cereal and dry foodstuffs and can linings.

One of the things holding up the patents mentioned above is that the EPA considers silver a pesticide, since it kills “pests”—that is, bacteria. There are petitions afoot to remove this classification, as well as petitions asking the EPA to disallow all use of nanosilver in the United States.

Silver is a pollutant when it is returned to the environment. Although the amount of silver in one nanosilver food storage container is microscopic, it has the effect of a much larger quantity of material because of its massive surface area. Think of it like this: You drop a plate in your kitchen. If it doesn’t break, you can pick up the plate easily. If it breaks, you have dozens of tiny pieces to sweep up. If your plate were made of nano-sized particles, there would be billions of plate pieces to sweep. A drop of nanosilver has the polluting strength of a ton of silver. Silver has been shown to damage fish and plant life when released into watersheds. Even worse could be the die-off from good bacteria in oceans, rivers and streams that keep our planet healthy.

And back up to that idea of a pesticide. If something that was living dies when it is exposed to this thing, we need to stop and think carefully. Silver makes a bond with the DNA of bacteria, preventing its replication. Does that mean the good bacteria in our bodies that we require for a healthy life are being killed off if we eat food that has been exposed to nanosilver? I don’t know.

Are you willing to risk having the good bacteria in your body or in the soil or in the water destroyed so your feet don’t stink?