The FDA hates you.
That’s harsh. How else are we to take the knowledge that much of the world bans cancer causing food additives that the FDA says are safe?
Several states are starting to do something about it. People can, too, but it is much more difficult. Find out what 4 chemicals are being banned and why.
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Text from the show, links included
Critics of capitalism often cite profits over people as one of the main complaints.
This isn’t an economics episode, exactly, nor is it a bash on preferences and substitutes. Perhaps it is also a show about unintended consequences.
It is a show about how states can, and are in at least one certain example, ignoring FDA guidelines, perhaps, I’m not certain of the exact word here, and creating laws that ban otherwise approved food additive ingredients.
In a February 1, 2024 blog post on the Environmental Defense Fund website, the post opens with this question. Why are four notorious carcinogens approved by the FDA for food?
Good question.
The four chemicals the post mentions are benzene, trichloroethylene, methylene chloride, and ethylene dichloride.
In the section of the blog post with a blurb about each chemical, all either are known to cause cancer in humans or are carcinogenic. Scanning the page for some highlights we find that benzene “is allowed in hops extracts (used in beer production and supplements)”. Trichloroethylene “is allowed in decaffeinated coffee, certain extracts of spices used as food and/or color additives, and hops extracts” methylene chloride “is allowed in decaffeinated coffee, certain extracts of spices used as food and/or color additives and hops extracts” and ethylene dichloride is “allowed in certain extracts of spices used as food and/or color additives, hops extracts, in water used to wash sugar beets, and to dilute pesticides.”
Yummy.
Those chemicals have other uses than just decaffeinating coffee. Methylene chloride is in paint thinner. Trichloroethylene is too and is also a solvent for degreasing metal parts. Ethylene dichloride is used to remove lead from gasoline and in the production of PVC pipes. Benzene is a solvent for pharmaceutical companies and is used in the production of gasoline.
The economics part of the show is to wonder if the end result of these chemicals in foods can be achieved in any other way that doesn’t use toxic chemistry. That is the substitute. Or, maybe the chemicals are the substitute for another way. Are these chemicals cheaper than other ways? Probably. It is at least a good guess. If you are a consumer of almost anything at all, you’ll notice that the quality of almost every damned thing is not what it once was.
Making crappy products because you can versus making crappy products to stay competitive is another show. Poisoning your customers because it’s cheaper should be an easy decision so don’t do that. Since we don’t favor overlords overlording, hoping company A takes the high road and makes a non-toxic product at a price point over all the competitors is a pretty certain way to go out of business.
Speaking of those overlords. The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, allows those chemicals for the uses cited in the EDF post.
The list of chemicals allowed by the FDA is impressively long. That is a long list of chemicals that ought not alarm you exactly. Water is a chemical. Table salt is a chemical. Not every chemical is harmful. Some are, though, and maybe some of them ought not be in food.
California, for all the problems that state seems to generate for itself, is way ahead of the curve on banning toxic stuff. They have the strictest rules on forever chemicals, a topic covered on this show only a few episodes ago. They also have strict rules about food additives. And other states are starting to ban some food additives from their grocery store shelves.
Illinois is also banning the same 4 food additives that the California Food Safety Act bans: Illinois Senate Bill 2637, aims to ban brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3 from foods sold in stores.
Now, first, a conflict. I don’t favor the state mandating and banning things. CA and IL doing so is meddling in consumer choice. However, it seems pretty plain that nearly all mega-food corporations will not make the changes for consumer wellness without some top-down pressure. Those additives are in too many things for consumers to refuse to purchase which makes grassroots-level economic pressure nearly impossible.
I like that those additives are being removed. That the FDA allows them when virtually the rest of the world has realized the harms exceed the benefits seems to say something significant about the interests of the FDA.
I like the outcome even if I bristle with the application. I’m not unaware of the conflict. The added possible advantage is when more states ban these additives, the costs of manufacturing two sets of products may compel companies to make the one that complies.
Brominated vegetable oil, also abbreviated as BVO, is used in citrus-flavored sodas, citrus-flavored energy drinks, and some baked goods. The chief issue is the bromine. Foodnetwork.com has a post with this passage about bromine, “’Bromine can irritate the skin, nose, mouth and stomach,’ says Katherine Zeratsky, RD, LD, registered dietitian at the Mayo Clinic. ‘It’s also been linked to neurologic symptoms in people who drink large quantities of citrus soda — more than 2 liters a day.’”
The watchdog group Environmental Working Group has a page about potassium bromate. They identify more than 130 baked goods with potassium bromate. They also write, “In lab tests, animals exposed to it had increased incidences of both benign and malignant tumors in the thyroid and peritoneum, the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity. Later researchfound that ingesting potassium bromate resulted in significant increases in cancer of the animals’ thyroid, kidneys and other organs.”
Propylparaben are food preservatives used in baked goods to extend shelf life and delay the growth of food spoilage microorganisms as paraphrased from an interview with doctors Carl Winter and Sean O’Keefe on the bestfoodfacts.org website.
The last additive is the infamous red dye #3. Red dye #3 is a synthetic dye and is a petroleum derivative. Red dye # 3 was banned in cosmetics by the FDA in 1990 but has allowed it to be in food. The FDA responded to studies that linked red dye #3 in cosmetics to thyroid cancer in animals. One might wonder why would they keep such an additive in food and remove it from cosmetics. If you find that answer, let me know. The website Prevention has a page about red dye #3 and includes this passage from Daniel Ganjian MD, “‘If children ingest this dye, adverse effects may include hyperactivity, allergic reactions, and behavioral issues.’” Candy is the most common food source for red dye #3. Candy might be the most famous with Skittles being called out, but cookies and and ice creams and baking decorations, gummy animals, baby foods, and more.
When I worked at the Governors’ Club in Tallahassee, we bought bread from a commercial bakery in Thomasville GA. Over one Christmas break, I took home a loaf of sourdough sandwich bread. It was still in the bag and not out of date. Somehow I didn’t manage to eat so much as one sandwich over break and the bread remained in the bag. A few weeks later it’s still there and no mold. I thought that was odd. I left the bread in the bag until the following Christmas and no mold. I don’t know what was in there to make mold not grow in a year.
That bread story is anecdotal. I have no idea why the bread didn’t mold. I will tell you I didn’t eat commercial bread for a long time and now, rarely eat bread I don’t bake.
To follow up a bit on the overlords banning things that are bad for us. That’s the end of the line, it seems. What circumstances created the need or want to use those additives in the first place? That seems a good place to start. I have no answer, yet. Should the citizens demand those mega food companies start making better foods or maybe Americans should pick better groceries?
That’s a tough thing when people should be left to their own decisions that don’t harm others. It already fails when the choices given to shoppers are all harmful to one degree or another.
You might think that’s pretty dire. You might think there’s no hope and everything in a box called food is poison. I might joke that that’s so, but I don’t think so. I also think there are choices. Not always. A pop tart by any other name is probably equally terrible.
I had to look up what those additives are. Every one of them was a potential rabbit hole of information. You are not going to like to hear this. You will not want to do this. You might think it’s someone else’s responsibility. To avoid the crap it seems you have to read the labels. What are those things you can’t pronounce? Should you eat it and is there an alternative that doesn’t have it?
I made beef jerky for my daughter last week. We tested a recipe she thought was interesting. We made it because the stuff in the store is expensive. I bought a pound of beef for the same price as two bags of jerky I approve of.
As I was checking it, I laughed to myself that one day she’ll be with friends eating something and she’ll just shake her head in disappointment and say her dad could make it better.
I didn’t intend for this to be a make-your-own food show. It seems a lot of them come down to that. So, I guess this is a make-your-own food show. I make my own mayo and peanut butter. I’ve made my own cheese crackers. It’s very easy. And I get off the mega food company drug, so to speak. Small steps are how I started. You can too.