The FDA hates you and now, so does Big Confection.
Big Food, which is those mega-corporations, seem not to like you too very much. They’ll take your cash, for sure, but don’t start thinking about what the ingredients are in those “foods” they sell.
The food additives mentioned in Episode 278 are the source idea for this episode. It goes deeper than just food additives since the problems with our health goes deeper than just additives.
One question is who should be in control of banning certain products? The several states or the FDA? Considering the FDA’s lackluster record of drug approval then removal, are they really the first best choice for making sweeping decisions about human health?
The final authority is the individual consumer, of course. If you aren’t informed, you are not making good choices. As it happens, Big Confection doesn’t want you to be informed.
Listen to the show
Links from the show
“The Truth About Diabetes” debate on BBC
The FDA Hates You episode
Dann’s cookbook on Amz
Music
Drop me a note:podcast@culinarylibertarian.com
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Text from the show
I subscribe to a few food emails. One email had an article about the California bill to ban 4 specific food additives. Back in episode 278, I addressed some of this.
There’s a bit more to reveal about the bills. What became interesting as I started digging into the article, I found some rabbit holes and then the issue blew up into complicated and complex issues and politics, both governmental party policy and individual convictions. With this came misinformation disguised as a difference of opinion. That’s probably a good topic for another show—sorting out right from wrong information.
Today, I want to talk you through the articles I read and where I ended up just by following the writing.
This might be a good place to sidebar that no article can be thorough. At some point, the reader has to fill in the blanks by digging deeper.
The source article, the one that started this journey, was written by Elizabeth Flood on April 4, 2024, and posted on Fooddive.com. The opening paragraph gives a good clue about where this article is going. She writes, “Food industry executives argue the proposals lack scientific standing and could wreak havoc on the industry, while opponents link consumption of the food substances to serious health problems.”
Food execs argue. That can’t be good for the consumer. They argue there isn’t scientific standing. This is going to be slightly relevant later for dismantling the argument, such that it is.
Elizabeth offers the necessary reminder information that several states, CA, MO, WA, IL, and NY are writing or have written legislation banning bromated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3. She also offers that erythrosine, red dye 3, is banned in the European Union, Japan, China, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Red dye 3 is a petroleum derivative so of course it has to be healthy.
Rabbit hole number one. Elizabeth quotes Chirs Gindlesperger, a senior VP of public affairs and communication at the National Confectioners Association in an interview Food Drive conducted with him. He stated, “There’s been a flurry of activity in certain states, but there’s only one law in the books, and in fact, more states are walking away from this baseless, emotionally driven campaign that lacks scientific backing.”
That’s a pretty bold statement. Baseless and emotionally driven campaign. I checked. Food-Safety.com posted an article that refuted the idea that the claims are baseless. They write, “multiple studies have demonstrated red dye 3 to cause cancer in animals at high levels. Other studies have shown that red dye 3 and other artificial food dyes may lead to hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral effects in children. CR has also highlighted FDA’s own findings indicating that U.S. children ages 2–5 consume twice as much red dye 3 per bodyweight than the general population.”
Not all states are on board with banning these chemicals. Indiana, Maryland, SD, WA, and WV rejected proposals to ban food additives. KY went as far as saying that food additive decisions should be made at the FDA level. Gindlesperger agrees. “Our position is that the FDA should be making these decisions, not people who can’t sleep and are googling things in the middle of the night.” In other words, you are too stupid to know what’s good for you. Listen to your overlords.
Gindlesperger’s job is to advocate for the chocolate, candy, gum, and mint manufacturers. His chief complaint is retooling to meet the proposed requirements will be too costly to the industry. He offers this, “We’re gonna end up with a state-by-state patchwork of laws that do a couple of things: increased food costs, create mass confusion for consumers, and reduce and decay consumer confidence in our food safety system.” Once again, you are so stupid, you can’t read a label so trust the manufacturer to know what’s best for you.
Decay in the food safety system and the trust in manufacturers seems to be tanking. That’s a good thing from where I sit since it requires the industry to earn back trust through better practices. It seems Gindlesperger prefers the special pleading for the industry to be held unaccountable. When people vote with their dollars, that’s the real impact. By people I mean you sleepless folks with nothing better to do than Google ingredients at 3 in the morning. Seems informed consumers are what the industry wants to avoid.
Rabbit hole number 2. If they do away with red dye 3, what will they replace it with? That’s always a good question to ask. Is the cure worse than the disease?
There’s a better-than-even chance you are already eating the substitute if you consume commercial yogurt or some candies.
The color, which can vary from pink to lavender, comes from cochineal. Okay, so what? What the heck is cochineal anyway? Good question.
Bugs.
Specifically, “Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) are immobile scale insects native to tropical and subtropical South America, as well as Mexico and Arizona. These insects live on the pads of prickly pear cacti, feeding on the plant’s moisture and nutrients.”
Did you ever think about the first person to eat a mushroom or a crayfish? What must have been the circumstance behind looking at those scaly insects and thinking Hey, we could make color out of that. Proponents of cochineal coloration will point out that color for fabrics from cochineal is almost an ancient practice.
This same scaly bug is used to create two ways to color food. Cochineal extract and carmine which is carminic acid which has gone through a laking process. I looked up what laking is or means and I can’t repeat it since I don’t understand it. It is a process. That is about all I can say that I understand.
Plainly color from bugs is as old as time. That’s no big deal. What seems a big deal with timing is the demand from at least one German billionaire that you will eat bugs and be happy. Perhaps it was my internal monologue reading more glee into the article favoring bugs for food coloring than was actually there.
One unexpected impact on cochineal is price instability. Turns out the bugs, being parasites, can harm the host if they are not effectively managed. Cochineal is also impacted by weather and “other issues” but that’s never explained.
Rabbit hole number 3.
Chris Gindlesperger seems to reject that there’s a legitimate health issue with red dye 3. He seems to also reject that there’s a health crisis in the US. This topic goes well beyond only food additives. Food additives are a consideration in the health issue, but not the only one. There is the added sugar in many many foods, the abundance of calories in many restaurant meals, and the proliferation of processed foods in the stores at price points favorable to consumers. A lot is going on all at the same time. Chris is fond of focusing on the calories. I’ve read a few of his articles and listened to him on a debate called the Truth About Diabetes. His focus remains only on the calories. Not the source of calories. Too many calories is the issue and his solution is for the industry to make smaller portion packages. He’s starting to sound like one of those profits-over-people kinds of folks.
One bright spot of that debate was Dr Aseem Malhotra, who rightly understands food is medicine and that the right food choices can fix what the poor food choices caused.
This rabbit hole goes a long way and has many splits. It’s also a pretty good illustration that one problem, food additives or diabetes, is not a stand-alone issue. Somewhere along the way in commercial food production, someone decided petroleum-based food additives were a good idea. For you getting ahead of me about medicine and medical schools, it might be the same guy or guys. If I’ve gone too fast, that was Rockefeller. That’s more than this episode can handle. It’s also well worth finding out more. You probably think that’s crazy talk. No one man could alter the medical schools all by himself.
The main points as I see them are these. The more processed the food the better it is to avoid it. I know that the term process is even a bit sticky. Butchering is processing. It is transforming something mostly inedible into something edible. Butchering is an age-old skill. What I mean by processing is taking a bunch of ingredients, maybe none of them actually found in nature and combining them in a way to make something loosely called food. The more it starts to look like something Walter White might have concocted, the more you should avoid it.
Calories as the only metric of food consumption is going to give you bad information. You can eat your daily calorie intake with Skittles and doughnuts and not eat any actual food.
I read somewhere that food has gone up so much that the grocery bill for the average household has increased by $11,000. It sure feels like it. I don’t know if that is exactly right, but that groceries went up more than a little bit is plain enough. That means food purchasing decisions get more restrictive. And the cheap stuff is usually the crappy stuff. There are maybe a dozen different actions in play that lead to frustration in the grocery store and at the checkout. I usually shop at three different stores just to get the best prices. I’m in those stores a lot so I know who has the deals. Not everyone has multiple grocery stores to shop. It takes time to do that. It costs gas to do that. And I’m still more than certain food additives made from petroleum are not what I want in my food at any price. I’ve even not bought dog food because it had canola oil in it. Garbage in food means poor human health. Not tomorrow. A King Don today probably won’t hurt. Much. But Kind Dons for breakfast every day for a year is gonna leave a mark. Ingredients are cheaper than ready-to-eat foods. I know that opens a whole new set of time troubles and skill issues. There is no perfect solution to a very imperfect problem. What is very clear is thinking the agent of the Empire, the FDA, is going to make good decisions for you is folly. This is a great place to pitch my cookbook, One Pot Meals You Can Make.
I’m risking getting didactic, which I wish to avoid. Just to spite Big Confection, read those labels and Google the ingredients. The FDA seems only slightly concerned about your health and wellness, but I still say they mostly hate you. Now, BigFood and BigConfection seem to, as well.
The diabetes issue isn’t specifically a food additive issue, but the foods with those additives are also, generally, high in sugar which is a main source of the diabetes problem. Big Confection and Big Pharma don’t want you to know you can impact your health for the better by eating different foods. They want you to keep spending your cash on pretty colored poison and then take a pill.
It seems like a big step from a bill from one particular state to ban 4 food additives. CA might do a lot of things badly, but they seem to have this one right. States should make the decisions for their citizens. Of course, we prefer those decisions to be for their health, wellness, and happiness. It doesn’t always work out that way.
