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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsList: American Processed Foods banned in other nations because of dangerous chemicals
Last edited Fri Jun 21, 2013, 12:37 PM - Edit history (1)
If you enjoy snacks and drinks like Mtn Dew, Chex Mix, Hungry Man frozen dinners, or roughly 80 percent of all the packaged foods sold in your average, American grocery store, you may want to sit down before reading this.
Many of the chemicals found in America's most common foods are considered to be so unhealthy that they're actually ILLEGAL in other countries.
A new book on nutrition lists six food additives that are found in a wide range of popular groceries sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration, but foreign governments have determined to be too dangerous to allow their citizens to consume.
One of the most common 'Bad Boys' is different variations of food coloring, which actually is made from petroleum and is found in everyday items like soda, sports drinks, mac and cheese, cake, candy and several other common, American products.
The chemicals used to make these different dyes have proven to cause various different cancers and can even potentially mutate healthy DNA.
Do you like citrus drinks, like Mt. Dew, Squirt or Fresca? Then you also like brominated vegetable oil, which is banned in more than 100 countries because it has been linked to basically every form of thyroid disease - from cancer to autoimmune diseases - known to man.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345564/Shocking-list-US-foods-BANNED-countries-containing-dangerous-chemicals.html#ixzz2WrD2XdYt
In Singapore, you can get sentenced to 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for using a chemical in food products that's common in frozen dinners
Mtn Dew and products used to keep carpets from catching on fire are made from the same chemical
A chemical found in Chex Mix is known to cause cancer in rats
More:
http://caltonnutrition.com/article.aspx?pid=100
and more of more:
http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/13-banned-foods-still-allowed-us
WovenGems
(776 posts)Thank God, or the noodle in the sky, that I can cook.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)and premades, feeling and looking much better. Like you, glad I can cook.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)is good for us, I would really prefer a more reliable source for this than a British tabloid sourcing a guy selling a book.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)other than the article....
The laws are on the books in Europe.....
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)I am not doubting what I am reading, but I prefer more reliable sources.
One link is to the guy flogging the book whi is the source for the Mail story.
The other is a "fitness" site.
I am looking for link to EU regulations and peer reviewed papers.
Weirdly, my conservative coworkers put more faith in a British tabloid than hard science. If I had showed them a paper by a university on the issue, it would have been dismissed as "liberal nonsense". So, the article is helpful (until they learn it is from a "European newspaper", then it magically looses credibility again.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)Recycled animal waste is a processed feed product for livestock derived from livestock manure or a mixture of manure and litter. Animal wastes contain significant percentages of protein, fiber, and essential minerals and have been deliberately incorporated into animal diets for their nutrient properties for over 30 years.
but in the eu:
"We have a ban on animal protein throughout the EU. There is a total ban on mammalian meat and bone meal for the whole of the EU."
Monkie
(1,301 posts)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat
it can constitute up to 15 percent of ground beef without additional labeling, and it can also be added to other meat products such as beef-based processed meats
The product does not meet the legal requirements for sale in the United Kingdom, and the European Union has banned it and other mechanically-separated meats for human consumption.
in europe you cant legaly feed "cat food" to humans. and certainly not to kids at school
NJCher
(35,804 posts)The whole sorry story of processed food companies is told in a book called Salt, Fat, Sugar. Here's a link to some further info about the author, a Pulitzer Prize winner:
Michael Moss is an investigative reporter with The New York Times, having joined the paper in 2000. In 2010, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his investigation of the dangers of contaminated meat. Mr. Mosss hamburger article was the centerpiece of a body of work focused on surprising and troubling holes in the system to keep food safe.
Before coming to The Times, Mr. Moss was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, New York Newsday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colo., and the High Country News in Lander, Wyo.
He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his reporting on the lack of protective armor for soldiers in Iraq, and in 1999 for a team effort on Wall Streets emerging influence in the nursing home industry. Mr. Moss received an Overseas Press Club citation in 2006 for stories on the faulty justice system for American-held detainees in Iraq.
The NY Times printed several articles that are excerpted from his book. Here's one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/books/review/salt-sugar-fat-by-michael-moss.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I am reading the book now and I must say, it is a jaw-dropper.
The audacity and the foolishness with which these companies behaved in the name of profit will take your breath away. It is little wonder that Americans are eating food with substances banned in other countries.
I highly encourage everyone to read this book, but if you can't, the takeaway for me so far is:
1) People who eat processed food are the victims of corporate monopolies, a monopoly which should never have come about. Food distribution systems should be regional, not national.
2) The FDA did try to step in but the food companies with their deep pockets beat them up so badly that they never really were ever to accomplish much.
3) The system the food processors built is almost entirely dependent on salt, sugar, and fat and as such they have boxed themselves in (no pun intended) and now have nowhere to go.
And finally, knowledgeable people in the food industry (people I know personally) tell me it is only a matter of time before this system crashes.
Twenty years ago I sat on a consumer panel for a large, upscale grocery chain here in the Northeast. I will forever smile when I think of one of the parents telling the store, "Sugar Honey Grahams will never cross my child's lips!" I tell this story because I want to make the point that this revolution has been a long time in coming. Some people were aware 20 years ago: now even more people are aware.
Cher
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)countries refuse to allow into their diets.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)There's a reason why food processors spend so much time, money & energy with advertising agencies, coming up with just the right amygdala-tweakers so we start to crave their latest "invention".
When was the last time you saw a tv ad that promoted carrots, string beans & onions?
There was a time (not really all that long ago) when if you wanted corn, you had to ...well.. eat an ear of corn or open a can of corn. Wheat??.. Have some Wheaties or some bread.... or bake some cookies.
Those of us who grew up in a no-tv/pre frozen food/pre- fast food "stores" (technically they are not even restaurants) era had the advantage of being fed real meals made from scratch.
I never had pizza until I was a teenager...never had a hamburger before I was about 13. Salt was a micro-seasoning..usually added at the table (to taste) , unless it was a vital part of a baked item. It was not pre-added as a significant ingredient ...in every thing on a dinner table before we even tasted the food.
There were no "preservatives" since the meal was prepared to EAT...not to sit on a shelf for months.
There is a trade-off for "convenience", and that trade-off's effects tend to be cumulative and perhaps deadly for many of us. Humans are adaptive, and we seem to be able to digest just about anything and use what we need of it to survive, but the processing of all those "extra" additives could be having unseen effects on us that take years to manifest themselves as extra weight and perhaps deadly health consequences.
niyad
(113,774 posts)I rarely use "convenience" foods, all that stuff in the middle of the market. might account for why I seem to be in far better health than many my age.
KT2000
(20,601 posts)companies will sell one version of their product in the US and a safer version in Europe because their safety standards are stricter than ours.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that salt contains chlorine, which was used as a poison gas in WWI, killing or scarring thousands.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)skepticscott
(13,029 posts)But that's the same thinking that is used in so many of these chemical scare arguments.
MineralMan
(146,345 posts)Do you know why?
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)MineralMan
(146,345 posts)And yet, the British eat them gleefully. Well...maybe not the haggis...
loli phabay
(5,580 posts)thesquanderer
(11,998 posts)They keep making the point that some food additive is also used in something you would never eat. Well, you know, water is used in a lot of things you would never eat, too.
GoneOffShore
(17,342 posts)thesquanderer
(11,998 posts)It's just poor logic.
X is bad, Y is in X, therefore Y is bad? Obviously not always the case. It doesn't mean anything (though it makes for good scare tactics). There are good ways to make their points, but that's a cheap shot just meant to make you go "ohmigod!" If something is bad for you, what does it matter what non-food it is used in? (Likewise, if something is good for you, it doesn't matter if it's also used in something that's bad for you.)
Featured pull-quote: "Mt. Dew is made with a chemical that also is used to prevent carpets from catching on fire." Heck, that same sentence probably describes H20. The author is taking a more sensationalistic than informative approach.
So why the facepalm?
BlueToTheBone
(3,747 posts)I have a fondness for "dinner bread" which just ended today. I'll take the list with me at my next grocery shopping expedition.
loli phabay
(5,580 posts)By base stuff and fresh and make yourself. Healthier still is grow your own and harvest nature. Probuably seventy percent of what my family eats comes straight from our land and ponds.
BlueToTheBone
(3,747 posts)but my garden is a great fruit and veggie aisle of its own. I've been able to find real milk and eggs and farm raised meat. But bread...my downfall.
loli phabay
(5,580 posts)Got about four acres of raspberries nearly ready for harvest so its yum time soon, jams pies smoothies etc.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)kartski
(14 posts)A Chemists take on the Article as being a little to shallow " The BuzzFeed article claims that it's linked to "major organ system damage, birth defects, growth problems, schizophrenia, and hearing loss", and sends readers to this WebMD article. But if you go there, you'll find that the only medical problems known from BVO come from two cases of people who had been consuming, over a long period, 4 to 8 liters of BVO-containing soda per day, and did indeed have reactions to all the excess bromine-containing compounds in their system."
He doesn't push processed food, just the accuracy of the info given.
Archae
(46,369 posts)Once again, science demolishes woo.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)And I feel tons better too. I think mt dew is poison.
bike man
(620 posts)struggle to convince a granddaughter that those little boxed snack things that she was getting for her kids(w/ crackers, cheese, bologna or something similar) are really just a container of sodium and some other stuff.