A friend’s husband attended an OSHA workshop last week and the facilitator of the class gave the above handout to the attendees. Apparently the man teaching the class is very much into spreading the word about chemicals that people come into contact with on a regular basis and may not know about. It’s crazy to think that when you bite into an ice cream cone that you may be ingesting an ingredient found in rubber cement or one found in antifreeze, yet it is very possible, as I found out with a little digging.
While these are actual ingredients in many ice cream brands, you will most likely never see them listed. This is because of some ‘loopholes’ in the law. For one, these ingredients may be deemed as a natural flavor, flavor or spice, in which case these terms cover a host of ingredients used in a product. Secondly, they may be hidden under the term “incidental additive,” a class of additives “that are not considered ingredients and yet can be present in a food. An “incidental additive” is exempt if, according to the regulations, it is present at “insignificant levels” and has no “technical or functional effect” in a food. “Incidental additives” are discussed in a section (of the FDA Guidelines) called “exemptions” and are some of the more open-ended of the regulations. As a result, they permit a broad range of interpretation”(Kashrut). And last, “The FDA allows food manufacturers to round to zero any ingredient that accounts for less than 0.5 grams per serving. So while a product may claim to be “gluten-free” or “alcohol-free,” it can legally contain up to 0.5 grams per serving. While this may seem like an insignificant amount, over time this small fraction can add up”(SixWise).
Be it a large or small quantity, I don’t want my children consuming anything that is clearly not meant to be eaten. I know this probably leaves a lot of people wondering who to trust when it comes to our food and the only answer I have is to trust yourself. The more you can make and grow at home the better. The other thing you can do is reach out to the smaller companies producing organic or ‘healthy’ foods and ask them questions. I am sure they’ll be happy to answer and you can gage for yourself whether their food is worth eating!
Works Cited
Food Nutrition Labels: Six Catches You Need to Know. SixWise.com. Web. February 7, 2012.
Price, Gavriel. Food Ingredients Labels: A Primer on Regulations. Kashrut.com. July 2003. Web. February 7, 2012.
* You can find this information on the FDA website, however, your searching will be tedious and cumbersome. Here is their site: http://www.fda.gov/food/labelingnutrition/default.htm
I was looking to make my own almond milk in order to make my own ice cream for my 26mo son who is allergic to all parts of milk/casein, gluten, dyes, etc. But then I read many places that the skins are toxic?? Further looking around led me to this: California almonds labeled “raw” must be steam-pasteurized or chemically treated with propylene oxide. Propylene oxide is an organic compound. This colourless volatile liquid is produced on a large scale industrially, its major application being its use for the production of polyether polyols for use in making polyurethane plastics. Propylene oxide was once used as a racing fuel, but that usage is now prohibited under the US NHRA rules for safety reasons. It has also been usedin glow fuel for modelaircraftandsurface vehicles, typically combined in small percentages of around 2% as an additive to the typical methanol, nitromethane, and oil mix. It is also used in thermobaric weapons, and microbial fumigation. Fumigant: The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of propylene oxide to pasteurize raw almonds beginning on September 1, 2007 in response to two incidents of contamination by Salmonella in commercial orchards, one incident occurring inCanada,anone incident in the United States. Pistachio nuts can also be subjected to propylene oxide to control Salmonella. It is a method approved by the FDA.
Its just sickening.
My son is able to eat foods made with real vanilla, but reacts to foods with vanillin added. “Artificial vanillin has also been shown in research to suppress certain liver enzymes (Bamforth 1993), and according to Aoshima, 1997, it inhibits the GABA receptor response, suggesting that it could modulate the neural transmission in the brain.”
I think I’ll be trying the home made icecream, thanks.
Hi, not to worry I did not take it the wrong way 🙂 I can relate to your passion and want to express my view since I have first-hand knowledge of flavors and flavor ingredients.
First, I don’t blame you for not trusting everything that is approved by FDA. They don’t have the best track record, especially regarding pharmaceuticals, but I have been in the flavor industry for over 25 years, and I feel compelled to defend it. Be assured, the addition of flavors to foods and beverages is not inherently harmful, and I want to tell you why. The example you gave above for the healthy ice cream contains” vanilla (real).” You may not realize that vanilla extract does indeed contain a vast number of natural “chemicals” such as vanillin (see this wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanillin), an ingredient flavorists use in many many flavors.
Furthermore, If you were to take any fruit or vegetable, and pulverize it into juice (or liquid) and run them through an instrument that measures aromatics, you would find that apples, for example, contain all of the chemical compounds on this page: http://tinyurl.com/894spww (taken from Perfumerflavorist.com.) A typical flavor can contain anywhere from 10 to 50 ingredients and is used at a very very low level (parts per million) in foods or beverages. These flavor ingredients are safe and have been rigorously reviewed by a panel of experts. The list of approved ingredients can include botanical extracts, distillates, essential oils, in addition to a finite number of scrupulously reviewed chemical compounds, some of which are also obtained directly from nature. There is a lot of information to substantiate this which I can send you if you are interested.
Most important is that a good number of flavorists are parents themselves, and are very careful about what they are selling to food companies for consumption by adults, children, babies, and pets alike. So to your question, yes I do eat Doritos and drink Mountain Dew, and I let my kids consume them in limited quantities once in a while. As the old adage says, everything in moderation.
All of that said, I do agree with you, that whole foods (not processed) are the best choice of all and your point about nutritional value is well taken. it is true that most flavors have no nutritional benefits. But I can assure you, they are not harmful if made and used correctly.
Hi, I read your article with great interest, as a former flavor chemist and now a supplier of flavor ingredients, such as the ones in the picture. I wanted you to know that all of the chemicals used in the flavoring of ice cream and every other food and beverage, are all GRAS or generally recognized as safe by the FDA for a reason. Did you know that if you were to take a banana, or an apple and extract the volatile components (the ones that are responsible for the aroma and flavor) and analyze them, your results would be identical to the very “chemicals” that are added to give it the taste that consumers expect. Harken back to your high school chemistry lessons. Chemicals are all around us, even WATER is a chemical. Heck, our bodies are made up of chemicals. My purpose for writing here is to provide clarity about what is being added to your food. These ingredients are perfectly safe at the appropriate levels, and make your eating and drinking experiences as good as you have come to expect. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you for your insight! After seeing so many products, food, medicine and drinks, being approved by the FDA, and then, after making enough people sick, being unapproved, I don’t really trust everything that they approve and say is ok – actually there is a lot I don’t trust. Food dyes are approved for use in this country (they are in limited use in Europe because of the effects they cause), and yet so many kids have reactions to it – my own son being one of them. It is ok with me that he has blue foods died with natural foods like blueberries, or red foods dyed with red cabbage,beets etc. It is NOT ok with me for him to eat foods with synthetic chemicals. Like you said, going back to high school chemistry, obviously there are safe ‘chemicals’ but most are not okay to ingest. I’d rather make my own foods from scratch and eat them as nature intended than to feed my family the added synthetic junk included to make something taste better or last longer. I can’t believe that the ingredients found in something like Mountain Dew or Doritos would be exactly what I would find in the whole foods people should be eating/drinking. I do appreciate you reading the article and commenting, but it really doesn’t matter what the FDA tells me is ok and not ok. A blueberry isa blueberry. Blueberry flavoring is not a blueberry and doesn’t have the nutritional benefits that blueberry flavoring has. You may not agree, though I am curious about what you think – would you/do you consume things like Doritos and Mountain Dew and artificially colored cereals – why or why not?
p.s. sorry if my tone sounds harsh, I am just passionate about the topic and what I write doesn’t always come across as intended on a computer!
Thank you for this wonderful post. Could I have permission to repost this on my website…www.simplisticfamily.com? So glad to have found your blog.
Sure, if you link it back to mine! 🙂 nice site!
Reblogged this on Poisoned Pets and commented:
A brilliant example of the parallel facing the pet food and animal feed industry.
Brilliant article. Great research.
I’m going to re-blog this to Poisoned Pets with the preface, “You think this is scary? Try the pet food industry…”.
As many pet parents consider their pets their children, it is vital to understand human food safety issues in order to have a deeper understanding of the animal feed, pet food sector.
The central reason for being aware of the animal feed sector, not just for pet parents, is that the issues and problems within the feed industry are inextricably linked to the safety of human food supply chain and visa-versa.
It matters what animals consume because they become the meat humans consume, the remnants (waste product) of those animals are then processed into animal feed which are then fed back to the animals that are raised for food, in a form of recycling from Hell.
Animal feed is another world, and to fully understand the complexity of the safety and sustainability of the food supply one must understand the animal feed industry to see the problems facing the perilous health of the planet and the survival of all species.
Thanks for your blog post … It just came to my attention. THANKS!!
You may be interested in my favorite for kids!!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/EcoBuns/133432171386
Loved the info! Great article. Wish you could post lists of icecreams that are healthier options.
I wish I could too – but I wouldn’t know if a brand I was listing was hiding something! I will say the cheaper the brand the worse it is. There are ingredients you can look to avoid like tbhq, and artificial colors and flavors.
It is time to go back to the old days . Make and grow from scratch. Then you know for sure what’s in your food.
This disgusts me so much. I share info like this on my blog pretty frequently, but I’ve never looked into iced cream – one of our favorite treats before. Thank you so much for sharing!