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80 percent of US packaged foods may contain dangerous chemicals
Toxics Link Source: RT Question More, Date: , 2013
Roughly
80 percent of all the packaged foods sold within the United States contain
chemicals outlawed in other parts of the world, Britain’s Daily Mail reports.
Six
common food additives found in an estimated 8-out-of-10 products sold in
American stores are banned outside of the US, the Mail claims, putting millions
of Americans at risk of consuming chemicals considered too dangerous for humans
in other countries.
Grocery
shop items including best-selling soft-drinks and cereal sold in the US contain
additives such as brominated vegetable oil, olestra and others that have been
banned in the European Union and elsewhere.
The Daily
Mail cites ‘Rich Food, Poor Food,' a recently published book by Jayson Calton
and Mira Calton, as the source for their claim that the majority of American
groceries contain the additives.
Among the
common items containing the chemicals are Mountain Dew, Chex Mix and Hungry Man
frozen dinners, which are made with additives outlawed overseas due to health
risks. The Caltons say these products are filled with some of the six “Banned
Bad Boys” that are used in America but absent in supermarkets overseas.
“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,” reports the Daily Mail. One of the chemicals in that food
coloring, they add, has been proven to cause various different cancers. Those
artificial dyes have been outlawed in Norway, Finland, Austria, France and the
United Kingdom
Another
additive, brominated vegetable oil, has been banned in over 100 countries
because it’s been linked to causing major organ damage, birth defects and
hearing loss, among other side effects. Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, is
used in Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Powerade and Squirt — and around 10 percent of
all drinks sold in the US.
A
petition started earlier this year to get BVOs out of beverages sold in the US
received over 206,000 signatures on the website Change.org.
“BVO
is banned other places in the world, so these companies already have a
replacement for it,” the petition’s author, Sarah Kavanagh, told The New
York Times. “I don’t see why they don’t just make the switch.”
Another additive, potassium bromate, is used
in American bakeries to speed up the process of preparing wraps, rolls and
other bread products. It’s derived from the same chemical as BVO, though, and
has been tied to causing kidney damage and cancer. That’s why it’s been
outlawed in Europe, Canada and China, but not in the US.
Also on
the Calton’s list is azodicarbonamide, a chemical the Daily Mail notes is used
to make things like bleach and rubber yoga mats.
Azodicarbonamide
is “approved to be a bleaching agent in cereal flour” and is “permitted
for direct addition to food for human consumption,” according to the Food
and Drug Administration. Along with waxy preservatives called butylated
hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) used in bubble gums,
though, the additive has been banned in parts of Europe for potential health
risks.
Rounding
out the authors’ 'Bad Boys' list are Synthetic growth hormones rBGH and rBST
and the chemical arsenic. They’ve both been banned in the EU for a variety of
reasons, and perhaps for good reason: the arsenic put in American poultry can
kill a human being if consumed in a high enough dosage.
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