From Subway to Kraft, recent petitions have successfully caused popular food manufacturers to remove chemicals like azodicarbonamide (a chemical used in yoga mats that has been banned in foods in Europe) from their products and have also brought awareness to important issues in American food policies and companies. American food companies are sacrificing our health for their own financial benefit and our system does not have enough laws in place to prevent it.
Some defend these companies’ chemical usage by saying there is no other way for the product to be made without it. The texture, the flavor … it would not be the same without it. However, data challenges this notion by pointing out that companies are making the same products in other countries without these harmful chemicals. Take McDonald’s, a multibillion-dollar fast-food chain with over 40,000 locations globally. Comparing their fries in the United States vs. France, France only contains three ingredients: local French potatoes, rapeseed oil, and salt. However, the American fries also contain dimethylpolysiloxane (an ingredient in silly putty), sodium acid pyrophosphate, “natural beef flavor”, and more unnecessary things like hydrogenated soybean oil (hydrogenated means they combine hydrogen and fat to make the oil last longer, but it also causes health problems like Type 2 diabetes). While the fries are supposedly the exact same product from the exact same company, the ingredient list could not be more different.
And if you want ketchup on your fries, consider Heinz Ketchup. The U.S. version uses high fructose corn syrup and “natural flavoring” (chemicals derived from plants and animals but highly processed to the point in which they are no longer so natural). France? Instead of “natural flavoring”, they use actual spice and herb extracts, and instead of high fructose corn syrup and tomato concentrate, they use sugar and real tomatoes.
Let’s look at food coloring in cereal, specifically Fruit Loops. Cereal companies like Kellogg’s claim they need to be colored using Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6 and Red 40, which are synthetic dyes made from petroleum. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “many synthetic dyes used in food can cause harmful health effects, particularly in children.” If products in the European Union contain these colors, they are legally required to include a warning label on the packaging before kids eat them. In Germany, cereals like Fruit Loops are colored not with petroleum dyes but rather with radish, carrot and cherry concentrates.
These companies could choose to give the U.S. food products with a healthier ingredient list. They have proven that they are able to make the products without processed and harmful items in other countries. So why don’t they? If the companies have the cheaper version of an ingredient in America, they are going to choose it, no matter the health impact.
You may also be asking yourself now, “Why is the Food and Drug Association not doing anything about this? Why do they say that these harmful ingredients are just fine? Where are our warning labels and restrictions?” In the case of chemicals such as potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide, which are both banned in food in Europe, The Guardian reported that the FDA “still considers these to be Gras or ‘generally recognized as safe’ to eat, though plenty of experts disagree.” What it comes down to is that Europe simply has a higher standard than the FDA. Or, as a headline for an opinion piece in the Environmental Health News noted, “When it comes to food chemicals, Europe’s food safety agency and the FDA are oceans apart.”
Food should fuel bodies with ethical, healthy ingredients. It is clear that there needs to be more control, and if the companies are the ones dictating what goes into what we eat, we need to address them and tell them that they need to change. We need to demand transparency and encourage a new era of food in our country.
