9 ms·

U.S. food additives banned in Europe

228 points by nabla9 4y ago

GrayShade 4y ago
The original title is "U.S. food additives banned in Europe: Expert says what Americans eat is "almost certainly" making them sick", which makes a lot more sense than the submission title.
- DougN7 4y ago
  My wife has chronic migraines, and we live in the US. We visited Europe last year for 3 weeks and she was migraine free. We figured it had to be the food, and talk about maybe moving…
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    It could be the food, it could be indoor air quality, it could be a beauty product, it could be pollen, any number of things. In any case, it might be related to histamines. If your wife has any troubles with an MTHFR mutation, this can cause issues with histamine buildup [1]. I don't endorse this site generally, just a quick reference for the histamine bits. One possible cause of this is taking folic acid (synthetic) rather than folate. This is commonly found in 'enriched' products like breads and cereals, even rice. Europe doesn't enrich products like the US does. This is to say nothing about different pesticides and additives the Europeans use vs the US. Anyway, try avoiding wheat and enriched foods and see if that makes any difference. My wife had a lot of these issues and others, and we've got her sorted out now. 1: https://joannekennedy.com.au/2020/01/03/mthfr-histamine-intolerance/ https://joannekennedy.com.au/2020/01/03/mthfr-histamine-into...
- etiennebausson 4y ago
  I did wonder how the expert was making people sick.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    That said it's probably still inadvisable to season your food with expert.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Fun fact: Cannibalism in itself isn't illegal in Germany... Just don't ask
      - jon-wood 4y ago
        But isn't the point that you absolutely must ask, since you can only eat somebody if you have their consent?
        hef19898 4y ago
        Well, apparently all the means of obtaining, they, ugh, ingredients, are more or less illegal and covered by various laws. Voluntary donations so.... Dear me, I shouldn't have brought it up before lunch... I hope there is something vegetarian on the menu today...
        PeterisP 4y ago
        > Apparently all the means of obtaining, they, ugh, ingredients, are more or less illegal and covered by various laws. Amputations are legal and not that rare, so there are some means.. Hhere's a relevant example of a part of a leg begin eaten - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8p5xlj/hi_all_i_am_a_man_who_ate_a_portion_of_his_own/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8p5xlj/hi_all_i_am_a_...
        noduerme 4y ago
        consent has been defined different ways at different times in Germany. technically when hansel and gretel checked into their airbnb in the forest, they consented to being shoved into an oven if they spilled breadcrumbs. It was all in the contract.
- input_sh 4y ago
  That's >80 characters title limit, so some editorializing was necessary.
  - sh4rks 4y ago
    An extra colon would have done the job Expert: "Almost certainly making them sick"
    - drunkonvinyl 4y ago
      That extra colon could have prevented people from getting sick as well.
  - easygenes 4y ago
    A clearer suggestion: US food additives banned in EU. Expert says "almost certainly" making US sick
    - nabla9 4y ago
      thanks. Fixed.
sschueller 4y ago
It's not only food. Things like fire retardants and off the shelve pesticides are also problematic.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  But you don't eat those.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    You don't see how someone might end up eating pesticide?
stuaxo 4y ago
These will all almost certainly be making their way into food post-Brexit in the UK.
- nly 4y ago
  Don't worry, our highly efficient, world class, over-provisioned National Health Service will deal with the consequences in short order.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    The NHS that totally received the £350 million per week that the UK no longer has to pay to the EU
    - ta1243 4y ago
      Well it did, as part of normal health inflation requirements. The UK spends far less per head on healthcare than almost any other western country, as an absolute amount and as a portion of GDP.
      - dtech 4y ago
        citation needed, United Kingdom seems middling at most and NL, DK, AU, NZ and FI all spend less. [1] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_...
        ta1243 4y ago
        OECD stats. In 2019 (so before covid costs), as % of GDP. AU - 10.23 NL -10.14 DK - 10.121 UK - 9.875 FI - 9.172 NZ - 9.049 (Also France, Germany, US, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Austria etc all higher)
      - kmlx 4y ago
        > The UK spends far less per head on healthcare than almost any other western country, as an absolute amount and as a portion of GDP. this is false, but i keep seeing it repeated everywhere. as a portion of GDP the UK is the 4th from the top: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditur... per capita the UK spends more than NZ, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/154e8143-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?i...
stuaxo 4y ago
"when used properly, potassium bromate converts into a harmless substance during food production" Wow, pretty big assumption it will always be used properly, for something in wide use.
- checkyoursudo 4y ago
  Humans are famous for never ever using anything improperly.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    Especially in the US food industry, known for its extremely skilled workforce and exacting quality standards...
- mlatu 4y ago
  .... potassium bromATE KBrO3 needs temperatures of 370° Celsius before it splits off its oxygen atoms... and then you have KBr, potassium bromIDE, in earlier centuries used as a sedative. and usualy back then they gave too much, which resulted in Bromism (im not saying you will get this from eating bread, but "harmless substance"? my ass is a harmless substance.): restlessness, irritability, ataxia, confusion, hallucinations, psychosis, weakness, stupor and in severe cases, coma..... also nausea and vomiting, and anorexia, constipation with chronic use...also also rashes and such. you guys are being lied to, constantly, by any industry that can get away with it. vinylchloride on the floor? just burn it off.. itll become a harmless gas that you can mix with water (HAHA phat chance thats gonna happen in the air... am i right?) to get harmless hydrochloric acid potassium bromATE in your flour? just bake it off.. itll become a harmless sedative...
  - cedilla 4y ago
    You misunderstand what's supposed to happen. Potassium bromate is a strong oxidizing agent. Pyrolysis is completely irrelevant here. I don't know if potassium bromate should be used as a food additive but your comment in its safety is not even wrong, it just shows a lack of understanding of food chemistry.
lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
Is there any evidence these things are actually making people sick? Just saying “it’s banned in these countries” isn’t evidence.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  look up "potassium bromate carcinogen" in your favorite search engine.
- pella 4y ago
  > "Titanium dioxide (also known as E171);" https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6585 https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E171 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E171
- Deukhoofd 4y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    "adverse effects are not evident in animals fed bread-based diets made from flour treated with KBrO3" The question isn't whether the chemical can cause cancer at any dose, it is whether there is evidence that its use in food in the US causes health problems in humans, i.e., the primary claim in the article linked to.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danuker 4y ago
  About potassium bromate, IARC based its evaluation on studies of rats, mice and hamsters. https://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol73/73-17.html https://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol73/73-17.html Would you want to ban something producing renal tubular tumours and thyroid follicular tumours in rodents, for use in human food? I guess this is the crux of the article.
eutectic 4y ago
Bromate should decompose to bromide during baking. I wouldn't worry too much.
- refurb 4y ago
  Exactly. Potassium bromate is an oxidant (like chloramine used to purify drinking water). And when baking its surrounded by reducing agents. And its used in ppm levels. Were not eating grams of it.
  - Lacerda69 4y ago
    better err on the side of caution with this stuff. you can manage just fine without potassium bromate. bread should just include water, flour, and yeast IMO. anything else is an abonimation.
    - wiredfool 4y ago
      You need salt too.
  - marl0 4y ago
    Extrapolate this to over 10 years. You're eating a lot more than gram of it.
    - refurb 4y ago
      I'd be more worried about eating that many carbs.
    - eutectic 4y ago
      And how much bromate (and nastier compounds) occurs naturally in vegetables we eat?
- lm28469 4y ago
  And nuclear power plants shouldn't explode, trains carrying hazardous chemicals shouldn't derail. Now do you trust the over worked min wage worker who most likely doesn't give a shit to bake your bread until it's safe to eat ? Do you trust the food lobbies to tell you the truth ? The US is one of the most corrupt place for these things ("fat makes you fat", ddt, tobacco, &c.)
m00dy 4y ago
I wonder what will happen to doner in Berlin. It is so delicious because they add additives..
- junon 4y ago
  Not sure about that. The döner I eat is just a bunch of chicken on a massive skewer that they pack down and shave. The weird spongy döner, maybe yeah.
  - tormeh 4y ago
    Most döner is a mix of filets beaten flat and odd slaughter goo, generally in layers. Nothing wrong with that - sausages are generally _only_ the slaughter goo...
- hef19898 4y ago
  Don't worry, there are enough additives still legal in the EU.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    yeah, salt and msg aren’t going anywhere
- lm28469 4y ago
  It's called grilled veggies and goat cheese crumble, the meat is shady though, but given how it looks it's no surprise to anyone, good thing you can do without Also Berlin is in Europe which already has stricter rules than the US
bernardlunn 4y ago
This thread shows HN humor - who knew?
boomboomsubban 4y ago
While it's very possible potassium bromate is dangerous, I really hate this type of news story. There's some evidence that something is unsafe, so CBS found a professor to interview then asked them leading questions to get an explosive headline. Next they asked a random person if they're scared about this. Finally they asked the FDA and seemingly only published part of their reply. Like I said, potassium bromate may be bad for you. But I don't feel like I've learned anything from this story about it. It only seems like fear mongering.
- permo-w 4y ago
  it may well be fear mongering, but food additives in general are just not a good thing. it barely matters what they are. barring a few well-studied exceptions, in the first place, we shouldn’t be synthesising chemicals and adding them en masse to food which you otherwise wouldn’t expect to contain them obviously this is a rule of thumb and quite a generalisation. I’m sure a fair few counter-examples can be given, but is it better to generally follow this rule, or not? I say better
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    This is tricky, though. Where does it stop? If I really thought about what's natural, I wouldn't expect to find food at all.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Not even fruit?
      - aperson_hello 4y ago
        Humans have modified most fruits to be nearly unrecognizable compared to their original forms!
        uoaei 4y ago
        There's a difference between phenotypic and genotypic modifications.
hedora 4y ago
> "Post-approval, our scientists continue to review relevant new information to determine whether there are safety questions and whether the use of such substance is no longer safe," the agency added. This use of “no longer safe” sums up the problem with US regulators’ mindsets. It’s not like food additives are a condemned house. Presumably “safe” is being used as a term of art meaning “not yet proven unsafe”
nchohan 4y ago
The same ban should be done for food coloring and bleached flour like it is in Europe.
petesergeant 4y ago
"UK bakery banned from using sprinkles which are legal in the US" https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/14/uk/sprinkles-bakery-banned-scli-intl-gbr/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/14/uk/sprinkles-bakery-banne...
Pete-Codes 4y ago
I know Americans who have the same diet in the US and Europe and they always lose weight as soon as they come to Europe
- orwin 4y ago
  Probably due to the freaking fructose in everything they eat, including their bread. Also, sugar and fructose increases appetite levels.
  - machiaweliczny 4y ago
    And fructose is transformed into fat immediately instead used as glucose to power body. If I was dictator I would ban fructose syrup.
  - chronogram 4y ago
    HFCS != fructose. HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup or isomerised sugar) is corn starch which is turned into glucose/dextrose by enzymes, after which about half is further turned into fructose giving it a sweetness like sucrose (table sugar) or honey so it can be used as a replacement for the already cheap sucrose or more expensive honey. Consumption of glucose containing sweeteners has no benefit for a typical sedentary person but does mess with your blood sugar because it goes directly into your blood once free. Fructose, also known as fruit sugar because the sugars in fruits are mostly fructose, does not spike your blood sugar because it first has to be converted to glucose by your liver. Glucose is only half as sweet as fructose for humans, but since sucrose (table sugar) and HFCS are a little cheaper to produce and get consumed at a massive scale, in practice a consumer will have to pay at least 3 times as much for pure fructose. For the typical HN user without medical issues and the disposable income you could aim for no sweeteners > sugar substitutes > fructose.
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    Adding to this, fructose is a signalling molecule used by our genetic survival trait to tell our liver to store more glucose as fat. The extreme example of this is bears eating loads of berries before they hibernate to store up fat. It works in humans too, just not to the same extreme as bears.
lapama 4y ago
Coffee was on the global cancer-related list, then vanished from it. How much should we trust these lists on late additions/deletions? Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffee-cancer-warning-science-acrylamide-risk/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffee-cancer-warning-science-a...
- Havoc 4y ago
  Additions/deletions are not necessarily bad - shows evolving understanding
  - permo-w 4y ago
    hopefully it shows that. the concern, whether well-founded or not, is that it shows the influence of lobbying
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  IIRC Coffee and tee were removed, because it was later realized that the culprit was hot water not tea or coffee by themselves. So drinking coffee, tea is considered harmful if you drink it boiling hot, but not if you wait until it cools down before drinking. Conversely, drinking rooibos or mate won't save you if you drink them too hot ;)
Tade0 4y ago
Out of the mentioned titanium dioxide might make a comeback in the EU: https://www.foodprocessing.com/business-of-food-beverage/international/news/21438611/court-reverses-eu-ban-on-titanium-dioxide https://www.foodprocessing.com/business-of-food-beverage/int... It was a relatively new addition to the list, only ruled as too dangerous in 2019. As for the other chemicals: if something is banned in China and India you might want to take note. Both countries have ample experience with companies attempting to put questionable additives.
- lm28469 4y ago
  I really don't get it with titanium dioxide. It only has a cosmetic role, why take the gamble... If it turns out to be bad we fucked millions of people for... having something slightly whiter If it turns out not to be bad we just get things slightly whiter
  - nextstep 4y ago
    Because in the current system of production that’s swallowing the globe, the only thing that matters is driving sales growth.
HPsquared 4y ago
Professor Millstone studying flour additives. A nice example of nominative determinism!
silveira 4y ago
I came to the comments expecting users defending carcinogen additives and I'm not disappointed.
- femboy 4y ago
  Came here for this. Yet another thing that makes me glad that the EU exists.
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago
  Won't someone think of the profits those carcinogen additives provide to the share holders?
kolanos 4y ago
Tried to find a list of additives banned in the U.S. but not in other countries. Instead the search results were full of articles like this one.
- skissane 4y ago
  Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has what you are looking for: https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/pages/tableoffoodadditivep5753.aspx https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/pages/ta... It says it was last updated in 2012 though, so might be outdated. According to their table, the food colouring “Quinoline yellow FCF” aka “D+C Yellow No 10” (E104) is allowed in food in EU, but banned in food and beverages by the FDA. (Although, I read elsewhere the FDA does allow it in cosmetics and medicines, and that it is also disallowed in food in Canada) Per the table, other food/beverage additives allowed in EU but banned in US include vegetable carbon (E153) and cyclamate (E952). Furthermore, E122 (Azorubine/Carmoisine), E124 (Ponceau 4R), E142 (Green S), E151 (Brilliant black BN) and E155 (Brown HT) are all food colourings which are not explicitly banned by the FDA, but no manufacturer has ever applied for FDA approval to use them in food, but they are approved in the EU. Everything in the table is allowed in Australia/New Zealand - the two countries have common food standards.
bayesian_horse 4y ago
There are basically two ways to find out if something is carcinogenic (that I know) quicker than with a retrospective study in Humans: One is to use lab animals, mostly rodents, administer them that substance in a high enough dose and see if they develop tumors. Problem: They aren't Humans and they don't get very old. The other is by trying to grow a bacterium on a growth medium with an antibacterial agent and the substance in question. The clue: The bacterium has a gene for resistance against that antibiotic, but it is disabled by exactly one point mutation. The rate at which there are colonies on the petri dish tells you how mutagenic the substance is. Problem: The substance isn't metabolized like in a body.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  This is not popular news yet but most of the tests with lab mice may be invalid. [1] I suppose now we need a movement to get natural mice used in lab tests or something along that line. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm5jFxe9jJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm5jFxe9jJ0 [video][7 mins]
seanhandley 4y ago
> Potassium bromate is classified as a category 2B carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Yeah, that's not food.
- sseagull 4y ago
  Looking at the list of group 2B carcinogen, I see things like caffeic acid (common in food like, uh, coffee, but other things as well). Also I see bleomycin, which is used to treat cancer. Lesson: labeling something as a potential carcinogenic is nuanced.
Madmallard 4y ago
When people defend chemicals saying what's the evidence, they're only doing harm to themselves and everyone. We did not evolve to tolerate quite literally hundreds of thousands of chemicals in regular commercial use. The incidence of several different disease types is increasing at far higher rates than "increased diagnosis". The number of people with GI symptoms related to food is something absurd like 1 in 3 now. If you did not EVOLVE to tolerate a chemical, you're gambling with how it will be interpreted by the body's biology. Even with medicine we cause issues ALL the time when we're TRYING not to make drugs that actively harm you. The majority of these chemicals are NOT subject to that kind of scrutiny, even though many of them STILL get into people's systems. Yes, the dose makes the poison, but we DON'T EVEN KNOW the dose-response curve for the vast majority of commercially used chemicals, nor do we know their interactions. The likelihood of some of them causing physiologic or epigenetic harm in humans is basically 100%. We do need WAY more scrutiny than we have and to withdraw way more things from commercial use BY force if we want to turn things around. If you say "where's the evidence they cause damage" you're an armchair devil's advocate redditor moron. The onus should be on them to rigorously show they DO NOT cause harm before they're ever introduced into use that could lead to exopsure.
pg_bot 4y ago
This article falls flat when it comes to providing actual evidence of harm being done. Both the EU and the US have products on store shelves which would not be deemed acceptable for human consumption in either respective region. I could write a scare mongering article about sodium cyclamate, a common sweetener that is considered a carcinogen in the US but is available for consumption all over Europe. Considering that regulators are generally scientifically minded it's funny that there are so many discrepancies when it comes to what is safe and what is not. Perhaps we should look into where we disagree and try to figure out who is right and who is wrong.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Looking up the Wikipedia page for sodium cyclamate does not acquit the U.S. any better. It was banned in the U.S. because of the decision of individual FDA commissioners, and not because it failed any FDA processes. If anything, it appears to validate the EU’s process which appears to be based on actual research, as opposed to the political whims of the people running the FDA.
  - pg_bot 4y ago
    While it is my personal belief that sodium cyclamate is safe for human consumption, (The US ban was due to a research study that linked consumption to an increase in bladder cancer of mice) you missed the point that I was making. It is likely that both sides of the aisle have banned substances that are actually safe. It is likely that both sides allow substances that are harmful and should be banned. We should further review the areas in which we disagree as it is unlikely that the science changes across an ocean. It is much more likely that hidden incentives or bad methodology has lead to someone being incorrect. Whether you think the US or Europe is better or worse at food regulation is likely a biased opinion.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      Potassium bromate is a bit of an oddity, in that the FDA discourages its use, and likely wouldn't approve it if it came up today. The EU regulator is, I think it's fair to say, considerably more aggressive in purging the lists of already-approved things.
aklemm 4y ago
I’m of the opinion that there is something massively wrong with our food and that the Europeans do far better, yet this article is a stinker. My only takeaway are the specific names of some chemicals I can now go read about.
ck2 4y ago
FDA no longer functions to protect consumers. It's there to protect industry against consumers and any defeat of profit. The wild wild west of the food and supplement industry where anything goes, what's on the label is not only self-reported, it is virtually never verified and even if "caught" the penalties are trivial. Goes right along with the EPA etc. which have all been "kneecapped" by congress and the political agenda of "deregulation = profit"
AD_PhD 4y ago
While any US new station (possibly with the exception of NPR) will be sensationalized and alarmist, as someone who studies primate (and we are primates) nutrition, I am completely behind banning substances until we find that they are harmless. Additionally, some of the comments below are simply stupid: (1) "Innocent until proven guilty" is a great right for humans, but it should not apply to products. I am quite sure you'd be complaining if radio-active substances had been considered "innocent until proven guilty" and released to the public for their use pending testing. This did happen with arsenic laced green dyes (not radioactive, but same story), and in the case of the Radium Girls/Women. (2) If we were to assume "innocent until proven guilty" then these chemicals could still be "banned" until found not guilty (just as humans can be retained/jailed until trial if they are deemed potentially harmful).
cypherg 4y ago
scaremongering

228 points by nabla9 4y ago

The original title is "U.S. food additives banned in Europe: Expert says what Americans eat is "almost certainly" making them sick", which makes a lot more sense than the submission title.

DougN7 4y ago
My wife has chronic migraines, and we live in the US. We visited Europe last year for 3 weeks and she was migraine free. We figured it had to be the food, and talk about maybe moving…
- linuxftw 4y ago
  It could be the food, it could be indoor air quality, it could be a beauty product, it could be pollen, any number of things. In any case, it might be related to histamines. If your wife has any troubles with an MTHFR mutation, this can cause issues with histamine buildup [1]. I don't endorse this site generally, just a quick reference for the histamine bits. One possible cause of this is taking folic acid (synthetic) rather than folate. This is commonly found in 'enriched' products like breads and cereals, even rice. Europe doesn't enrich products like the US does. This is to say nothing about different pesticides and additives the Europeans use vs the US. Anyway, try avoiding wheat and enriched foods and see if that makes any difference. My wife had a lot of these issues and others, and we've got her sorted out now. 1: https://joannekennedy.com.au/2020/01/03/mthfr-histamine-intolerance/ https://joannekennedy.com.au/2020/01/03/mthfr-histamine-into...
etiennebausson 4y ago
I did wonder how the expert was making people sick.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  That said it's probably still inadvisable to season your food with expert.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Fun fact: Cannibalism in itself isn't illegal in Germany... Just don't ask
    - jon-wood 4y ago
      But isn't the point that you absolutely must ask, since you can only eat somebody if you have their consent?
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Well, apparently all the means of obtaining, they, ugh, ingredients, are more or less illegal and covered by various laws. Voluntary donations so.... Dear me, I shouldn't have brought it up before lunch... I hope there is something vegetarian on the menu today...
        PeterisP 4y ago
        > Apparently all the means of obtaining, they, ugh, ingredients, are more or less illegal and covered by various laws. Amputations are legal and not that rare, so there are some means.. Hhere's a relevant example of a part of a leg begin eaten - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8p5xlj/hi_all_i_am_a_man_who_ate_a_portion_of_his_own/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8p5xlj/hi_all_i_am_a_...
      - noduerme 4y ago
        consent has been defined different ways at different times in Germany. technically when hansel and gretel checked into their airbnb in the forest, they consented to being shoved into an oven if they spilled breadcrumbs. It was all in the contract.
input_sh 4y ago
That's >80 characters title limit, so some editorializing was necessary.
- sh4rks 4y ago
  An extra colon would have done the job Expert: "Almost certainly making them sick"
  - drunkonvinyl 4y ago
    That extra colon could have prevented people from getting sick as well.
- easygenes 4y ago
  A clearer suggestion: US food additives banned in EU. Expert says "almost certainly" making US sick
  - nabla9 4y ago
    thanks. Fixed.

sschueller 4y ago

It's not only food. Things like fire retardants and off the shelve pesticides are also problematic.

LtWorf 4y ago
But you don't eat those.
- thfuran 4y ago
  You don't see how someone might end up eating pesticide?

stuaxo 4y ago

These will all almost certainly be making their way into food post-Brexit in the UK.

nly 4y ago
Don't worry, our highly efficient, world class, over-provisioned National Health Service will deal with the consequences in short order.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  The NHS that totally received the £350 million per week that the UK no longer has to pay to the EU
  - ta1243 4y ago
    Well it did, as part of normal health inflation requirements. The UK spends far less per head on healthcare than almost any other western country, as an absolute amount and as a portion of GDP.
    - dtech 4y ago
      citation needed, United Kingdom seems middling at most and NL, DK, AU, NZ and FI all spend less. [1] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_...
      - ta1243 4y ago
        OECD stats. In 2019 (so before covid costs), as % of GDP. AU - 10.23 NL -10.14 DK - 10.121 UK - 9.875 FI - 9.172 NZ - 9.049 (Also France, Germany, US, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Austria etc all higher)
    - kmlx 4y ago
      > The UK spends far less per head on healthcare than almost any other western country, as an absolute amount and as a portion of GDP. this is false, but i keep seeing it repeated everywhere. as a portion of GDP the UK is the 4th from the top: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditur... per capita the UK spends more than NZ, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/154e8143-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?i...

stuaxo 4y ago

"when used properly, potassium bromate converts into a harmless substance during food production" Wow, pretty big assumption it will always be used properly, for something in wide use.

checkyoursudo 4y ago
Humans are famous for never ever using anything improperly.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Especially in the US food industry, known for its extremely skilled workforce and exacting quality standards...
mlatu 4y ago
.... potassium bromATE KBrO3 needs temperatures of 370° Celsius before it splits off its oxygen atoms... and then you have KBr, potassium bromIDE, in earlier centuries used as a sedative. and usualy back then they gave too much, which resulted in Bromism (im not saying you will get this from eating bread, but "harmless substance"? my ass is a harmless substance.): restlessness, irritability, ataxia, confusion, hallucinations, psychosis, weakness, stupor and in severe cases, coma..... also nausea and vomiting, and anorexia, constipation with chronic use...also also rashes and such. you guys are being lied to, constantly, by any industry that can get away with it. vinylchloride on the floor? just burn it off.. itll become a harmless gas that you can mix with water (HAHA phat chance thats gonna happen in the air... am i right?) to get harmless hydrochloric acid potassium bromATE in your flour? just bake it off.. itll become a harmless sedative...
- cedilla 4y ago
  You misunderstand what's supposed to happen. Potassium bromate is a strong oxidizing agent. Pyrolysis is completely irrelevant here. I don't know if potassium bromate should be used as a food additive but your comment in its safety is not even wrong, it just shows a lack of understanding of food chemistry.

lame-robot-hoax 4y ago

Is there any evidence these things are actually making people sick? Just saying “it’s banned in these countries” isn’t evidence.

kristopolous 4y ago
look up "potassium bromate carcinogen" in your favorite search engine.
pella 4y ago
> "Titanium dioxide (also known as E171);" https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6585 https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E171 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E171
Deukhoofd 4y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  "adverse effects are not evident in animals fed bread-based diets made from flour treated with KBrO3" The question isn't whether the chemical can cause cancer at any dose, it is whether there is evidence that its use in food in the US causes health problems in humans, i.e., the primary claim in the article linked to.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danuker 4y ago
About potassium bromate, IARC based its evaluation on studies of rats, mice and hamsters. https://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol73/73-17.html https://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol73/73-17.html Would you want to ban something producing renal tubular tumours and thyroid follicular tumours in rodents, for use in human food? I guess this is the crux of the article.

eutectic 4y ago

Bromate should decompose to bromide during baking. I wouldn't worry too much.

refurb 4y ago
Exactly. Potassium bromate is an oxidant (like chloramine used to purify drinking water). And when baking its surrounded by reducing agents. And its used in ppm levels. Were not eating grams of it.
- Lacerda69 4y ago
  better err on the side of caution with this stuff. you can manage just fine without potassium bromate. bread should just include water, flour, and yeast IMO. anything else is an abonimation.
  - wiredfool 4y ago
    You need salt too.
- marl0 4y ago
  Extrapolate this to over 10 years. You're eating a lot more than gram of it.
  - refurb 4y ago
    I'd be more worried about eating that many carbs.
  - eutectic 4y ago
    And how much bromate (and nastier compounds) occurs naturally in vegetables we eat?
lm28469 4y ago
And nuclear power plants shouldn't explode, trains carrying hazardous chemicals shouldn't derail. Now do you trust the over worked min wage worker who most likely doesn't give a shit to bake your bread until it's safe to eat ? Do you trust the food lobbies to tell you the truth ? The US is one of the most corrupt place for these things ("fat makes you fat", ddt, tobacco, &c.)

m00dy 4y ago

I wonder what will happen to doner in Berlin. It is so delicious because they add additives..

junon 4y ago
Not sure about that. The döner I eat is just a bunch of chicken on a massive skewer that they pack down and shave. The weird spongy döner, maybe yeah.
- tormeh 4y ago
  Most döner is a mix of filets beaten flat and odd slaughter goo, generally in layers. Nothing wrong with that - sausages are generally _only_ the slaughter goo...
hef19898 4y ago
Don't worry, there are enough additives still legal in the EU.
- permo-w 4y ago
  yeah, salt and msg aren’t going anywhere
lm28469 4y ago
It's called grilled veggies and goat cheese crumble, the meat is shady though, but given how it looks it's no surprise to anyone, good thing you can do without Also Berlin is in Europe which already has stricter rules than the US

bernardlunn 4y ago

This thread shows HN humor - who knew?

boomboomsubban 4y ago

While it's very possible potassium bromate is dangerous, I really hate this type of news story. There's some evidence that something is unsafe, so CBS found a professor to interview then asked them leading questions to get an explosive headline. Next they asked a random person if they're scared about this. Finally they asked the FDA and seemingly only published part of their reply. Like I said, potassium bromate may be bad for you. But I don't feel like I've learned anything from this story about it. It only seems like fear mongering.

permo-w 4y ago
it may well be fear mongering, but food additives in general are just not a good thing. it barely matters what they are. barring a few well-studied exceptions, in the first place, we shouldn’t be synthesising chemicals and adding them en masse to food which you otherwise wouldn’t expect to contain them obviously this is a rule of thumb and quite a generalisation. I’m sure a fair few counter-examples can be given, but is it better to generally follow this rule, or not? I say better
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  This is tricky, though. Where does it stop? If I really thought about what's natural, I wouldn't expect to find food at all.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Not even fruit?
    - aperson_hello 4y ago
      Humans have modified most fruits to be nearly unrecognizable compared to their original forms!
      - uoaei 4y ago
        There's a difference between phenotypic and genotypic modifications.

hedora 4y ago

> "Post-approval, our scientists continue to review relevant new information to determine whether there are safety questions and whether the use of such substance is no longer safe," the agency added. This use of “no longer safe” sums up the problem with US regulators’ mindsets. It’s not like food additives are a condemned house. Presumably “safe” is being used as a term of art meaning “not yet proven unsafe”

nchohan 4y ago

The same ban should be done for food coloring and bleached flour like it is in Europe.

petesergeant 4y ago

"UK bakery banned from using sprinkles which are legal in the US" https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/14/uk/sprinkles-bakery-banned-scli-intl-gbr/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/14/uk/sprinkles-bakery-banne...

Pete-Codes 4y ago

I know Americans who have the same diet in the US and Europe and they always lose weight as soon as they come to Europe

orwin 4y ago
Probably due to the freaking fructose in everything they eat, including their bread. Also, sugar and fructose increases appetite levels.
- machiaweliczny 4y ago
  And fructose is transformed into fat immediately instead used as glucose to power body. If I was dictator I would ban fructose syrup.
- chronogram 4y ago
  HFCS != fructose. HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup or isomerised sugar) is corn starch which is turned into glucose/dextrose by enzymes, after which about half is further turned into fructose giving it a sweetness like sucrose (table sugar) or honey so it can be used as a replacement for the already cheap sucrose or more expensive honey. Consumption of glucose containing sweeteners has no benefit for a typical sedentary person but does mess with your blood sugar because it goes directly into your blood once free. Fructose, also known as fruit sugar because the sugars in fruits are mostly fructose, does not spike your blood sugar because it first has to be converted to glucose by your liver. Glucose is only half as sweet as fructose for humans, but since sucrose (table sugar) and HFCS are a little cheaper to produce and get consumed at a massive scale, in practice a consumer will have to pay at least 3 times as much for pure fructose. For the typical HN user without medical issues and the disposable income you could aim for no sweeteners > sugar substitutes > fructose.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  Adding to this, fructose is a signalling molecule used by our genetic survival trait to tell our liver to store more glucose as fat. The extreme example of this is bears eating loads of berries before they hibernate to store up fat. It works in humans too, just not to the same extreme as bears.

lapama 4y ago

Coffee was on the global cancer-related list, then vanished from it. How much should we trust these lists on late additions/deletions? Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffee-cancer-warning-science-acrylamide-risk/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffee-cancer-warning-science-a...

Havoc 4y ago
Additions/deletions are not necessarily bad - shows evolving understanding
- permo-w 4y ago
  hopefully it shows that. the concern, whether well-founded or not, is that it shows the influence of lobbying
littlestymaar 4y ago
IIRC Coffee and tee were removed, because it was later realized that the culprit was hot water not tea or coffee by themselves. So drinking coffee, tea is considered harmful if you drink it boiling hot, but not if you wait until it cools down before drinking. Conversely, drinking rooibos or mate won't save you if you drink them too hot ;)

Tade0 4y ago

Out of the mentioned titanium dioxide might make a comeback in the EU: https://www.foodprocessing.com/business-of-food-beverage/international/news/21438611/court-reverses-eu-ban-on-titanium-dioxide https://www.foodprocessing.com/business-of-food-beverage/int... It was a relatively new addition to the list, only ruled as too dangerous in 2019. As for the other chemicals: if something is banned in China and India you might want to take note. Both countries have ample experience with companies attempting to put questionable additives.

lm28469 4y ago
I really don't get it with titanium dioxide. It only has a cosmetic role, why take the gamble... If it turns out to be bad we fucked millions of people for... having something slightly whiter If it turns out not to be bad we just get things slightly whiter
- nextstep 4y ago
  Because in the current system of production that’s swallowing the globe, the only thing that matters is driving sales growth.

HPsquared 4y ago

Professor Millstone studying flour additives. A nice example of nominative determinism!

silveira 4y ago

I came to the comments expecting users defending carcinogen additives and I'm not disappointed.

femboy 4y ago
Came here for this. Yet another thing that makes me glad that the EU exists.
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Won't someone think of the profits those carcinogen additives provide to the share holders?

kolanos 4y ago

Tried to find a list of additives banned in the U.S. but not in other countries. Instead the search results were full of articles like this one.

skissane 4y ago
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has what you are looking for: https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/pages/tableoffoodadditivep5753.aspx https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/pages/ta... It says it was last updated in 2012 though, so might be outdated. According to their table, the food colouring “Quinoline yellow FCF” aka “D+C Yellow No 10” (E104) is allowed in food in EU, but banned in food and beverages by the FDA. (Although, I read elsewhere the FDA does allow it in cosmetics and medicines, and that it is also disallowed in food in Canada) Per the table, other food/beverage additives allowed in EU but banned in US include vegetable carbon (E153) and cyclamate (E952). Furthermore, E122 (Azorubine/Carmoisine), E124 (Ponceau 4R), E142 (Green S), E151 (Brilliant black BN) and E155 (Brown HT) are all food colourings which are not explicitly banned by the FDA, but no manufacturer has ever applied for FDA approval to use them in food, but they are approved in the EU. Everything in the table is allowed in Australia/New Zealand - the two countries have common food standards.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

There are basically two ways to find out if something is carcinogenic (that I know) quicker than with a retrospective study in Humans: One is to use lab animals, mostly rodents, administer them that substance in a high enough dose and see if they develop tumors. Problem: They aren't Humans and they don't get very old. The other is by trying to grow a bacterium on a growth medium with an antibacterial agent and the substance in question. The clue: The bacterium has a gene for resistance against that antibiotic, but it is disabled by exactly one point mutation. The rate at which there are colonies on the petri dish tells you how mutagenic the substance is. Problem: The substance isn't metabolized like in a body.

LinuxBender 4y ago
This is not popular news yet but most of the tests with lab mice may be invalid. [1] I suppose now we need a movement to get natural mice used in lab tests or something along that line. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm5jFxe9jJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm5jFxe9jJ0 [video][7 mins]

seanhandley 4y ago

> Potassium bromate is classified as a category 2B carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Yeah, that's not food.

sseagull 4y ago
Looking at the list of group 2B carcinogen, I see things like caffeic acid (common in food like, uh, coffee, but other things as well). Also I see bleomycin, which is used to treat cancer. Lesson: labeling something as a potential carcinogenic is nuanced.

Madmallard 4y ago

When people defend chemicals saying what's the evidence, they're only doing harm to themselves and everyone. We did not evolve to tolerate quite literally hundreds of thousands of chemicals in regular commercial use. The incidence of several different disease types is increasing at far higher rates than "increased diagnosis". The number of people with GI symptoms related to food is something absurd like 1 in 3 now. If you did not EVOLVE to tolerate a chemical, you're gambling with how it will be interpreted by the body's biology. Even with medicine we cause issues ALL the time when we're TRYING not to make drugs that actively harm you. The majority of these chemicals are NOT subject to that kind of scrutiny, even though many of them STILL get into people's systems. Yes, the dose makes the poison, but we DON'T EVEN KNOW the dose-response curve for the vast majority of commercially used chemicals, nor do we know their interactions. The likelihood of some of them causing physiologic or epigenetic harm in humans is basically 100%. We do need WAY more scrutiny than we have and to withdraw way more things from commercial use BY force if we want to turn things around. If you say "where's the evidence they cause damage" you're an armchair devil's advocate redditor moron. The onus should be on them to rigorously show they DO NOT cause harm before they're ever introduced into use that could lead to exopsure.

pg_bot 4y ago

This article falls flat when it comes to providing actual evidence of harm being done. Both the EU and the US have products on store shelves which would not be deemed acceptable for human consumption in either respective region. I could write a scare mongering article about sodium cyclamate, a common sweetener that is considered a carcinogen in the US but is available for consumption all over Europe. Considering that regulators are generally scientifically minded it's funny that there are so many discrepancies when it comes to what is safe and what is not. Perhaps we should look into where we disagree and try to figure out who is right and who is wrong.

rhaway84773 4y ago
Looking up the Wikipedia page for sodium cyclamate does not acquit the U.S. any better. It was banned in the U.S. because of the decision of individual FDA commissioners, and not because it failed any FDA processes. If anything, it appears to validate the EU’s process which appears to be based on actual research, as opposed to the political whims of the people running the FDA.
- pg_bot 4y ago
  While it is my personal belief that sodium cyclamate is safe for human consumption, (The US ban was due to a research study that linked consumption to an increase in bladder cancer of mice) you missed the point that I was making. It is likely that both sides of the aisle have banned substances that are actually safe. It is likely that both sides allow substances that are harmful and should be banned. We should further review the areas in which we disagree as it is unlikely that the science changes across an ocean. It is much more likely that hidden incentives or bad methodology has lead to someone being incorrect. Whether you think the US or Europe is better or worse at food regulation is likely a biased opinion.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    Potassium bromate is a bit of an oddity, in that the FDA discourages its use, and likely wouldn't approve it if it came up today. The EU regulator is, I think it's fair to say, considerably more aggressive in purging the lists of already-approved things.

aklemm 4y ago

I’m of the opinion that there is something massively wrong with our food and that the Europeans do far better, yet this article is a stinker. My only takeaway are the specific names of some chemicals I can now go read about.

ck2 4y ago

FDA no longer functions to protect consumers. It's there to protect industry against consumers and any defeat of profit. The wild wild west of the food and supplement industry where anything goes, what's on the label is not only self-reported, it is virtually never verified and even if "caught" the penalties are trivial. Goes right along with the EPA etc. which have all been "kneecapped" by congress and the political agenda of "deregulation = profit"

AD_PhD 4y ago

While any US new station (possibly with the exception of NPR) will be sensationalized and alarmist, as someone who studies primate (and we are primates) nutrition, I am completely behind banning substances until we find that they are harmless. Additionally, some of the comments below are simply stupid: (1) "Innocent until proven guilty" is a great right for humans, but it should not apply to products. I am quite sure you'd be complaining if radio-active substances had been considered "innocent until proven guilty" and released to the public for their use pending testing. This did happen with arsenic laced green dyes (not radioactive, but same story), and in the case of the Radium Girls/Women. (2) If we were to assume "innocent until proven guilty" then these chemicals could still be "banned" until found not guilty (just as humans can be retained/jailed until trial if they are deemed potentially harmful).

cypherg 4y ago

scaremongering