European researchers are worried about antimony, a toxic chemical element, appearing at possibly unsafe levels in various juice brands:

Writing in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, scientists at the University of Copenhagen studied antimony levels in 42 juice drinks and found antimony concentrations above EU limits for drinking water in eight of them.

This discovery is of concern to the soft drinks industry because antimony is a suspected carcinogen that resembles arsenic on a chemical level. read more…

What you need to know:

Antimony is a toxic chemical element. In small doses, it can cause headaches, dizziness, and depression. Larger doses can lead to violent and frequent vomiting, and death in a few days.

So how does antimony get into juice drinks? The answer may lie in the containers, not the liquid itself.  Antimony leaches from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into liquids stored within.

And why, dear lord, one asks, is a toxin used in food bottles?

Turns out that antimony is used as a catalyst in the production of plastic bottles. Despite it’s role solely as a facilitator of a chemical reaction, there’s always a minuscule bit of antimony that is left over in the resulting bottle.

There are strict standards as to how much antimony is allowed in water to be considered safe. In the US it’s 6 part per billion (ppb). In the EU – 5 ppb. But this is a definition for water in general. There are no standards specifically for bottled juices.

The British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) responded to the study claiming that the 44 ppb found in several bottles does not mean they’re unsafe, as

“there is no read across between the levels of antimony permitted in drinking water and those that might be acceptable in a fruit juice or a juice drink. It is not uncommon that different product types should have different regulatory requirements.”

What to do at the supermarket:

Another reason to fret about buying and consuming plastic bottled drinks? Not really.

We wouldn’t put antimony at the top of our list of worries. There are plenty of other good reasons to switch to tap water, including weight lost, money saved, and planet greened.

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“Jamie Oliver, celebrity chef and standard-bearer in the fight against obesity and other diet related issues, has been announced as the recipient of the 2010 TED Prize, an award granting recipients $100,000 and something much bigger – an opportunity to realize a wish to change the world.” read more…

People in technology and business circles know TED as a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” For the past 5 years they have been awarding social entrepreneurs an opportunity to”Change the World”, leveraging TED’s community and powerful allies.

Jamie Oliver has been working in kitchens since he was a child and became a TV personality in his early twenties, known as the Naked Chef. In the last few years he has been a strong advocate of nutrition education and is credited with helping reform UK’s school lunches to much healthier fare.

ABC is scheduled to air  “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution USA” in early 2010. In the show, Jamie visits one of the most obese counties in the US and tries to overhaul the entire community’s diet.

Congratulations and Good Luck to you Jamie. Onwards and upwards.

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Some eye-popping food-safety stats from the Economist:

1. There are 26,000 food poisoning cases per 100,000 Americans, every year!

2. Compare that to only 3,400 cases in the UK, and just 1,200 in France (about one tenth, and one twentieth, compared to the US).

3. Every year 76 million Americans become ill with food poisoning. That’s 25% chance each one of us will get sick this year.

4. Of those contracting some ailment, 325,000 end up in a hospital, while most others get over it in a day or 2.

5. However, five thousand Americans die every year from food poisoning.

6. Insufficient food safety is a $35 Billion drag on the US economy.

Why is the US a tenfold more dangerous place to eat than Europe?

Some of the reasons offered in the article are “less eating out, less prepared meals, and less hamburgers” in the UK, but the real reason may lie elsewhere.

This is because the top products involved in food poisoning are actually leafy greens and several other unprocessed foods consumed at home.

There is hope, both on the regulatory and the entrepreneurial fronts. The FDA may soon be empowered by Congress to perform more routine checkups on producers and packers. And companies like Yottamark and FoodLogiq are creating barcodes that enable consumers to trace the route of their spinach all the way back to the farm where it was originally grown.

What to do at the supermarket:

Always thoroughly wash your fruits and vegetables thoroughly before serving. If you prepare meats often, invest in a food thermometer to make sure your cut gets hot enough at the center before serving.

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This week, a panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued an opinion on hundreds of food health claims and REJECTED about  two thirds of them. The claims requiring further scientific evidence include probiotics in yogurts, omega 3 fortification, and others.

In one opinion, the panel said the data provided weren’t compelling enough to justify the claim that the bacteria Lactobacillus casei F19 improves bowel functioning.

This is a blow to food giants such as Danone who are promoting their Actimel and Activia branded yogurts through the so called friendly bacteria. This is a double blow to Danone, whose US subsidiary agreed to pay $35M in  fines in an out of court settlement regarding dubious health claims for it Activia yogurts just last week.

What you need to know:

Health claims are used by food manufacturers to increase the attractiveness of their products. In some cases there is simply not enough scientific evidence to back up those claims. In many cases the science has been paid for by the manufacturers themselves who fund research at independent facilities and universities.

The EU, which in general tends to be more protective of consumers than the US, is now weighing several changes in food packaging information, including health claims and quick glance nutrition information such as “traffic lights” used in the UK.

What to do at the supermarket:

Unfortunately in the US, even flimsy health claims are allowed, mostly because companies threathen to sue the FDA for blocking their 1st amendment rights to free speech.

That’s why we suggest ignoring all health claims, and directly inspecting the nutrition panel and the ingredient list.

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An online petition is circulating on the web, asking Kraft to remove unsafe ingredients from its foods sold in the US. The petition, by MomsRising.org claims that Kraft has voluntarily removed artificial colorings and sweeteners from products in the UK, EU, and Australia. The move by Kraft was mostly due to pressure from consumer groups and government, yet here in the US, Kraft continues to sell the products with the undesired chemicals.

What you need to know:

Global conglomerates have to adapt their products to local tastes, agricultural production, and regulation. Mexican Coca Cola is a simple example, it’s manufactured with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup as in the states.

When it comes to artificial colorings, Europe is ahead of the curve compared to the US. It’s no surprise then, to see that Kraft has figured out a way to remove the fluorescent-like Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 from its Mac and Cheese products.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the exact same product sold here in the US.

Are you familiar with other examples you may have noticed in your travels? Please share in the comments below.

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David Brancaccio of PBS’s Now show interviewed filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of “Food, Inc.” a few days ago. The movie takes a very critical look at the modern food industry and helps viewers better understand why supermarket fare for the most part is crap, and why 67% of Americans are obese or overweight. The full interview is 24 minutes long. Here are some good tidbits:

1. 90% of supermarket food has corn or soy products in it. (That’s because soy and corn are subsidized by the government, making them cheap to produce).

2. Fast food chains were the original drivers of the industrialization of food. McDonald’s is and has been for years the largest buyer of ground beef, pork, chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes in the US. And it will only work with suppliers than can provide a steady, uniform, reliable product 24/7/365. Real food doesn’t work like that

3. Candy and Soda are cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables. What do you think poor people will choose to eat?

4. Food industry claims that consumers should show personal responsibility when choosing what to eat are insidious.

5. Food has not gotten safer over the years. Not if a single burger can have meat from one thousand cows in it.

6. Really sad – the federal government does not have the right to recall contaminated meat off of supermarket shelves.

7. A ray of light – consumers, through personal preference, convinced Wal-Mart to switch to milk from cows who did not receive growth hormones.

8. Watch out for “food libel laws” – Industry will sue you if you don’t talk nice about food products. Example: Oprah Winfrey was engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the meat industry for saying she’d consider abstaining from burgers at the height of the mad cow scare a decade ago.

9. The legal fees for the movie were 3 times higher than all his previous films combined.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your choices are what ultimately fuel the food industry. By buying unprocessed foods, mostly from the supermarket perimeter, you will avoid many of the pitfalls of modern industrialized food-like substances.

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Chicago is the first major US city to adopt a strict ban on Bisephenol A (BPA) in baby bottles and sippy cups. The measure was agreed upon unanimously by the city council a few days ago.

Bisphenol-A  is a chemical compound used as a building block of several polymers and polycarbonates that in turn are found in plastic bottles and cans. Which means all of us are exposed to tiny amounts, whether drinking canned juice, milk from a baby-bottle, or any other product sold in a plastic container.

BPA behaves like the hormone estrogen once it enters the body and disturbs the normal activities of certain genes.

Toxicity questions have been around for decades, raising safety issue, especially for babies. Potential problems include hyperactivity, learning disabilities, brain damage, and immune deficiencies.

According to the Chicago Tribune,

Experts disagree on whether it poses health risks to humans, but some manufacturers of baby bottles have voluntarily removed it because of safety questions.

We say, while the experts are arguing, why take a chance with your baby?

Last year, the FDA issued a statement claiming the BPA levels found in baby bottles are safe. But, the agency relied on 2 studies that were funded by chemical companies, and was subsequently hammered by consumer groups for having a pro industry biased viewpoint.

It seems that in Europe, for a product to be allowed, its safety needs to be proven. But in the US, in order for the FDA to ban a product, it must be shown unconditionally as harmful.

Which approach would you prefer when feeding your family?

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Did you know that antibiotics are regularly added to livestock feed in the US?

This may change if California’s State Senate passes a bill…

…that would bar ranchers and farmers, starting in 2015, from giving feed containing antibiotics to healthy animals to promote growth and ward off disease.

The bill would also prohibit schools, starting in 2012, from serving students meat from animals that have been routinely treated with antibiotics and would require state and local government facilities to try to buy antibiotic-free meat for their kitchens.

read the news item from KCRA…

What you need to know:

Antibiotics help stave off illness, but when constantly provided to healthy animals, may result in mutated strains of bacteria that are more powerful and harmful to both animals and humans.

Just as you wouldn’t give a healthy child antibiotics on a daily basis, there should be no reason to do so with bovines. So why do growers do so?

Unfortunately for most cows, they aren’t born into an ideal farm surrounding where they graze merrily in open pasture.They lead a short and miserable life in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) which are more like factories than farms. The animals are held in very close quarters, with little room to move and exercise. As a result, they are more prone to illness, and receive daily preventive doses of medicine.

What to do at the supermarket:

Today the only way to get antibiotic free meat and poultry is to buy organic or from a trusted local farm. It’s much more expensive, mind you, than “regular” beef, but for many people it is the only logical choice, from a health perspective as well as a moral one.

And who says we gotta eat meat every day?

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1. It has many names – Tartrazine, E102 , FD&C Yellow 5, C.I. 19140, or just plain Yellow 5.

2. Yellow #5 is a synthetic, water soluble, lemon yellow dye used as a food coloring.

3. A partial list of foods including Yellow #5: cotton candy, soft drinks, energy drinks, instant puddings, flavored tortilla chips such as Doritos, breakfast cereals, cake mixes, pastries, pudding powders, soups, sauces, flavored rices such as paella,  powdered drink mixes, sports drinks, ice cream, ice pops, candy, chewing gum, marzipan, jam, jelly, gelatins, marmalade, mustard, horseradish, yogurt, noodles, and pickles.

4. Yellow #5 is one of the cheapest synthetic colors available, and sold all over the world.

5. The more expensive, natural food colorings are turmeric (a spice) , annatto (tropical tree derivative), betacarotene (think carrots’ orange pigments), or malt color.

6. Various levels of allergic reactions and intolerance reactions have been caused by this food coloring, especially among asthmatics and people with aspirin intolerance.

7. Some studies have linked various immunologic responses to tartrazine ingestion, including anxiety, migraines, clinical depression, blurred vision, itching, general weakness, heatwaves, feeling of suffocation, purple skin patches, and sleep disturbance.

8. Despite mounting evidence, The FDA considers Yellow #5 a safe food coloring. Let it be noted that, in the past, the FDA banned the use of other food colorings. This, after research showed them to be carcinogenic.

9. A major study published in the UK in 2007 linked food colorings with hyperactive behavior in children. As a result, the FSA (UK’s FDA) has called manufacturers to voluntarily ban food colorings in their products. Most companies are obliging,  due to consumer pressure and FSA encouragement.

10. Consumer groups in the US, especially the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have called food colorings, and especially Yellow #5, the “Secret Shame” of Food Industry and Regulators. A ban from all foods is their request.

11. Yellow #5 may also be also found in vitamins, antacids, soaps, cosmetics, shampoos, moisturizers, and crayons.

12. Organic foods may also contain Yellow #5 or other food colorings, because the USDA considers a processed food organic if it as at least 95% organic by weight. Since food colorings are used in tiny amounts, a bran muffin with a touch of artificial yellow is still considered organic.

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This was the week of stevia, a new zero calorie sweetener, that got FDA approval as a safe food additive, and will shortly find its way into soft drinks and other products scattered about our supermarket aisles. If you are confused about all the different sweetening options out there, you are not alone. Once upon a time, it was either honey or cane sugar. But then came the industrial revolution…

(Grab a cup of coffee, take a deep breath, this is a long post) Read more…