6 Ingredients You May Not Want In Your Food

[norma427]

I stumbled upon this article and it contains a slideshow of 6 ingredients you may not want in your food.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/food-republic/6-ingredients-food_b_1400970.html  Additives like butane, estrogen, spinach dust, propylene glycol (aka antifreeze), wood pulp, and castoreum (extracted from beaver’s anal glands).   

I don’t know about other members, but I am becoming increasing concerned about all the additives that are in processed foods, even though I don’t eat a lot of processed foods.  I sometimes worry I eat too much pizza, but pizza sure doesn’t have those additives.

Norma

[TXCraig1]

Thanks for the post, Norma. I'm with you on to increasing number of additives in food. This article has me a little confused, however. I'm not sure what their end goal is. It's certainly not the truth which is particularly ironic as they seem to be laying claim to an imagined food moral high ground when they write things like "Let's call it "foodiness." Like Stephen Colbert's truthiness, which wasn't about truth, we're not consuming food as much as we're consuming an edible manufactured doppelganger designed to look and taste like food, but isn't actually food"

This particular article contains so much false information, half truths, and innuendo, it's frankly stunning. There is no much, I can only believe it was intentional.

The article starts: "TBHQ, A.K.A: Butane" What? The two have as much in common as table salt and sodium hydroxide. Why would someone write something that stupid? It just gets worse from there.

[Pete-zza]

Craig,

I rarely pay attention to anything on Huffington Post. In my view, it is really a "content farm" that is used to generate advertising revenue rather than to offer anything of real value to readers. They have discovered that people love lists and oddities, so you will see a lot of lists and slideshows at Huffpo. The practice at Huffpo has been to attract writers who write articles for free. Often the writers use that venue to promote their own books, articles, products and the like. For some, it is an ego trip to make them feel like they are important since they are writing for a well known publication. I don't think that Huffpo does any real vetting of content. As long as the writers are working for free and fill up the "pages" and people come to Huffpo, that is perhaps good enough.

Early last year, AOL bought out Huffpo and Arianna Huffington, one of the founders of Huffpo, made out like a bandit, to the tune of many millions of dollars. That irritated the writers, who then proceeded to bring a class action suit seeking $105M, claiming that Arianna was like a “slave owner on a plantation of bloggers." Last week, the court threw out the case since the writers had no expectation of payment for what they wrote. This gives you an idea as to what Huffington Post is all about. Sometimes you will find something of interest but I view it solely for entertainment purposes and to see how off the wall they can be--like the article that Norma referenced.

Peter

[AimlessRyan]

Peter, you just described pretty much everything on the internet, which is precisely what makes pizzamaking.com such a great site. In a world that's so full of intentional misinformation and disinformation, pizzamaking.com remains a fantastic source for good information, true knowledge, and civil/productive arguments.

[The Dough Doctor]

Norma;
Welcome to the wonderful world of scary, sounding, as well as misread ingredients.
All are not what some might like us to believe what they are.
Wood pulp, also known as micro crystalline alpha cellulose: Truth is, cellulose is cellulose, if it comes from bran (anyone objecting to eating whole-wheat/whole-grain cereals? Didn't think so. The cellulose in the bran portion of grains (that's where most of the nutrients are stored) is the same as that in wood pulp, is the same as that in grass clippings, like I said, cellulose is cellulose, it don't make no matter where it comes from.
Propylene Glycol does not have a comma after it in this application, it is Propylene glycol monoesters (PGMS), and it is an ester emulsifier in cake batter and whipped toppings, can also be used in bread products as an emulsifier.
TBHQ (Tertiary Butylhydroquinone) is not the same as butane; It is used as an anti oxidant to prevent the development of rancidity in fats and oils.
Maybe that raspberry flavoring made from the anal gland of a beaver isn't the most visually sounding flavor out there, but then you have such things as blood sausage/blood pudding AKA black pudding (ask any Brit about it), or how about chitlin's? (fried intestine), then to you can always Google Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) this nasty stuff is present in most of the foods that we eat, and believe me, it is a real killer, responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths every year! I almost died from it when I was a youth of 17.
My advice, don't sweat the little stuff, beware of the sprouts, raw milk, raw eggs, and anything else with the potential to do serious harm to you through unwanted microbial contamination.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[TXCraig1]

then to you can always Google Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) this nasty stuff is present in most of the foods that we eat, and believe me, it is a real killer, responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths every year! I almost died from it when I was a youth of 17.

I've been preaching on the danger of pure DHMO for years. I think it should be diluted, preferably with CH3CH2OH.  

[JimmyG]

I am not sure I would agree with estrogens in your food being harmful either. Our stomach produces plenty of enzymes that rip estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHA, and other steroid hormones to bits and inactivate it via sulfation and glucuronidation. You would probably get more of an effect by rubbing the product on your skin.
  

Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) this nasty stuff is present in most of the foods that we eat, and believe me, it is a real killer, responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths every year! I almost died from it when I was a youth of 17.

Regarding the Dihydrogen Monoxide I won't go near that stuff. If you knew the sort of things that fish do in that substance, you wouldn't either! (Had to throw in a W.C. Fields quote in with that one).

[norma427]

Norma;
Welcome to the wonderful world of scary, sounding, as well as misread ingredients.
All are not what some might like us to believe what they are.
Wood pulp, also known as micro crystalline alpha cellulose: Truth is, cellulose is cellulose, if it comes from bran (anyone objecting to eating whole-wheat/whole-grain cereals? Didn't think so. The cellulose in the bran portion of grains (that's where most of the nutrients are stored) is the same as that in wood pulp, is the same as that in grass clippings, like I said, cellulose is cellulose, it don't make no matter where it comes from.
Propylene Glycol does not have a comma after it in this application, it is Propylene glycol monoesters (PGMS), and it is an ester emulsifier in cake batter and whipped toppings, can also be used in bread products as an emulsifier.
TBHQ (Tertiary Butylhydroquinone) is not the same as butane; It is used as an anti oxidant to prevent the development of rancidity in fats and oils.
Maybe that raspberry flavoring made from the anal gland of a beaver isn't the most visually sounding flavor out there, but then you have such things as blood sausage/blood pudding AKA black pudding (ask any Brit about it), or how about chitlin's? (fried intestine), then to you can always Google Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) this nasty stuff is present in most of the foods that we eat, and believe me, it is a real killer, responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths every year! I almost died from it when I was a youth of 17.
My advice, don't sweat the little stuff, beware of the sprouts, raw milk, raw eggs, and anything else with the potential to do serious harm to you through unwanted microbial contamination.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Tom,

Thanks for posting about misread ingredients and going into depth in explaining about them.  I never heard of Dihydrogen Monoxide and did Google it.  That is really nasty stuff. 

I never should have posted the article before I had researched if the stuff that was said in the article was true or not.  I should know better the next time.  I guess I am behind the times.

Norma

[Don K]

I've been preaching on the danger of pure DHMO for years. I think it should be diluted, preferably with CH3CH2OH.  

I'll drink to that!

[Tscarborough]

We are the apex predator.  So long as nothing is consuming US, then I would not generally worry about chemicals in the food.  There are many other things that will kill you before those evil chemicals have an effect.

That is not to say that fresh and organic is not better, but it is only so when the fresh and organic is actually better in quantifiable means (taste, texture, visual, and availability).

As for studies showing a massive increase in cancer due to the modern chemicals, I would say that we have a massive increase of diagnostic ability (along with the ability to treat) over any realistic increase of disease.  Very few people die of old age, even though they are living much longer.

[TXCraig1]

We are the apex predator. 

Until we jump into the DHMONaCl anyway...

[ski9600]

Norma, I like raspberry as much as the next guy and I think beavers are cute.  Castoreum is just too much.  I'm going to avoid the fake raspberries from now on.     

/Tom, you're too late to catch me on the DHMO joke
//I've read about the evils of that vile filth

[norma427]

Norma, I like raspberry as much as the next guy and I think beavers are cute.  Castoreum is just too much.  I'm going to avoid the fake raspberries from now on.     

ski9600,

 

Norma

[TXCraig1]

Norma, I like raspberry as much as the next guy and I think beavers are cute.  Castoreum is just too much.  I'm going to avoid the fake raspberries from now on.     

/Tom, you're too late to catch me on the DHMO joke
//I've read about the evils of that vile filth

You better avoid fake vanilla too then...

[The Dough Doctor]

I just bag it all up with things such as tripe, chitlins (chitterlings), black pudding and fig paste.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Ranger5oh]

I am not sure I would agree with estrogens in your food being harmful either. Our stomach produces plenty of enzymes that rip estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHA, and other steroid hormones to bits and inactivate it via sulfation and glucuronidation. You would probably get more of an effect by rubbing the product on your skin.
  

Ummmm... our stomach acids absolutely do not inactivate all of the hormones.  For years, body builders took testosterone (or its precursors) by tablet form.  Further, arent most orally ingested birth control pills a hormone?

Even if stomach acids partially inactivate the stuff, your body still gets some of it.

[La Sera]

I'm surprised to see Soy oil listed in the dough calculator. Non-fermented soy products shouldn't be consumed by humans, contrary to what the soy industry tells/sells you. The estrogen levels are sky high and almost all are GM, retaining the most pesticides of any product sold as "food."