> The way that FD&C Red No. 3 causes cancer in male rats does not occur in humans. Relevant exposure levels to FD&C Red No. 3 for humans are typically much lower than those that cause the effects shown in male rats. Studies in other animals and in humans did not show these effects; claims that the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and in ingested drugs puts people at risk are not supported by the available scientific information.
if "these sort of things" aren't actually harmful, and what we see in Europe is mostly governments reacting to unscientific panic among their citizens, then I'd say it's other countries that are wild, not the United States.
The European approach is: if it doesn't look on your plate the way it looked on the hoof or on the plant, it's probably not good to consume. This is a much better heuristic than "we haven't found any adverse effects yet, so call it GRAS". Science is great at determining the presence of specific effects. It's not so good at finding an absence of effect.
> The European approach is: if it doesn't look on your plate the way it looked on the hoof or on the plant, it's probably not good to consume.
I mean, that's just not true. Fruit Loops are sold in Europe as well (albeit with slightly different colors), and there's no hoof or plant that produces anything that looks like Fruit Loops. Food coloring is a worldwide phenomenon.
are you just being obtuse about the artificial colors? that's what we were discussing. there are -only- natural colors in the European version vs the American one, in particular Red 40 is associated with cancer which is what we're talking about here
Official US Nutrition Label Information Froot Loops for Schools S NLI_13580_01-02-2018_Public Kellogg Company - Proprietary
Flavor Descriptor
NLI Description
Brand
Serving Size
Serving Size g
Serving Size oz
Calories
Calories from Fat
Total Fat 1 g 2 % %
Saturated Fat 0.5 g 3 % %
Trans Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat
Monounsaturated Fat
Cholesterol 0 mg 0 % %
Sodium 160 mg 7 % % Calories 389 Vitamin D 143 IU
Potassium % % Calories from fat 36 Vitamin E 0 IU
Total Carbohydrate 24 g 8 % % Total Fat 4.1 g Vitamin K NA mcg
Dietary Fiber 2 g 7 % % Saturated Fat 1.9 g Thiamin 1.34 mg
Soluble Fiber Polyunsaturated Fat 1.3 g Riboflavin 1.52 mg
Insolube Fiber Monounsaturated Fat 0.7 g Niacin 17.9 mg
Sugars 8 g Trans Fat 0.0 g Vitamin B6 1.79 mg
Sugar Alcohol Cholesterol 0 mg Folic Acid 357 mcg
Other Carbohydrate Sodium 571 mg Vitamin B12 5.4 mcg
Protein 2 g % % Potassium 171 mg Biotin NA mcg
Vitamin A 10 % % Total Carbohydrate 86.6 g Pantothenic Acid NA mg
Vitamin C 25 % % Dietary Fiber 6.2 g Phosphorus 83 mg
Calcium 0 % % Soluble Fiber 1.4 g Iodine NA mcg
Iron 25 % % Insoluble Fiber 4.9 g Magnesium 40 mg
Vitamin D 10 % % Sugars 28.4 g Zinc 5.4 mg
Vitamin E % % Sugar Alcohols NA g Selenium NA mcg
Vitamin K % % 2,000 2,500 Protein 6.4 g Copper NA mg
Thiamin 25 % % Total Fat 65g 80g Vitamin A 1786 IU Manganese NA mg
Riboflavin 25 % % Sat. Fat 20g 25g Vitamin C 54 mg Chromium NA mcg
Niacin 25 % % Cholesterol 300mg 300mg Calcium 13.3 mg Molybdenum NA mcg
Vitamin B6 25 % % Sodium 2,400mg 2,400mg Iron 16.1 mg Moisture 2.5 %
Folic Acid 25 % % Potassium 3,500mg 3,500mg Ash 0.4 %
Vitamin B12 25 % % Total Carbohydrate 300g 375g
Biotin % % Dietary Fiber 25g 30g
Pantothenic Acid % % Protein 50g 65g 00038000787881 96
Phosphorus % % 00038000926334 1
Iodine % %
Magnesium % % 00038000787928
Zinc 10 % %
Selenium % %
Copper % %
Manganese % %
Chromium % %
Molybdenum % %
NA = values do not exist or are incomplete.
INGREDIENTS: CORN FLOUR BLEND (WHOLE GRAIN YELLOW CORN FLOUR, DEGERMINATED YELLOW CORN FLOUR), SUGAR, WHEAT FLOUR, WHOLE GRAIN OAT FLOUR,
CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF OAT FIBER, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (COCONUT, SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED), SALT, SOLUBLE CORN FIBER, NATURAL FLAVOR,
RED 40, TURMERIC EXTRACT COLOR, BLUE 1, YELLOW 6, ANNATTO EXTRACT COLOR
>>The fruit loops in Europe have natural food coloring which isn't known to cause cancer
>are you just being obtuse about the artificial colors?
No, just being evidence-based. There's no particular harm known to come from Red 40. It's popularly associated with cancer, similar to how homeopathy is popularly associated with cures. There's no significant evidence of any harm to be concerned about.
Well, if you read the quote in my comment (or clicked on the source link I included), you would see that the FDA evaluated it for health risks all-up, not just cancer.
Your comment violates the following hacker news guideline:
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
The prize to win is public health. There is absolutely no benefit in putting all this crap into food. Maybe some things are harmful and others are not but they are absolutely useless.
Things like Veggie Libel Laws are very much against the public interest but farm owners have managed to somehow be both rich and adored by the populace so here we are
If they're competing to ban dangerous things in our food supply then the "prize" is a longer healthier life for everyone who lives in any nation that engages in such competition? :shrug:
Lead chromate is a really great color that's not in the food supply (except occasionally illicitly in Bangladesh) largely because it's illegal. Regulation is why food is safe.
Go to Italy or France, or any EU state. The food is better and often cheaper in almost every case.
Even a McDonald's hamburger is good, and not dominated by the fake chemical garlic substitute. In the US, McDonald's french fries contain: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives]), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt. natural Beef Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting Ingredients.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of that difference comes down to labeling and disclosure requirements. If the Italian fries don't even have to disclose what type of oil they use, they probably also don't have to disclose the oil stabilizers and seasonings they use.
Let's not forget that Europe had massive epidemic of horse meat being snuck into the supply chain with no one catching on.
I think your cultural palate is showing. The marketing of a few simple ingredients sounds good except it's not like American McDonalds is putting them in for no reason. You can make the case that fillers are used to cut cost but for french fries all that stuff costs extra. To Americans that shit tastes great.
* The beef flavor is mimicking frying in beef tallow. If you use Marmite in your brown gravy you're using the same trick.
* Americans, being flushed with corn and corn syrup which is sweeter than granulated sugar, developed a sweeter tooth than other places which is why the dextrose.
* Potatoes once cut and exposed to air get that gross dark color. Most home cooks usually solve that by keeping them submerged in water until frying but Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate works the same.
But what does the EU consider an ingredient? Apparently you can just say oil and call it a day. The U.S. is clearly requiring that everything that composes the oil is listed individually. Surely you can see as clear as day that "oil" is not very specific?
I didn't say there was no world beyond the EU. I'm not personally acquainted with every nation's food regulatory regime. I was just struck by the obvious qualitative difference between even the lowest quality food.
Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food regulations of the world.
The FDA factoid is cool -- they just didn't ban the dye that causes cancer.
Have you been to a farmer's market in the US? Potatoes are potatoes. In fact, potatoes are native to this continent and we have more potato cultivars to choose from. You can get very high quality meat there.
Saying all US food is lower quality is kind of a wild opinion.
> Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food regulations of the world.
You're the one that responded to my comment about comparing the US to the rest of the world by saying I needed to compare it to the EU. I didn't hop into your comment chain with random factoids.
> I'm not personally acquainted with every nation's food regulatory regime.
Didn't stop you from providing uninformed commentary tho.
Not to be “that guy” but you did reply to someone saying “most other countries” with a counter argument citing three, then waved away the fact you’re unaware of most other countries. That’s where the pushback is coming from. The US tends to be a little more progressive than the middle of the pack in this space and set the global standard for food safety regulation where none existed before. The cherry picking of a few examples when discussing global comparisons is fraught and the US always exists in this world where whatever topic there’s always some other place doing better on some metric used as some argument the US is a steaming pile of refuse with wandering zombies laden with cancer and illiteracy. It’s not intellectually honest or particularly helpful in discussion of the actual problems. Anyway - that’s where the pushback came from, not that these three countries regulate food dye additives better or not.
I love all kinds of world cuisine, but I did not find the food in France to be better or cheaper than the food in the US, on average (and I love French cuisine). The pastries and wine though... different story!
Not sure on food dyes but my understanding is the FDA is leagues behind the EU on regulation when it comes to food.
My experience in Italy with foods that normally cause some issues (dairy/cheese) really opened my eyes to that. My sister who doesn’t eat cheese/dairy at all here in the US was able to eat it there without issue because of how they process dairy over there or something.
It is more complicated than this, the US has much more rigorous food safety standards in a number of dimensions.
For example, the US has much stricter standards for preventing bacterial contamination than Europe, outside of the Nordics which share similar food safety regulations as the US. The US prohibits a lot of food importation from Europe because of lower food safety standards related to contamination.
Europe makes a lot of food safety exceptions on the basis of a process being "traditional" in some sense, nominally preserving culture. The US is a bit more technocratic less prone to the naturalistic fallacy; the FDA doesn't care that something is cultural or traditional, if there is scientific evidence of material risk then it will be banned.
If I had to summarize their food safety perspectives, the EU tends to focus more on allowable ingredients, the US tends to focus more on the uncontaminated and sterile handling of the food supply chain.
There are some differences between dairy in the US and elsewhere. US dairy cows produce milk containing A1 beta-casein, a protein that some studies suggest may cause digestive discomfort. In Europe, cows often produce A2 beta-casein milk, which some people find easier to digest.
Dairy products in the US tend to contain more lactose, and French/Italian dairy products have less due to the prevalence of aged cheeses and fermentation.
There are many other differences, and none of these seem related to some sort of mystery-makes-you-shit-yourself additive.
<selfpromotion>We sell uncolored raw milk cheddar cheese made with A2 milk, if someone has an issue with cheese in the US give ours a try!</selfpromotion>
Similar thing with my wife and bread. In the US she developed/discovered/exposed a gluten intolerance, to the point that she removed it from her diet entirely, but bread in France is ok for her.
In that case it's not a gluten intolerance; there is gluten in bread in France. Might be a sugar thing? Bread in the US is more likely to contain added sugar and/or HFCS than in most countries.
Quinoline Yellow (E 104), Sunset Yellow FCF/Orange Yellow S (E 110), Azorubine/Carmoisine (E 122), Amaranth (E 123), Ponceau 4R/Cochineal Red A (E 124), Erythrosine/Red No. 3 (E 127), Allura Red AC (E 129), Patent Blue V (E 131), Indigotine/Indigo carmine (E 132), Brilliant Blue FCF (E 133), Green S (E 142), Brilliant Black PN (E 151), Brown HT (E 155), Litholrubine BK (E 180)
Some of these names may be confusing since their names imply they're natural when in fact they are synthetic (e.g. Amaranth, Cochineal Red A, Indigo carmine).
We already have the FDA (most foods and drugs), the USDA (produce, animal products besides milk), and TTB (alcohol). Each one sets its own safety and labeling standards, which is why, for example, mixed drinks containing alcohol don't have to list allergens(!). Another level of fragmentation would be a disaster IMO. We could split the FDA, but we'd need to merge the food regulator half into one of those other existing agencies.
To be honest, I could see an argument for separating the handling of raw agricultural product from the rest of the food system. The health effects of Oreos vs. making sure our eggs don’t have bird flu are quite different regulatory concerns.
Bans add a lot of overhead to both the agencies responsible for enforcing them and industry. Those agencies are only so large and are spread thin, sometimes there are 'bigger fish' they need to focus on.
I can understand waiting until there's sufficient evidence before starting that process.
