Consumer Groups Force FDA To Finally Ban This Cancer-Causing Ingredient

The United States has been lax when it comes to regulating what is allowed in our food.

There is a long history with the Food and Drug Administration of finding out way down the road that something they deemed “safe” was actually doing the population harm.

Well, they did it again, and it’s unknown how many of us have to find out the hard way that a common ingredient found in our food is our death sentence.

People reported:

The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a ban on the use of seven synthetic flavoring substances found in everyday foods.

Six of the food additives—benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, eugenyl methyl ether, myrcene, pulegone, and pyridine—which are commonly listed as “artificial flavors” in ingredient lists, proved to cause cancer in lab animals. The seventh flavor was eliminated because it’s no longer used in the food industry.”

The dangerous additives that were finally banned from our family’s food were used mainly to mimic mint, citrus, and cinnamon flavors.

Agencies have been able to get away with using these additives for so long because the animals that got cancer in the trials “were exposed to much higher doses” than a person would typically consume, reported Laura MacCleery, the policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, according to People.

Judging consumption amounts on the bell curve of the American diet is extremely dangerous, showing that the outliers are not considered “valuable data.”

In a nation of overconsumption, the FDA should be mindful that not every person is going to eat the recommended serving of a food, or, at times, even anywhere close to that.

It is not unheard of for a person to eat a dozen bag of chips and multiple liters of soda in a week, which are foods that the banned additives were found in.

Benzophenone, one of the banned additives, is not only an artificial flavor but used in hypnotic drugs and insecticides, according to the National Institute of Health.

According to Safe Cosmetics, Benzophenone is “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic”, and is “linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, and organ system toxicity”.

Another of the banned ingredients, Ethyl acrylate is a “highly flammable liquid and vapor”, according to Chemical News, and is used mainly in occupational environments, where it has been linked to colorectal cancer.

Both Ethyl acrylate and benzophenone are said to add a fruity flavor to foods, but it is obviously not from any real fruit origin.

Even if one wasn’t consuming the amount of the dangerous additives they found in the lab animals that got cancer, it still would not do us any good to consume any amount of such a product.

In a reluctant public statement, the FDA said they are only banning the six artificial flavorings because the law is requiring them to, reporting that “The FDA has concluded that these substances are otherwise safe.”

So, how did the ban come into effect, seeming it definitely wasn’t the FDA themselves who were watching out for the public?

Consumer groups, to include the Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, petitioned the removal of the additives, according to Food Processing.

These groups presented studies that exposed the high correlation between using a lot of artificial flavors and the lab animals getting cancer.

A 1958 law, called the Delaney Clause, bans any “food or drug additives that have been found to induce cancer in humans or animals at any dose”, according to Food Processing.

The FDA did see how using benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, eugenyl methyl ether, myrcene, pulegone, and pyridine violates the Delaney Clause.

It is a huge blessing that we have such consumer groups that look out for human prosperity over profit, or our food industry would be even worse off than it is.

Companies are now beginning to stop using artificial flavors in their food as the hype around their questionable safety rises.

McDonald’s presented some new recipes recently void of artificial flavoring, and Kraft followed the trend.

Natural flavorings still have a ways to go for optimum safety standards, but are preferable to artificial ones by many consumers, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Increased costs of natural flavorings have some big name food providers reluctant to make the transition from the chemical-laden artificial flavorings.

As consumer watch groups continue to seek out studies on food safety, we are sure to see more ingredients in our everyday items being prohibited.

Be empowered by watching the ingredients in the foods you eat. We don’t have to be victim to the cancer-causing chemicals carelessly put on our plates.

Please let us know in the comments section if you had any effects from eating artificial flavoring, or if you know of another ingredient that should be banned.