15 Foods That Are Banned in Europe but Not in the U.S.

[diabeticman]

http://www.worldlifestyle.com/food/15-foods-that-are-banned-in-europe-but-not-in-the-u-s?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=15foodsthatarebannedineuropeYH



It is scary what we are ingesting.

[pipoman]

1. Click trap spam site

[KittyWampus]

8. what is a click trap?

[sendero]

18. I had no problems..

..... maybe the AdBlock helped?

I wouldn't browse Mother Theresa's site without AdBlock.

[MineralMan]

2. We? Do you eat them?

I don't go to clickbait sites, so I don't know what's the list. Maybe you can share.

[Prism]

3. You can take Kraft Mac and Cheese from my cold, dead hands

When I lived in England, I had my parents mail boxes to me. The people over there ate mac and cheese from a can. From a can!

[pipoman]

6. I can take real mac and cheese as quickly as Kraft can be made....

I have taught that class every year for the last 5....making real food as quickly as "quick" non food...

[Prism]

9. It's a nostalgia/comfort thing

There are definitely far superior homemade mac and cheeses out there that can be made from real food. But I'll toss down a box of kraft once every month or two just to curl up under a culinary blankie =)

[onyourleft]

17. Kraft mac...

...and cheese never crosses my threshold since homemade is so much better. We don't make it often since it is not short on carbs, but occasionally.

[tabasco]

4. Very interesting.

Thanks.

[jeff47]

5. Wow is that a stupid clickbait article.

1) M&Ms.

Article points out they are actually available in Europe, just that they use "natural" dies. Because crushed bugs is SO much healthier. That's how they make natural red food die. They crush a species of cricket, extract the dye, and throw away 90% of the cricket. Author is apparently unaware that this process requires some...unpleasant solvents. But the dye is natural!

2) Milk.

Article is objecting to injecting dairy cows with hormones. Manages to not mention the lack of evidence of those hormones getting into milk drinkers. Just heavily implies it instead. Who knew we had a digestive tract that was built to shred proteins?!

3) Kraft Mac & Cheese.

Repeat of #1 - artificial food coloring. Continues to make claims about artificial dyes that are not quite backed up by science.

4) Nutrigrain bars

Repeat of #1 - artificial food coloring. Continues to make claims about artificial dyes that are not quite backed up by science.

5) Chicken

Article claims that US chickens are fed toxic levels of arsenic. Author apparently unaware that chickens on US farms are not all dead.

6) Mt. Dew

Talks up the evils of (dramatic pause) bromated vegetable oil. It was originally developed as a flame retardant!!! Therefore it must be toxic. Similar to other flame retardants like water. Err....Ok, well industrial solvents must be toxic! Like vinegar or alcohol....err....

7) Foie Gras

Apparently the author decided to exclude France from "Europe" for #7.

8) Fat-free chips

Actually, author is just talking about olestra. Guess what? A fat you can't absorb gets in the way of absorbing fat! Who knew?!

9) Bread

Author talks up the evils of (dramatic pause) bromated flour. Author is apparently unaware that bromine is an element, so bromated flour is exactly like bromated anything else. Like (dramatic pause) bromated vegetable oil from #6.

10) Bread

Author apparently needed to pad the list to reach 15. Now complains about Azodicarbonamide, a bleaching agent that is used in (dramatic pause) yoga mats!!!!! Because the same chemical can not possibly be used for food and non-food. Like water. Or vinegar. Or alcohol. Or Starch.

11) Beef or Pork

Author repeats claims about hormones from his entry on milk.

12) Chicken

Again. This time, he objects to washing dead, plucked chickens in water that contains chlorine. Hope he doesn't know about how tap water is made safe for human consumption.

13) Papaya

Specifically, one GMO variety. Because GMOs are totally going to break out of your fridge and kill you while you sleep. Be afraid! Buy my sponsor's organic version instead!

14) Gum

Specifically, a couple preservatives sometimes used in gum. Because it might cause cancer in rats. As we learned from saccharine, causing cancer in rats but not causing cancer in Humans* is completely impossible.

*Saccharine interacts with a protein in rat bladders, causing bladder cancer in rats. Humans don't have that protein, and no study has shown increased cancer risk in humans. Saccharine still tastes awful.

15) Baby formula

Specifically, one emulsifier that is used in some brands of baby formula. Because it might be scary. No proof it is scary, but it might!!!!

[pipoman]

7. These list spam sites simply make shit up...all of them...

[eppur_se_muova]

12. That's "brominated". And alkyl bromides tend to be carcinogenic.

Uh, bromine, element or not, REACTS with lots of things, and the products are NOT necessarily anything like each other. C=C double bonds in unsaturated oils, in particular, add Br2 to form alkyl bromides. For years, soft-drink mfgrs insisted that BVO was harmless, but have quietly dropped it from most of their products, even though they had been using less than 15 ppm BVO in the products. Hmmmm. Snopes has interesting info on what SHORT-TERM conditions arise from overdosing on BVO; long-term effects are still not well-studied.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Iuk93VMrExMC&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=alkyl+bromide+carcinogenic&source=bl&ots=gbENnvndZC&sig=R4vdWoS8MjK-ZdnQOuJu4QAKAFE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAWoVChMI08rGtKKTxwIVRioeCh3l9Q3_#v=onepage&q=alkyl%20bromide%20carcinogenic&f=false

After a few extreme soda binges — not too far from what many gamers regularly consume — a few patients have needed medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to bromine. Other studies suggest that BVO could be building up in human tissues, just like other brominated compounds such as flame retardants. In mouse studies, big doses caused reproductive and behavioral problems.

Reports from an industry group helped the U.S. Food and Drug Administration establish in 1977 what it considers a safe limit for BVO in sodas. But some scientists say that limit is based on data that is thin and several decades old, and they insist that the chemical deserves a fresh look.

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/bvo.asp

The items in the article are admittedly scattershot; some trumped-up, some plain wrong, but BVO is something best avoided.

[HuckleB]

14. +1,000,000 ... 000 This type of fear mongering needs to end.

[uppityperson]

15. #4 is "shunned", not banned. Foie gras is " banned in"Europe"? However, #8 puts Canada there

What an odd list of foods and countries.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Your Comment on #5 Is Priceless

You whole post is very good, but the "unaware that chickens. . .are not all dead" is superb.

[hifiguy]

10. I was very bummed when I could not get Sichuan peppercorns

and Epoisses cheese (expensive, but a glorious holiday treat even if it does make the fridge smell like feet) for a couple of years.

[Seeker.]

11. You can eat cheap and eat healthy.

A lot of Americans are obsessed with the words bargain and sale. They eat crap because they can buy a lot of crap for a little money. They don't care that what they are eating is killing them.

They don't sell a better product in another country because they want to. They do it because the people in that country demand it.

In America, they can sell all of their poisoned and defective products. Some Americans will buy anything that is labeled, new, improved, sale, BOGO, super sized, etc..

As long as they keep buying crap they will keep getting crap.

[GreatGazoo]

16. You will read from some here 'if you don't want to eat pesticides and food dyes you

are "anti-science." (?) Meanwhile real scientists are linking our poor diet to ADHD, cancers, and the drop in IQs.

Artificial food dyes are banned in Europe partly because some, like #40 red, seem to be psychoactive (linked to ADHD) and partly because food coloring lies to the consumer. In the US sellers can dye fish red -- candy I can understand but the only reason to dye meats is to fool the consumer. The healthcare system in the US is in the business of cashing in on disease maintenance therefore preventing, avoiding or curing diseases is marginalized. Much of Europe is single payer so they save money and increase quality of life by banning foods known or strongly suspected of causing health and behavior problems.

Taxpayers subsidize the agricultural system in the US so we have already reduced the prices of corn, milk, soy and others. Taxpayers picked up $8 billion to keep US corn cheap last year. The emphasis in the US has been, until recently, quantity over quality but that is changing rapidly now:

http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/the-war-on-big-food/?src=longreads

Lastly, one can buy European groceries here at modest cost -- free of artificial dye, etc. ALDI and Trader Joe's use the same supply chains and standards here that they do in their home country (Germany). And recently WalMart got into the game by making a deal to sell Wild Oats Organic at or below the price of conventional US foods.

[HuckleB]

13. This is baseless fear mongering at its worst.

Ugh.

[snooper2]

19. What was the acceptable level of rat poo per a ton of beef again?

This is one of those stupid links people pass around on facebook...same people who can't name their congressman LOL