Experts are sounding the alarm about the skyrocketing number of chemicals added to American foods in recent decades, including some linked to cancer.
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at NYU, said: “Hundreds, if not thousands, of substances are now being added to our food whose true safety data are unknown to independent scientists, the government and the public. .’
Major manufacturers in the US have been shown to sell slightly different products abroad to meet stricter regulations there, but the domestic versions are packed with additives, chemicals and other potentially harmful substances.
A previous study by DailyMail.com into US-made foods and those made across the pond found that US products contained several times more additives than the same products made in Britain.
For example, in America we eat almost three times as many ingredients in a mainstream brand of whole wheat bread compared to a well-known brand in Britain.
In terms of snacks, US favorite Cool Ranch Doritos has 27 ingredients, compared to 15 in Britain.
Absent from the UK version are the risky additives Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5, all of which are linked to childhood behavioral problems, cancer, asthma and DNA damage.
European and British food laws are generally stricter and ban several toxic additives that are allowed to remain in products sold in the US. It means that American food often contains many more ingredients, as seen above
Sarah Bond, a food scientist and nutritionist, told DailyMail.com. Regulators in the EU and Britain are more forthcoming about what’s in foods on supermarket shelves and those products are labeled under the E number system.
This system labels items with a unique code so that any additives, such as preservatives, colors and flavors, in the foods can be easily identified.
She said: ‘E numbers (e.g. E621 is MSG, E300 is ascorbic acid) actually serve as standardized codes, and these are listed on food packaging.
‘These figures help consumers identify additives and what their purpose is. They make the ingredient label a lot less obscure
‘The EU has also banned many additives considered harmful, many of which are still used in the US.’
Several questionable ingredients that significantly lengthen the label are common in American supermarkets that are outright banned in Europe, such as potassium bromate, which is often used to strengthen dough and make it rise higher, and Red 40, a common food coloring. in the US.
Hundreds of food additives have entered the food system over the past two decades without regulatory oversight.
Unlike EU regulators, who are proactive in reviewing lists and formulas of food ingredients before products hit shelves, US regulators are generally reactive.
The FDA’s GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) designation has been around since the 1990s, formalizing a self-reporting system that allowed a company to confirm that their ingredients are safe, based on the conclusion of a scientific panel.
While California’s bill is promising, there are still other ingredients that, despite their known health risks and ban in Europe, are present in foods people eat every day.
A packet of Doritos sold in America, left, appears to contain controversial chemical compounds such as ‘Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5’ – but these are not used in the UK version
However, the companies do not have to consult with the FDA nor do they have to provide the panel’s conclusion, as long as it meets the criteria set out in the agency’s final rule.
Once an ingredient achieves GRAS status, it can bypass the FDA’s pre-market review process, allowing chemicals to be used in food even if the agency has never concluded they are safe for human consumption.
One of those ingredients is potassium bromate, an additive in flour that helps baked goods like bagels and donuts rise higher, improve their texture and look more appealing.
Potassium bromate is banned in the European Union, China and India due to significant health risks. It has been linked to irritation of the nose, throat and lungs and has been shown in laboratory studies to cause kidney and thyroid tumors in rats.
Food colorings such as Red 3, Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5 are also widely considered safe, but they have come under intense scrutiny in recent years following a 2007 British study published in The Lancet linked a series of dyes to hyperactivity.
In it, British researchers selected almost 300 children from the Southampton region of Great Britain who represented the full spectrum of child behavior, from normal to hyperactive.
For the study, parents were instructed to give their children a diet without additives.
For six weeks, the children were all given the same tasting and looking fruit juice with different amounts of coloring agents: sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), tartrazine (E102), Ponceau 4R (E124), quinoline yellow (E104). and Allura Red AC (E129) – and the preservative sodium benzoate.
The Canadian version omits risky additives like Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 6 and BHT for freshness, all of which are linked to childhood behavioral problems, cancer, asthma and DNA damage.
Parents and teachers, none of whom knew which child drank which formula, reported on the children’s behavior after drinking and recorded the children in the classroom. The older children also took a computer-based attention test.
Each mixture caused statistically significant changes in their behavior.
Since then, a slew of studies have been published linking dyes to behavioral problems in children, respiratory damage and cancers of the colon, kidney and liver.
In 2021, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment concluded ‘Consumption of synthetic food colorings may result in hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral problems in some children and that children vary in their sensitivity to synthetic food colorings.’
Then, in 2024, researchers in Brazil connections found food colorings and a range of health problems, especially in children, including an increased risk of cancer, allergies, cell and DNA damage and lung problems.
They have also contributed to behavioral changes in children with and without diagnosed disorders such as ADHD.
For example, American Cool Ranch Doritos are coated with artificial colorings, including Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5, while the version sold in Britain uses paprika extract and annatto.
Another additive gaining new attention is titanium dioxide, which is often found in sweets and can be used in foods as long as it does not exceed one percent of the total weight of the food.
In America, Heinz’s classic tomato ketchup seems to contain more complicated ingredients than its British counterpart, right?
However, it has been banned in Europe because of laboratory research showing that it damaged the genetic material of cells, leading to mutations that can disrupt normal cellular functions and increase the risk of cancer.
The European Food Safety Authority said at the time of the ban in 2021: ‘After oral ingestion, the absorption of titanium dioxide particles is low, but they can accumulate in the body.’
Without regulatory pressure from the federal government, food companies have little incentive to change their formulas, which would mean using more expensive components, which translates into higher prices for consumers.
Ms Bond said: ‘Many additives are cheap. US consumers tend to prioritize convenience and cost over ingredient quality, so manufacturers don’t have as much pressure to reformulate as in the EU.”
Health care advocates, parents and high-ranking elected government officials have increased pressure in recent years on major food companies to reformulate their products and remove risky additives.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a high-profile vaccine skeptic and clean-food crusader, will likely be head of all U.S. health agencies, including the FDA (provided he passes the Senate Finance Committee) in the incoming Trump administration.
RFK has been outspoken about his Make America Health Again blueprint, which would include cracking down on major food manufacturers that regularly use ingredients that scientific evidence has suggested are harmful to the endocrine system, brain, metabolism and development of children and even the risk of some forms of cancer.