Ahhh, Olestra
Only in America would an indigestible molecule that inhibits the absorption of vitamins and minerals, causes abdominal cramping, loose stools, and gas take in over $400 million in its first year. Only in America would a chemical most closely associated with two words—anal leakage—still have a chance in the food market. (Saw it yesterday in a can of Pringles Light, giving new meaning to the “once you pop, you can’t stop” slogan.) Interestingly, Olestra was first filed with the FDA as a drug, not a food product. What a tangled web we weave…
- The Alternative? Lick some raw chicken to get your anal leakage fix.
Too Sweet to Be True
Artificial sweeteners are generally considered safe (save for saccharin, which has that pesky “has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats” warning). However, two studies indicate they may not exactly be as guilt-free as once imagined.
The first study showed that, compared with those who drank no soda, people who consumed one or more sodas a day—diet or regular—had a 50 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors characterized by excessive abdominal fat, high blood pressure, and high glucose. Soda companies balked—how can diet beverages cause these things when they contain no calories? Logic would side with them, except for study number two, done in rats. It showed that rats fed with foods containing artificial sweeteners were more likely to overeat compared with those rats fed food containing real sugar. Reason? Sugar triggers our innate system to recognize sweet calories and restrict further food consumption; fake chemicals don’t trigger the “eat less” mechanism.
- The Alternative? Calorie free sodas don’t add on weight, excess food does. However, if you’re drinking lots of diet soda and still loosening up the belt, you may want to rethink the diet approach. (Also, see benzene above.)
Hydrogenation Station
Oils are liquid at room temperature, while fats, like butter and lard, are solid. One way to make vegetable oil into a semi-solid compound, perfect for use in long-lifed packaged foods, is to hydrogenate it. Partial hydrogenation gets rid of some of the good unsaturated fats and also creates trans fats, the black sheep of the fat world, thought to be more deleterious to the old ticker than lard.
- The Alternative? Bad press and labeling requirements have caused many food companies to remove trans fats from their products; check labels. (Kraft Fat Free Singles, for instance, contain no saturated fat, but do contain partially hydrogenated oils.) Regular, unsaturated vegetable oil is the perfect alternative for frying, yet restaurants can still use the partially hydrogenated stuff, unless the FDA, which still labels the oil as “generally recognized as safe,” steps up and bans it.
Butylated Hydroxyanisol (BHA)
BHA is an antioxidant that prevents fats and oils from spoiling. BHA is added to packaged foods, baked goods, some cereals, and meats as a preservative. It has been found to cause cancer in laboratory rodents; however, it causes cancer in an organ that humans don’t have, so it’s hard to translate the research into human populations. The National Toxicology Program states that BHA is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.” Funny, it’s still in our food chain.
- The Alternative? Check labels and (if this hasn’t already become clear) avoid packaged foods that have a shelf life lasting longer than the average tenure of a Supreme Court Justice.
As with most chemicals, dose makes the poison; small amounts of the above chemicals ain’t going to kill you (at least according to the FDA). But neither would eating a piece of real cheese.
