FDA still allows poison in your food

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NTN: FDA still allows poison in your food

Tue, 6 Jun 2006 10:38:36 -0700

 

 

 

NewsTarget Insider Alert (www.NewsTarget.com)

HEALTH WARNINGS / CRITICISM

------------------------------

(Please forward to others who may benefit)

 

This year, the FDA began requiring companies to list trans fats on

food labels, but this mandate does nothing to protect you from

unhealthy hydrogenated oils. In today's NewsTarget feature, I give you

the brutal truth about these harmful chemicals, and I explain why the

FDA is, once again, failing to protect consumers.

 

Read the full feature at http://www.newstarget.com/019410.html

 

 

 

NewsTarget.com

June 6 2006

 

The health dangers of trans fats have been known for decades, yet food

companies still poison customers with hydrogenated oils

With new trans fat labeling laws now going into effect, which require

food manufacturers to list the trans fat content right on the

nutrition facts label, it's time to be brutally honest about the

continued use of trans fat and hydrogenated oils in the food

manufacturing industry.

 

For decades, food manufacturers have known about the dangers to the

health of consumers caused by hydrogenated oils, and yet, until

recently, food manufacturers were able to claim innocence by saying

that their ingredient was not really proven to be dangerous, or that

it is perfectly legal to use. Today, however, the overwhelming

scientific evidence demonstrates the human health hazards correlated

with the consumption of hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids, which

means there is no longer any reasonable justification for the use of

this ingredient in foods, other than the profitability of the foods

being marketed to consumers.

 

Using hydrogenated oils in foods is a strategy used by manufacturing

companies to enhance the taste of their foods, add calories to their

foods and extend the shelf life and shelf stability of those foods.

This all adds up to higher profits for food companies. The real costs

of using this ingredient, however, are shifted to consumers (a process

called externalizing costs). Those include the starkly increased risk

of a number of degenerative chronic diseases including heart disease,

diabetes, birth defects, cancer, malabsorption of healthy oils and the

universal breakdown of cell wall structures throughout all organs and

tissues of the body, including nervous system tissues (eyes, brain,

spinal cord, etc.).

 

Hydrogenated oils are so dangerous that I've authored a report on them

called " Poison in the Food: Hydrogenated Oils, " which can be found at

TruthPublishing.com. This ingredient is so dangerous that the World

Health Organization urged all member countries to outlaw it decades

ago (in 1978). In the decades since, food manufacturers have been able

to put enough pressure on the USDA and the FDA to keep this deadly

ingredient legal, and all the while, they claimed that it was actually

good for your health. Remember the hype and promotion of margarine

that food experts said was better for you than butter? That was pure

marketing propaganda designed to sell soybean oil, the vast majority

of which was hydrogenated and contained trans fats (and still does, as

you'll see right on the label).

 

Shame on the Girl Scouts (and their cookies)

Any food manufacturer that continues to use hydrogenated oils is

unquestionably trading the health of its customers for its own

corporate profits. This includes the Girl Scouts, by the way, whose

cookies continue to be made with partially-hydrogenated oils. Shame on

the Girl Scouts. Does fundraising have to take a higher priority than

human health?

 

At least the Girl Scouts has the courage to admit the truth about this

ingredient. Right on their website, in the FAQs on Girl Scout cookies,

they openly state, " ...in fact, trans fats are not a healthier choice

than saturated fats. " Then why do they continue to use the ingredient?

Their answer is that people really shouldn't eat these cookies in any

kind of quantity because they're just plain bad for you: " It is

important to remember that Girl Scout Cookies are a snack food and are

meant to be consumed in limited quantities within the context of a

balanced diet. " Yet Girl Scouts sell these cookies by the case to

parents, neighbors and friends, most of who (incorrectly) assume that

the innocent-sounding Girl Scouts organization wouldn't dare use an

ingredient that was actually proven to harm you. And as long as they

state the trans fat content on the nutrition facts label, the truth is

that their use of this ingredient is entirely legal (even if it is

unquestionably unethical).

 

This trans fat labeling requirement by the FDA is really a food

warning label. It warns consumers that the food contained inside the

box is truly bad for them and may, in fact, accelerate and promote the

onset of degenerative disease. It's much like the warning labels on

cigarettes, which tell you that smoking cigarettes can cause cancer.

Except in this case, there's no disease named, but let's be honest:

Eating hydrogenated oil promotes cancer, birth defects, cardiovascular

disease and many other diseases that ultimately kill people. Even if

it doesn't kill a particular person, it can put them on prescription

drugs for the rest of their life. It is my hope that consumers will

now recognize the dangers of these oils and boycott all food companies

that continue to use them.

 

Food companies that knowingly put this poison into foods should be

heavily fined. Better yet, hydrogenated oils should just be banned

like the World Health Organization advised in 1978. It should never be

allowed in the food supply, and companies that use the ingredient

should have their inventory confiscated by the Food and Drug

Administration, which occasionally confiscates so-called " dangerous

herbs " when they post a threat to public safety, but never confiscates

dangerous foods due to their hydrogenated oil content. On this issue,

the FDA routinely caves to the pressures from private industry and has

taken absolutely no action to ban this toxic ingredient, despite the

undeniable evidence of its harm.

 

The dark side of food corporations

The big question that comes to mind, then, is: " Would for-profit

corporations really allow toxic food ingredients to be routinely used

in their foods where they will poison expectant mothers, newborns,

children, adults and seniors? " The answer is obvious. Of course they

would. Why? Because profits and power are simply more important to

them than the health of the public.

 

When it comes down to a decision between doing what is right and doing

what is profitable, food and beverage corporations will choose the

profits every time. In fact, they are required by law to do so. Any

corporate officer discovered to be making decisions that reduce the

maximum profitability of the corporation would be charged with a

breach of fiduciary responsibility and could be sued by the

shareholders of that corporation. Corporations, you see, do not exist

to serve the public interest, nor to do what is ethical or principled.

They exist for one purpose only: Maximizing shareholder profits using

whatever means necessary (some of which are legal). And if the FDA

keeps hydrogenated oils legal, the food companies will continue to use

them in their foods, regardless of the degree of harm caused by such

ingredients.

 

Blatant FDA complicity

The FDA, of course, keeps this ingredient perfectly legal, only

requiring companies to list the amount of poison found in its food.

This failure to ban hydrogenated oils by the FDA -- the only agency

that currently has the authority to do so -- is unconscionable and

further demonstrates the pro-industry loyalty of this corrupt

regulatory body.

 

Allowing hydrogenated oils to remain legal is a direct violation of

the FDA's stated directives, which include protecting the public from

food, drug and cosmetic manufacturers who may use dangerous or toxic

ingredients in their products. The FDA has utterly failed to protect

the public from toxic ingredients and continues to demonstrate its own

failure with each and every decision that places corporate profits

ahead of consumer safety.

 

There's no question that consumers are harmed by the consumption of

hydrogenated oils, and yet the FDA continues to allow this ingredient

to be legally used, sold and marketed in products that will be

repeatedly consumed by families, parents, children, senior citizens

and other groups that are at high risk of chronic disease or

nutritional disorders. It is my hope that companies that continue

using hydrogenated oils will ultimately be held legally and

financially responsible for the harm their products are causing consumers.

 

I believe there is justification for a global class action lawsuit

against food companies that insist on using this ingredient even after

scientific proof leaves no doubt that it causes harm, and even death,

when consumed over a long period of time. This is not simply a

question of consumer choice, as the food industry attempts to claim.

No manufacturer has the right to put poisons into their food products

and then blame the consumer by saying he or she had a choice of

whether or not to purchase that product. There is a fundamental

responsibility by food companies to produce foods that do not contain

poisonous ingredients, and hydrogenated oils are essentially

slow-acting poisons that directly threaten human health.

 

Companies that put poison into their food bear full responsibility for

the health results that emerge as a result of the widespread

consumption of those poisons. Federal regulators, whose job it is to

police these industries, are criminally negligent in allowing the

ongoing use of toxic ingredients in consumer products of all kinds.

The new FDA food labeling requirement for trans fats is a tiny step in

the right direction, but in no way does that step represent what the

FDA is legally required to do in this situation, which is to ban this

ingredient from all food and beverage products. FDA decision makers

who continue to allow this ingredient to be legally used have failed

their country. What could be more unpatriotic than poisoning your own

people? To call these FDA decision makers traitors is generous.

 

By the way, consumers who are waiting around for the giant food

corporations to " do the right thing " on their own are going to be

sadly disappointed. Corporations will only do the right thing after

they are sufficiently convinced that doing so will be more profitable

than simply ignoring the issue. Ethics has nothing to do with the

decision, and people who suffer under the illusion that for-profit

corporations take ethics into account in any way whatsoever are living

in la-la land. In the real world, like here in the USA, corporations

are willing to make money at any cost. Including your health.

 

Don't believe me? Go read the ingredients on the thousands of food

products found in your local grocery store. You will discover an

impressive collection of disease-promoting chemicals and substances

listed right on the label: Hydrogenated oils, sodium nitrite,

monosodium glutamate, sugar, artificial chemical sweeteners,

artificial colors, homogenized fats and many more. It's like walking

into a chemical factory... but it's triple coupon day!