Of course this then flustered the FDA’s (Food and Drug Administration) feathers naturally, with them making a statement to ABC News;
“As part of FDA’s overall commitment to ensure the safety of the food supply, the agency uses an extensive, science-based process to evaluate the safety of food additives. The law requires that the FDA determine there is reasonable certainty that an additive does not cause harm when it is used as intended. The agency continues to monitor the science on food additives and is prepared to take appropriate action if there are safety concerns. When determining that a food or ingredient is ‘generally recognized as safe’ or GRAS for its intended use in food, the same quantity and quality of evidence is required as is needed to approve a food additive.”
But if we look at Yellow No. 5, for one example a little more closely, this ingredient is banned in Norway and Austria due to it containing compounds benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl according to the Calton authors.
With a further comment in the book ‘Rich Food, Poor Food’ stating;
“Six of the eleven studies on yellow #5 showed that it caused genotoxicity, a deterioration of the cell’s genetic material with potential to mutate healthy DNA.”
Although companies in the U.S are required by law to list when their product contains Yellow No. 5, because some people are sensitive to it, Michael Pariza, who is a professor at Food Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has said,
“Companies are so sensitive about allergies, but peanut allergies would be far more common than Tartazine.”
This may be the case, but it still does not help those that could have a severe reaction to it and the fact that maybe it should be banned in the USA and the rest of the world to protect the people.
What is interesting also is Michael Pariza is connected to preservatives department of the food industry, so his comments may be at best biased.
Especially when he is funded by, and is part of the Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, which also has members from Monsanto – the company keen to push GMO’s as ‘safe’.