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Same food, different ingredients? How our food quality stacks up vs. Europe.

Updated: Nov 13, 2023

Image credit: Foodbabe.com

You are what you eat. I guess that means sometimes I’m a big dusty pile of Cheetos. But few things impact how we feel and think more than food, so it’s surprising we don’t pay more attention to the list of all those finely-printed ingredients.


And even more surprising…..


The same food in the US often has different (read: better) ingredients in Europe

What? Why? Thanks to some interesting work from New York Times best selling author Vani Hari, better know as the “The Food Babe”, we’ve learned some cool stuff about this:

The US and UK both have some of the highest food standards in the world when it comes to safety, but there’s a big difference in approaches. The UK takes a precautionary principle approach towards food additives that are potentially risky – banning or adding warning labels to these additives. The US takes the opposite approach – they only remove additives from approved food supply once they have been proven dangerous. A process that can take a very long time.

Hari gives her opinion that it’s largely a matter of profits for many food orgs – “If a company can get away with using cheaper ingredients, they will. Given a choice, they’ll always opt for the cheaper flavor enhancer, and the cheaper color additive…even if these cheaper alternatives potentially have a negative impact on our health.”

The U.S. government allows food companies to largely police itself, deciding which ingredients, chemicals, and additives are “safe” to use in their products.

A visual of how the approaches differ:

Another example illustrated by the Food Babe – Quaker Oats packets. Check out the long list of ingredients, including the mysterious “Red 40”, in the US version below. Compared with the short and easy to understand UK version, the US ingredients list has us scratching our heads.


Speaking of Red 40….a look at some additives and other US ingredients that are banned in other countries


Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)

– an additive found in sodas, bromine has been shown to irritate the skin and mucous membranes. BVO has been banned by several countries and the European Union. In the U.S., the FDA simply limits the concentration of BVO that can be used in a beverage.


GMOs

– GMOs are used for a number of reasons including disease resistance, nutritional quality and pest resistance and many of the fruits and veggies we see in our US stores have been genetically modified. The EU has a pretty strict legal requirement in place for GMOs – basically anything with GMOs can be used in the EU so long as they are authorized after passing strict evaluation and safety assessment requirements and meet standards on a case by case basis.


According to the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) “Several animal studies (in 2009) indicate serious health risks associated with genetically modified (GM) food including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.” GMO’s are banned or labeled in 64 other countries, but not in the US.


In Sweden, GMOs are similarly limited and almost exclusive to animal fodder products. One of the most restrictive places for GMOs is Norway, where several EU-approved GMOs are illegal.


Red 40 + yellow food dyes no. 5 and no. 6

These popular food dyes are found in candy, cereals, baked goods as well as stuff like ketchup and beverages. They are not banned in Europe, but the EU does require warning labels when sold in stores and the labels must call out that the dyes could cause an adverse effect on activity and attention in children. The FDA, on the other hand, does not require a warning label.


Several studies on children with ADHD, like the January 2012 review in the ​Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,​ found that when these synthetic food dyes were restricted from their diets, these children showed big improvements in their symptoms.


Oh, and most of these dyes are made with petroleum. Uhh yeah same stuff used to make gasoline. Yuck. So maybe go easy on the Skittles next time.


60% of US people are overweight or clinically obese

And Americans are more likely to have chronic illness, cancer, autism, food allergies, and diabetes than those from other countries. We’re #1!


We know there are many factors driving this dubious achievement, but one undeniable fact is that we should all pay more attention to our food QUALITY.


As my grumpy ‘ol boss used to say…”garbage in, garbage out. Back to work!”

 

Want to go even deeper into this food fun? Some interesting reads here. Enjoy!

  1. https://theconversation.com/how-we-got-to-now-why-the-us-and-europe-went-different-ways-on-gmos-48709

  2. https://foodbabe.com/food-in-america-compared-to-the-u-k-why-is-it-so-different/

  3. https://www.distractify.com/p/difference-ingredients-us-foods-vs-europe

  4. https://www.boredpanda.com/food-comparison-usa-uk-foodbabe/

  5. https://www.focusforhealth.org/the-american-food-supply-not-fit-for-european-consumption/

  6. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32009R1223

  7. http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer-look-at-food-standards/

  8. https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/american-foods-banned-other-countries

  9. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-9198907/Food-blogger-reveals-shocking-differences-ingredients-American-British-food.html

  10. https://www.focusforhealth.org/the-american-food-supply-not-fit-for-european-consumption/

  11. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.26.6.w678

  12. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/

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