Dan Wilson
Senior Member.
Recently, Buzzfeed posted an article claiming that ingredients used in particular foods are linked to severe health defects. Now I know Buzzfeed doesn't exactly promise quality information, but I have seen this article passed around on social media sites quite a bit. The article is filled with bunk and misunderstandings of chemistry and toxicology. A chemist named Derek Lowe wrote a blog voicing his frustration at misunderstood science being spread so easily and explains how the claims concerning each of the 8 foods listed in the article are a result of what he calls "chemophobia."
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/06/21/eight_toxic_foods_a_little_chemical_education.php
Misunderstandings of these topics bleed into similar issues that have been discussed heavily in other threads on this site like GMOs and water fluoridation, the blog post is a great read.
As for the Buzzfeed article's claims on the foods being banned in other countries, the legitimacy and reasons for the bans varies with which food and country we are talking about. For example, SOME food colorings are banned everywhere while others have been tested and approved, also Norway's ban on food dyes was lifted in 2001. Regardless of where it may banned for whatever reason, the science concerning each chemical is sound.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/06/21/eight_toxic_foods_a_little_chemical_education.php
This brings me to the grand wrap-up, and some of the language in that last item is a good starting point for it. I'm talking about the "POISON, which will kill you if you ingest enough" part. This whole article is soaking in several assumptions about food, about chemistry, and about toxicology, and that's one of the big ones. In my experience, people who write things like this have divided the world into two categories: wholesome, natural, healthy stuff and toxic chemical poisons. But this is grievously simple-minded. As I've emphasized in passing above, there are plenty of natural substances, made by healthy creatures in beautiful, unpolluted environments, that will nonetheless kill you in agony. Plants, fungi, bacteria, and animals produce poisons, wide varieties of intricate poisons, and they're not doing it for fun.
And on the other side of the imaginary fence, there are plenty of man-made substances that really won't do much of anything to people at all. You cannot assume anything about the effects of a chemical compound based on whether it came from a lovely rainforest orchid or out of a crusty Erlenmeyer flask. The world is not set up that way. Here's a corollary to this: if I isolate a beneficial chemical compound from some natural source (vitamin C from oranges, for example, although sauerkraut would be a good source, too), that molecule is identical to a copy of it I make in my lab. There is no essence, no vital spirit. A compound is what it is, no matter where it came from.
Misunderstandings of these topics bleed into similar issues that have been discussed heavily in other threads on this site like GMOs and water fluoridation, the blog post is a great read.
As for the Buzzfeed article's claims on the foods being banned in other countries, the legitimacy and reasons for the bans varies with which food and country we are talking about. For example, SOME food colorings are banned everywhere while others have been tested and approved, also Norway's ban on food dyes was lifted in 2001. Regardless of where it may banned for whatever reason, the science concerning each chemical is sound.