Yet another wave of food recalls has food safety, food additives and FDA’s changing role in food enforcement in the news.
The argument for real food just keeps getting stronger. On March 4, Daily Kos reported that “the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] announced a recall of 30 processed foods containing HVP—hydrolyzed vegetable protein—a widely used flavor enhancer, due to ‘possible salmonella contamination.'” As of noon on March 8, the number of recalled products had risen to 108.
But what is HVP and why is it in everything from salad dressings to soups, potato chips, hot dogs, dips and even ready-to-eat tofu dinners? Wikipedia says that the flavor enhancer “is produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat, in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide.” And as Helene York reports in an article for The Atlantic Online, “HVP could be in almost any food.” The term food industry suddenly sounds especially appropriate.
Not scary enough for you? “Mysterious though it may seem, hydrolyzed vegetable protein may be one of the more straightforward food additives,” says Tami Dennis in a Los Angeles Times health blog. To prove her point, Dennis includes a link to the “Everything Added to Food in the United Sates (EAFUS)” list published by FDA.
The EAFUS list is disturbingly long and littered with multisyllabic chemical terms that have nothing to do with food—or at least shouldn’t. Dennis gives acetone as an example. One that caught my eye was allyl cyclohexane acetate, which the website lookchem.com describes as “moderately toxic by ingestion and skin contact. Irritating to human skin.” And we need this in our food because…?
All of this gives added urgency to Michael Pollan’s forthright advice to eat food, not “edible foodlike substances.” Among the rules in his latest book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, is this one: “Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.” HVP, for example. Unfortunately, with processed foods increasingly crowding store shelves and filling American shopping carts, edible foodlike substances are becoming an ever larger part of the Western diet.
And even avoiding processed foods is no assurance of food safety. Recalls over the last couple of years have included fresh canteloupe, Romaine lettuce, peanuts, pistachios and jalapeño peppers.
And now for some good news
There actually is some good news on the food regulation front. According to Michael Causey, Editor and Publisher of eDataIntegrity.com, “The FDA continues to signal that food enforcement is back in fashion.” Last week the agency “issued an open letter to the food industry calling for more transparent product labels,” he reports in his blog post FDA Challenges Food Industry to Improve Risk Management, Quality Control.
Causey spoke with Kim Egan, partner in the law firm DLA Piper’s Product Liability practice, who said, “The food industry is facing a ‘perfect storm.'” Continued high-profile food-borne illnesses have prompted President Obama to create the Food Safety Working Group, and the First Lady has declared war on childhood obesity, “including a focus on food industry marketing to children, ‘junk’ food in public schools, and the nutritional content of school lunches.”
According to Egan, the Obama Administration’s focus on food has pushed FDA to renew efforts to improve food safety and more aggressively enforce existing regulations. And it’s part of a more active FDA across the board, she notes. “In August 2009, FDA reorganized its food oversight function and moved the Office of Foods into the Office of the Commissioner, giving food safety and food manufacturing enforcement greater visibility.”
In a recent weekly radio address, President Obama underlined the need for stronger enforcement of food safety regulations: “At a bare minimum, we should be able to count on our government keeping our kids safe when they eat peanut butter. That’s what Sasha eats for lunch.”
Its startling isn’t it? And all this time we thought the FDA WAS looking out for us and our food.
The amount of additives to food is incredulous. Salt is off the scale in every commercial recipes and high-fructose corn syrup is in almost every product. A certain amount of food science is good but it’s gone over the top especially with the the way the media is manipulated.
Tara—It sounds like the pendulum may be beginning to swing in our favor. Credit not only the change in the Administration, I think, but the overall growing interest in what we eat and how it’s produced.
Ed—Again, Michael Pollan’s advice to eat real food as much as possible makes more sense than ever.
allyl cyclohexane acetate, another flavor enhancer also used as a scent enhancer in perfumes, not soluble in water but in alcohol…indeed why is it needed…
A quote from the bottom of this page”
http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com/data/rw1002541.html
“…not found in nature”, but in our food….yes
Another of your insightful posts, Terry. It is almost to the point where I wish I lived in a house rather than apartment just so that I could raise my own vegetables. I do plan to have cherry tomatoes, herbs, and at least some pepper plants in pots on my balconies. Thanks for a very informative article. Take care.
Thanks for the additional information, Staggerlee—”not found in nature” describes too much of what we consume these days.
Dani—We’re in the same boat; we mostly make do with some container gardening. That’s why we’re delighted to have access to farmers markets.
“Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.” So True and I’d like to add choose foods that are not processed or at least minimally so.
HVP also presents a problem for people who have wheat allergies or who are gluten intolerant. Food labels should be more specific and state whether it is derived from wheat or not.
Great post! We have the miracle of atomic age convenience cooking to blame. I was just reading a “Congressional Cookbook” from the 60s, to which Senators’ and Congressmens’ wive submitted their favorite recipes. Many of them called for dashes of MSG!
WizzyTheStick—I didn’t know about the wheat allergies issue, but it makes sense. Certain processed foods are good things to keep in your pantry—I’m thinking of canned beans and tomatoes, for instance. But I think of those more as ingredients which are generally minimally processed. It’s the “heat and eat” stuff you have to look out for.
Thanks, Susan! One beef I have with many older cookbooks is their reliance on things like MSG—or margarine or shortening or…
Love this! I’ve been saying this for a few years now. People say not to drink the water in some countries because it’s too dangerous… instead they should be saying don’t eat the (factory farm produced or processed) food in America.