Not the chocolate milk!

I would like to start out by all means avoid specific additives if you know you react to them, this isn’t about you guys. This is more about scaremongering and worst case possibility that would be very rare. Just like someone reacting to gluten, strawberries, nuts, shellfish etc….doesn't mean the food is bad, just means it’s bad for YOU.


I think this kind of food shaming is not helpful as the person reporting might think it is, I actually hate seeing people do this because everything gets taken out of context. It ends up not even being relevant.

You may have noticed many well-meaning people taking a product and saying things like these are linked to cancer! Will mutant your cells! “Chemical cocktail”, science experiment for your cancerous mix of ingredients! “neuro-toxicity and allergic reactions!” inflammatory bowel disease & gastrointestinal cancers!

But…is there any truth to this? I am assuming this is just taking from an additive website and I wonder where they have gotten their info from because when I looked up on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) they seem to think after all the testing for that particular additive it is deemed safe at the levels typically used in each specific product. What is going on here is either misinformation depending on where they looked up their info or what happens at high doses that you will not be having. So then I think what is the point of telling us this? If you have something that is not a dose deemed to be toxic then it is not a poison at all! I have said this before, everything is “toxic” at the right dose! It doesn’t make it a poison unless it is at a dose to be harmful. Like alcohol, nicotine, salt, water, formaldehyde in pears and cyanide in apples. Chemicals are in everything.

If an additive actually causes these things in the dose that they are consumed why are these companies not getting sued for damages, why are the products not be taken off the shelf? Because you don’t consumes them in a high enough dose to be harmful. The dose is what people are not understanding, you can't take something at a very high dose and broadcast this to everyone as dangerous and cancer causing without some context and perhaps the whole truth might be a good idea too.

We are talking about a shop bought chocolate milk, you may have never seen chocolate milk broken down like this. This person claims she and her children are not science experiments! 

The main uses with the products were the colours E133 and E155, the gum E407 (carrageenan) and of course the milk solids “these are also highly inflammatory to the body so will exacerbate any aches and pains in your joints.” (Possibly true for some?) With some added “If you have this in your fridge it belongs in the bin NOT in your body.” Talk about suck the fun out of chocolate milk!

E155 (brown)

With regard to the colour Brown HT (E 155) – which can also be used in soft drinks, bakery products and confectionery, as well as sauces, seasonings and pickles – the Panel has halved the previous ADI to 1.5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight (mg/kg bw).

Based on the maximum permitted use levels for this colour, together with food consumption data from several countries, the Panel concludes that exposure to Brown HT could be above the new ADI for adults and children who regularly consume large amounts of foods containing the colour. For example, a child weighing 15kg consuming more than 1.125 litres (around 3.4 standard-sized 330ml cans) of soft drinks containing Brown HT at the maximum reported use level every day would exceed the ADI of 1.5 mg/kg bw.

Long term toxicity and carcinogenicity studies with Brown HT are available with rats and mice. No carcinogenic effects were observed in either species. No adverse effects were reported in rats at dietary dose levels up to 425 mg/kg bw/day (highest dose tested).

Currently, Brown HT is an authorised synthetic food colouring substance in the EU, with a maximal allowed use level of 50 to 500 mg/kg food for various foodstuffs

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) conducted an ad hoc survey in which artificial colours were analytically determined in 201 retail ready-to-drink soft drinks selected for being distinctly coloured (FSA, 2003). Brown HT was found to be present at a level higher than 0.1 mg/L (Limit of Detection - LOD) in 2 products, with levels ranging from 2 to 18 mg/L.

E133 brilliant blue

The Panel concluded that the present data set on the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion, genotoxicity, subchronic, reproductive, developmental and long-term toxicity, and carcinogenicity give reason to revise the ADI of 10 mg/kg bw/day allocated by SCF in 1984. The Panel considered that the NOAEL of 631 mg/kg bw/day from the chronic toxicity study in rat can be used to allocate a new ADI to Brilliant Blue FCF. By application of an uncertainty factor of 100, the Panel established a new ADI to Brilliant Blue FCF equal to 6 mg/kg bw/day.

In the case of Brilliant Blue FCF, the maximum permitted use level in beverages was 200 mg/l

The default proportion (25%) of beverages and solid food that could contain the additive was considered adequate. In fact, even though Brilliant Blue FCF may be used in a variety of solid foods that could represent more than 25% of processed foods, it is unlikely that a person would systematically choose all processed foods with the same colour added even considering brand loyalty. This assumes that a typical adult weighing 60 kg consumes daily 1.5 litres of beverages and 375 grams of solid foods containing Brilliant Blue FCF.

Reported typical use levels mg/l for flavoured milk products were found to be 0.1mg/l

E407, carrageenan

Carrageenan is derived from several species of red seaweed that is used for the textural stabilization of foods.

This is one that gets confused, what is happening here is the studies are using molecularly degraded form of carrageenan called poligeenan, which has never been used in food applications. Unfortunately, the broad term "carrageenan" is often used in error to describe both poligeenan and food-grade carrageenan, which causes confusion between the two.

Poligeenan was previously known as "degraded carrageenan" in scientific papers and is considered a possible carcinogen to humans; FOOD-GRADE carrageenan is not. The only relationship between food grade carrageenan and poligeenan is that carrageenan is the starting material for creating poligeenan. Poligeenan is not an inherent component of carrageenan and cannot be produced in the digestive tract from carrageenan-containing foods because the production process for poligeenan requires high temperature treatment of carrageenan with strong acids for an extended period of time. This completely alters its molecular structure and molecular weight and renders it useless for food applications.

“Dietary CGN has been shown to lack carcinogenic, tumor promoter, genotoxic, developmental, and reproductive effects in animal studies. CGN in infant formula has been shown to be safe in infant baboons and in an epidemiology study on human infants at current use levels.”

“Food-grade carrageenan is a safe natural product prepared from seaweed. Its addition to food imparts many desirable characteristics which have allowed it to be used continuously for centuries. The long safe history of this natural food additive is confirmed by negative results in subchronic and chronic feeding studies in many animal species, mutagenicity studies and reproductive toxicity studies.”

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/1536.pdf

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/1853.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12389870

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24467586

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2058470