Unsurprising to me how the lessons from The Jungle have been completely forgotten in America.
Who remembers The Jungle at all? It was such bad exposure for industrial misconduct (e.g. grinding up rodents and even workers into the sausage making machines) that it led to the establishment of American food and drug administration (FDA). Or so the story goes…
A tragic example of how this system can go wrong occurred two years ago, when nearly 400 people got sick after eating a ground beef substitute – called French Leek and Lentil Crumbles – sold by Daily Harvest, the popular food subscription service. More than 130 of the people who got sick were hospitalized with gastrointestinal distress, liver injuries and other symptoms, and at least 39 people had to have their gallbladders removed.
Investigators determined that the most likely cause of the sickness was a new ingredient in the crumbles called tara flour – a high-protein flour made from the seeds of a tree grown in South America. Even though there were no published toxicological studies of tara flour and the FDA had not evaluated its safety, a company that imported tara flour from Peru had claimed that it was [exempt from regulations] and supplied the ingredient to distributors in the United States.
Loopholes in American food regulation are now so big it’s hard to find examples of things that are being tested for safety.
An analysis published in 2022 by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, found that 98.7 percent of the roughly 766 new food chemicals introduced to the food supply since 2000 were not approved by the FDA.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the FDA acknowledged that under federal law, food companies do not have to get premarket approval from the agency to use ingredients in their products…
No approval necessary? Well then, no wonder people are getting sick.
Scientists at the Cleveland Clinic have found that consuming xylitol and erythritol increases the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes. Their studies indicate that these low-calorie sweeteners promote the formation of blood clots.
Who will write the book on xylitol?