U.S. food additives banned in Europe: Expert says what Americans eat is "almost certainly" making them sick

Good for you, bad for you, food arguments have been around
all of my life, at least since I understood the information, they
will still be around after I have gone!
The one that sticks in my mind, is Butter, or Margarine, they
told us after the war that "Margarine was better for health, than
Butter, margarine is made from plants, butter is all fat" and bad
for our health.

50 or 60 years later, they changed their minds, Butter was best
and Margarine was dangerous, for our health, I didn't know what
to believe, but since I liked the taste of butter, that was my choice.

In a few Months or Years, the thinking will probably be reversed.

Mike.
 

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It's sad that there is so much in food these days aren't good for so many people. I know this is a pipe dream, but if they want to regulate something, why not regulate all the bad things they use in food. Oops, might hurt the bottom line.

I have a couple of articles I kept from a couple of cooking magazines years ago talking about trans-fat & the like. It talked about the history of it being used in food & how the thinking is turning around. I thought they were good then & still apply today.

Back in the early 90s, I used to listen to a lady (a guest on a talk so from time to time) about nutrition & vitamins that had a PhD that worked for NASA. I remember she said you were better off eating natural foods, like butter over margarine & lard over Crisco. She was one of the first people that talked about not eating processed box foods. Over the years I added cold-pressed olive & sunflower oils.

Between unpronounceable ingredients & not knowing what's sprayed on them while growing, it's no wonder there are so many with health problems. It seems that more people I know have developed more food allergies who didn't have them before. I've given up on certain food that I ate for years because they don't agree with me now & wish I could figure what is in them that has done it.
 
I'm not a doctor in the US but from several trips into the USA over several decades, I can honestly say that I have never seen so many FAT or SUPERSIZED people in the world and I have travel 68 countries since 1970. Yap! Many Americans come in supersize. Of course, not all!

Perhaps eating those hot dogs at baseball games, hanging out at "All You Can Eat" Buffets and constantly driving up to McDonald's and Burger King is not a good idea if you want to stay healthy and live a long life.
Some exercise sure wouldn't hurt none!
 

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40 years ago, my "then husband" and I took a trip to the UK. On a "day tour", we met 3 American Ladies - their complaint was the size of meals. I remember one of the ladies commented that in AMERICA, if the English meal was served, they would send it back as the size was unacceptable!

re: Don's post #29: modern medicine is a great thing - drugs to lower cholesteral - ie life style/diet changes are not necessary!
 
well seeing as we are on the bash a yank thread - last time I was there with the wif and kids - 2 adults 2 kids we always ordered two full meals and two extra empty plates and divided our meals up to make four - that was sufficient for us - why should we be expected to shovel it all down ??
 
davey said:
well seeing as we are on the bash a yank thread - last time I was there with the wif and kids - 2 adults 2 kids we always ordered two full meals and two extra empty plates and divided our meals up to make four - that was sufficient for us - why should we be expected to shovel it all down ??
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Yes, I notice a fair number of bash-a-yank posts at Senior Forums. It's rude and it does get tiresome.

As for restaurant serving sizes, one is not necessarily expected to finish off a whole meal (though at least you won't leave hungry), and there is such a thing as taking the rest of it home with you if you like.
 
Hard for me to know about the potassium bromate scare, but I am generally skeptical of things like this. Our world is full of manmade and natural chemicals that potentially harm our health. We have made a little progress, but are not real good at understanding this issue. I think we tend to focus on single chemicals and small effects too much. Always liked Bruce Ames take on this, he's a retired UC Berkely toxicologist of some well earned fame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ames#Ames_on_synthetic_carcinogens Some quotes of his :
  • "I think pesticides lower the cancer rate."
  • "Pollution seems to me to be mostly a red herring as a cause of cancer."
  • "Environmentalists are forever issuing scare reports based on very shallow science."
  • "Standard animal cancer tests done with high doses are practically useless for predicting a chemical's risk to humans."
  • "Nearly all the polluted wells in the U.S. seem less of a hazard than chlorinated tap water."
  • "99.9 percent of the toxic chemicals we're exposed to are completely natural -- you consume about 50 toxic chemicals whenever you eat a plant."
  • "Elimination of cancer is not in the cards, even if we get rid of every external factor."
  • "Nearly half of all natural chemicals tested, like half of synthetic chemicals, are carcinogenic in rodents when given at high doses."
  • "We're shooting ourselves in the foot with environmental regulations that cost over 2 percent of the G.N.P., much of it to regulate trivia."
I am not suggesting we ignore the chemical toxicity problem, but much of what we hear is irrational, and too often leads to focusing on the wrong things. His point about chlorinated water is a good one, we tend to ignore the ill effects of chlorination, and EPA lets chlorination based toxicity more or less slide. It probably is a greater risk than many of the chemicals we focus on.
 
A long time ago, there were loud noises about an additive
in "Ice Cream", I can't remember the name, or what it was
supposed to do, but its normal use was an additive in the
mixing of concrete or mortar, I don't know if it still used,
probably not, but the company at the time said that it was
harmless!

Mike.
 
Devi said:
Yes, I notice a fair number of bash-a-yank posts at Senior Forums. It's rude and it does get tiresome.

As for restaurant serving sizes, one is not necessarily expected to finish off a whole meal (though at least you won't leave hungry), and there is such a thing as taking the rest of it home with you if you like.
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No kidding. Well, maybe kidding a little. Seems like an unlikely topic to fuss over but it's always good to know what people really think. :rolleyes:
 
davey said:
well seeing as we are on the bash a yank thread
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Devi said:
Yes, I notice a fair number of bash-a-yank posts at Senior Forums. It's rude and it does get tiresome.
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Are you talking about this thread? I'm not seeing it, in fact I don't recall anything on SF I'd call "bash-a-yank".

Being critical of something that the US does or happens in the US isn't a bad thing, gives us something to talk about. I suppose we see more of it than criticizing others just because there are more of us, and the US does a lot of things.

On this particular subject there is more than enough to criticize worldwide. The US holds no monopoly on foolishness...
 
Alligatorob said:
Are you talking about this thread? I'm not seeing it, in fact I don't recall anything on SF I'd call "bash-a-yank".

Being critical of something that the US does or happens in the US isn't a bad thing, gives us something to talk about. I suppose we see more of it than criticizing others just because there are more of us, and the US does a lot of things.

On this particular subject there is more than enough to criticize worldwide. The US holds no monopoly on foolishness...
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Nope. @davey mentioned it above in post #32, but I've seen it in various threads here at Senior Forums.

No one's asking for the US or any other country to always be perfect. I've just noticed it more so re the U.S.
 
nah dinna worry lassie that would be my sense of humor - we sometimes have 'bash a pommie' thread in oz and 'bash a seth efriken' thread on another site I'm on - it is often just harmless fun? but don't you sometimes feel like ya the leaders of the world?? and these days 'leaders' seem to be comin in for a lot more bashins??
 
davey said:
nah dinna worry lassie that would be my sense of humor - we sometimes have 'bash a pommie' thread in oz and 'bash a seth efriken' thread on another site I'm on - it is often just harmless fun? but don't you sometimes feel like ya the leaders of the world?? and these days 'leaders' seem to be comin in for a lot more bashins??
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I know what you mean (and thanks!), but certain posters keep ragging on about it. Doesn't seem like a bit of fun.
 
Mike said:
A long time ago, there were loud noises about an additive
in "Ice Cream", I can't remember the name, or what it was
supposed to do, but its normal use was an additive in the
mixing of concrete or mortar, I don't know if it still used,
probably not, but the company at the time said that it was
harmless!

Mike.
Click to expand...

Mike :), I think you're referring to carrageenan.

Kappa (к)-carrageenan as a novel viscosity-modifying admixture for cement-based materials – Effect on rheology, stability, and strength development > https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0958946521002894

The Carrageenan Controversy > https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-carrageenan-controversy/
 
Don M. said:
Todays food is loaded with all sorts of additives that are potentially harmful....yet the average life expectancy continues to rise?????.
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Life expectancy is rising due to advancements in medicine and pills....... more and more pills. Like maybe a dozen or more. It is not rising due to better, more healthy food nor people learning to love exercise.
 
Devi said:
Yes, I notice a fair number of bash-a-yank posts at Senior Forums. It's rude and it does get tiresome.

As for restaurant serving sizes, one is not necessarily expected to finish off a whole meal (though at least you won't leave hungry), and there is such a thing as taking the rest of it home with you if you like.
Click to expand...
I don't think this is "bash-a-yank" postings. We are talking about food and what folks have seen on trips to the USA. Boy, I could tell you stories about Americans sitting in restaurants waiting until their stomachs digest the food at a "A You Can Eat Buffet" so that they can go and fill their plates again but I wouldn't.

Americans are our best neighbours (I'm from Canada) and I have met many, many nice ones. It seems that the media makes them out to be "Gun Crazy Lunatics" but the stories coming out of Canada aren't really all that much better!
 
Packerjohn said:
I don't think this is "bash-a-yank" postings. We are talking about food and what folks have seen on trips to the USA. Boy, I could tell you stories about Americans sitting in restaurants waiting until their stomachs digest the food at a "A You Can Eat Buffet" so that they can go and fill their plates again but I wouldn't.

Americans are our best neighbours (I'm from Canada) and I have met many, many nice ones. It seems that the media makes them out to be "Gun Crazy Lunatics" but the stories coming out of Canada aren't really all that much better!
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I understand. Thing is, sometimes I come here and it's one anti-American post after another. I just think: "Give it a rest." Only I just give myself a rest, by leaving.

I think this is the first time I've said anything. Sorry to anyone I offended.
 
Packerjohn said:
Life expectancy is rising due to advancements in medicine and pills....... more and more pills. Like maybe a dozen or more. It is not rising due to better, more healthy food nor people learning to love exercise.
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Actually the great increase in life expectancy we have seen, ~30 years since the 1800s has a number of contributing factors. Clean drinking water is probably the single most important one, with a safer and more diverse diet being close behind. Improvements in hygiene have also been important. Medical science is a significant contributor too, primarily infection reductions through anti-biotics and vaccines. These are the big ones, lots of other lesser contributors. A History of Population Health https://brill.com/display/title/57111

I believe the recent drops in life expectancy are due to some of the unhealthy practices that come with our modern affluence, like obesity.
 
Beezer said:
I've been on this forum for almost a year and I haven't noticed any bashing of Americans.
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Ditto!

A lot of the discussions here are over societal problems. The US has over 330 million people, Canada just under 40 million and the UK a bit fewer than 70 million. So we have a lot more people to create or illustrate these problems. I don't think the negative things discussed here are out of proportion. And many of the problems discussed are universal, its just easier to find examples in the US.
 
the lessons found and learned in the states about all sorts of things from health to immigration to care of the elderly etc etc can be valuable aids for the rest of the world to consider and either take on board or reject - no society is perfect we can all learn from each other - compassion being one of the biggest gifts?
 

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