California bill would ban foods containing Red Dye No. 3 and other controversial chemicals

A brand new proposed bill in California is taking a look to ban 5 chemicals often present in goodies and snack foods — all of which might be these days banned within the European Union — claiming that they might be bad for shoppers.

AB 418, which is backed by way of Democratic California Assemblymembers Jesse Gabriel and Buffy Wicks, goals Red Dye No. 3, titanium dioxide, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and propylparaben. The bill would limit the manufacture, sale or distribution of any meals product in California containing the ones components. 

In the U.S., the components will also be present in quite a few commonplace processed foods, together with breakfast cereals, sweet, soda, cottage cheese and path combine.

Gabriel in a press release claimed the focused ingredients will also be poisonous for shoppers. 

“Californians shouldn’t have to worry that the food they buy in their neighborhood grocery store might be full of dangerous additives or toxic chemicals,” Gabriel stated. “This bill will correct for a concerning lack of federal oversight and help protect our kids, public health, and the safety of our food supply.”  

The E.U. does now not permit using those chemicals in meals “because of clinical research that experience demonstrated vital public well being harms, together with increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune system,” Gabriel added. 

The lawmakers’ remark additionally mentioned how chemicals like those are used and why they’re licensed within the U.S., regardless of being banned in other nations.

“Currently, there are thousands of chemicals added to food to make it last longer, taste better, and appear more enticing,” the news liberate stated. “Shockingly, most of these chemicals have never been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or were last reviewed decades ago.”

These chemicals are allowed for use in U.S. meals on account of the “GRAS” rule, which stands for “Generally Recognized As Safe.” 

Typically, the FDA calls for all meals components to be reviewed earlier than they are able to input the rustic’s meals provide. But, GRAS permits producers to avoid the critiques if the meals additive in query is “generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use.” 

Gabriel stated that, on account of that rule, “chemical companies have added new substances to the food supply with almost no meaningful federal oversight.”

Supporters of the bill have famous that some merchandise with those explicit meals components overlook them when the goods are offered in other nations.

“Why are these toxic chemicals in our food?,” stated Susan Little of the Environmental Working Group. “It makes no sense that the same products food manufacturers sell in California are sold in the E.U. but without these toxic chemicals.”

If the bill passes, California would be the primary and best state to ban foods with the particular components.