FDA to review safety of chemical found in some soft drinks

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: LA TIMES

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of caramel colorings used in a variety of foods, including colas and other dark soft drinks, to determine whether the agency should act to limit consumers' exposure to a chemical created during the manufacturing process.

The agency's announcement Thursday came in response to a Consumer Report investigation that prompted the watchdog group Consumers Union to call for limits on 4-methyliminazole, or 4-Mel, an impurity produced in the production of some caramel colorings, as well as for labeling of products containing caramel coloring.

Consumer Reports on Thursday released a report for which it purchased and conducted lab analyses on 12 different soft drinks purchased multiple times in California and New York over a nine-month period. In two products - Pepsi One and Malta Goya - Consumer Reports said it found levels of 4-Mel that may expose consumers to amounts of the chemical which, under California's Proposition 65 law, should bear a warning label.

Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and lead author of the Consumer Reports investigation, said "there is no need for consumers to be exposed to this avoidable and unnecessary risk." His investigation found levels of 4-Mel to be very low in Coca-Cola products - evidence, he said, that the manufacturing byproduct is avoidable. The chemical byproduct 4-methyliminazole has been found to be a "possible human carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-fda-chemical-soft-drinks-20140123,0,7647002.story#ixzz2rIGNqYPg

[Major Nikon]

1. There's a half pound of sugar in one 2 liter bottle of soda

You'd think that alone should warrant a warning label.

[jmowreader]

2. A pound of sugar is only two cups. I've weighed it.

A cup of sugar in half a gallon of water isn't an immense amount.

[ReRe]

3. That much sugar would make me...

... go into a diabetic coma! It certainly IS an immense amount!

[Major Nikon]

5. 1 cup of table sugar = ~ 7 oz

So a bit more than 2 cups per pound.

Immense amount is relative I suppose. How many packets of sugar would you put in your iced tea? The amount of sugar in a 12oz coke (39g) is like putting 10 packets of sugar (4g ea) in a 12oz iced tea (assuming you could get that much to dissolve).

Commercial soda is essentially liquid candy.

[jmowreader]

8. No idea how many packets I'd put in

If you want to really cut down on the amount of sugar you put in tea, add it while the tea is still hot. This way it'll all dissolve; if you put the sugar into cold tea you'll have a little bit of sugar in the tea and a thick layer of sugar paste at the bottom. You've seen it. I use one cup per gallon, which is half what a "real Southerner" uses (they tend to put two cups per gallon in) but still gets the job done. If I go to a restaurant that has only unsweetened iced tea, I choose a different beverage.

[Major Nikon]

9. I use almost no supplemental sugar

I never put sugar in iced tea or brewed coffee. I make my own soda mostly for family or friends on special occassions and rarely drink it myself. When you make it yourself you realize just how much you have to put in to replicate the flavor of commercial soda and it's a huge amount, IMO. I like just plain fizzy water sometimes with a little lemon or lime. I have a CO2 bottle and make it myself. With certain varieties of beans I will use a small amount of sugar in espresso and a few drops of honey in certain hot teas, but in both cases it's really just to enhance other flavors rather than to sweeten. Sugar is one of those things that if you don't use much you don't crave it and the more you use the more you tend to crave. I cut almost all of it out of my diet a long time ago and just don't miss it anymore. I just saw it as empty calories that don't return anything much in nutritional value.

[marions ghost]

7. OK for hummingbirds

--terrible for humans.

[maindawg]

4. hmp

someone missed a payment..........

[hunter]

6. Like that's going to be what kills you...

... not the sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, or really bad, the higher high fructose corn syrups.

[DeSwiss]

10. Shouldn't this have been done in the 50s?

- FDA (Fools Dunces & Assholes) = USELESS