American food banned ingredients

[Star555]

I am reeling in shock after finding out how everyday food in America has so many unhealthy, harmful chemical ingredients compared to the same food in the UK! The UK/Europe bans so many of the ingredients in common American food:

lifewithtisha.com/2017/01/24/uk-vs-usa-a-noticeable-difference-in-food-standards/

foodbabe.com/food-in-america-compared-to-the-u-k-why-is-it-so-different/

Having lived the expat life in the US since childhood, I grew up on (and have no choice but to still eat) this harmful rubbish! I have been seriously considering relocating to the UK (despite Brexit) in a few years, and this has enormously strengthened my wish to do so. (I mean, I knew about the chlorinated chicken, but Subway bread made with a banned ingredient that goes into plastic? Are you kidding?) I could not knowingly allow my own future children to ingest this poison!

Expat mums living in the USA:
What are your thoughts on this? How can you manage to watch your own children consume this nasty stuff? Do you not think health and food safety should outweigh the benefits that living in America brings?

But you do have a choice...

this is dated information and certainly not from a reputable source.

Friends of mine sho moved back to USA after living abroad for over 20!years make sure to the best of their knowledge not to eat this crap.

There are organic food shops, organic farmers markets. You cook and make your own sauces etc. Don’t buy canned or jarred mixes. Don’t buy ready meals. Don’t eat fast food you can buy European foods in many of the supermarkets so you can choose real cheeses instead of the plastic velveeta or “American” cheese or cheese slices

Use real cream instead of plastic cool whip

Make your own mac n cheese. You do know what’s in Kraft Mac n cheese anerican mix? They sell a offers to formula in Europe. Read up on that one. Very eye opening.

So yes, you can avoid most of this stuff if you shop smart and make your own avoiding fast food and quick ready made stuff

Foodbabe is truly ignorant.

But the information about the inclusion of UK-banned ingredients in US food are plain FACTS, not "alternative facts"! Foodbabe successfully campaigned to get some companies to stop (or at least to claim they stopped) using these harmful dyes, etc.

We do try to buy organic a lot of the time but it's just not always available everywhere. And kids in schools are certainly not fed organic food!

My relatives in US but their meat direct from the farm, eat organic and also gluten free because of the gmo. Their food bill is extortionate

OP here...reeling in shock even more...the US lack of safety regulations horror story continues for not only food safety, but also chemical safety in scientific laboratories:

blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/could-lab-work-be-affecting-my-fertility/

"...European Union has a “no data, no market” policy, where any new chemicals coming into the market must to be accompanied by some minimum amount of toxicity data before they’re allowed. As a result of heavy lobbying by chemical companies during the 2016 TSCA amendment, no equivalent minimum data policy exists in the U.S.

In our political system, the way it works is those who have more money and more resources have more influence and more power. The chemical industry did not want a minimum data set requirement in the law, so we don’t have one.

She also explains that although the amendment gave the EPA new authority to request toxicity data from companies to fill in chemical safety gaps, it has yet to order a single test. In our current scheme, having data is not rewarded. All these chemicals are presumed innocent until they’re proven guilty, so there is zero incentive to fill in more information..."

The author of this article is an MIT scientist with significant expertise, not some random internet blogger. I just cannot believe how insidiously cheated I have been by this country when it comes to health and safety! "Land of the free and home of the brave" indeed..."realm of the poisoners" would be a worthy addition!

You don't have to eat organic. Not really. You just eat actual food. Make cheese sauce out of flour (one or two ingredients), butter (one ingredient), milk (buy hormone free) and cheese (ditto). Pasta brands like Barilla are made in Italy and won't be full of shit. BINGO mac and cheese.

Shop the outside of a grocery store or at Whole Foods. Don't eat shelf-stable, processed crap.

I agree that American foods standards are shit but no one is forcing you to eat the bad stuff.

Cook from scratch?

you can buy European foods in many of the supermarkets so you can choose real cheeses instead of the plastic velveeta or “American” cheese or cheese slices
I guess you are unaware that there is no shortage of small producers of excellent non processed cheese in the US. Certainly you can buy imported, but that's not necessary to get high quality cheese.

I tried to avoid processed food as much as possible, buy ingredients and cook. If I was buying things with flour, corn, or soy in I would try to buy organic because of the roundup ready gmos in non-organic and I would send the kids with packed lunches so they didn’t have to eat in the cafeteria.

Meat became a real problem for me over there mostly because I learned about the “farms” with thousands of cattle in concrete hangars, it totally put me off anything other than traceable meat. We lived rurally so I would get half a pig for the freezer, or hunted venison, or small farm lamb and just eat less of it. The chicken - just yuk, pink and slimy and strange, made me gag so I stopped eating that too

@MrsTerryPratchett Yes, I do try to get a significant portion of my groceries from Whole Foods when I can, and I do get Barilla pasta! But Whole Foods is quite far away and my job rarely leaves me with time to cook from scratch. And my wallet (single income) would be severely strained if I were to buy absolutely everything organic. It is insane...why should one have to go out of one's way and make money and time sacrifices like this to obtain safe food in the US that is readily available at every Tesco and Sainsbury's in the UK???

I ordered milk from a local dairy which was growth hormone free and shopped in trader joes and whole foods, my food bill was twice the cost in the U.K. even though I buy organic here!

We moved back to the U.K.!

@minnieok Were food safety and cost of organics among your reasons for moving back to the UK? Would you have continued in the US in spite of the food issue if there were no other deciding factors?

my job rarely leaves me with time to cook from scratch

Nope. You can cook from scratch very quickly and easily. Last night, chicken legs with oil and ras el hanout marinated then in the oven, rice in the rice cooker, kale in a pan with butter and a tiny amount of water. No time at all; delicious and healthy.

Asian food is your friend. And Italian. A lot is quick, tasty and easy.

And I find Asian supermarkets all over the world tend to have fresher, less processed options. And generally cheap.

@MrsTerryPratchett thanks for the reality check! I suppose I do cook "from scratch" more frequently than I thought for dinner, since I mainly do fresh fish and vegetables with spices I add on my own. I guess baking is what I ought to do from scratch...currently I always buy bread from the (non-Whole-Foods) grocery store and a lot of boxed cake/muffin mixes and cereals. Also should cut down on frozen/tinned vegetables and soups. The problem is with lunches at work (cafeteria does claim to use locally sourced ingredients though) and nearby "healthy fast food" places (not like McDonalds but rather Mexican/Mediterranean chains where you can get a burrito/pita wrap/salad loaded with many types of vegetables). How much to trust these places, I know not...