TOXIC CARRAGEENAN IN OUR FOODS
Excerpt from Eatin' After Eden:
"If you are one who reads ingredient lists of packaged foods, you probably have seen carrageenan (Irish moss) among them, especially with dairy products and soy milk. It is used as a thickener, stabilizer, gum, emulsifier, or colloid, chemically speaking. Extracted from red seaweed with a strong alkali solvent, it is found as an additive in countless processed foods perhaps more often in natural food stores than supermarkets.
"A great deal could be included here regarding what’s wrong with this so-called natural GRAS (generally accepted as safe) status granted this carcinogen by the FDA “in bed” with the food industry. (Don’t let the adjective “natural” influence you; after all, aspartame and refined sugar are both legally “natural” by definition though we would not consume either, or countless other “natural” ingredients and substances used in and as foods today.) Because it has been used in this country since the post-World War I food industry began processing and food transformation, it was “grandfathered” in as GRAS (generally accepted as safe), along with trans fats, without FDA investigation.
""When the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) met in Geneva in June 2007, it evaluated the safety of carrageenan and warned that, “...the previous dietary exposure estimate for carrageenan…may be outdated...” The committee did not specify an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for infant formula. Instead, it “... was of the view that based on the information available, it is inadvisable to use carrageenan or processed eucheuma seaweed in infant formulas.”
"Researcher and carrageenan expert, Joanne Tobacman, MD, Professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, discovered in her studies with human tissue the demonstration of the conversion of high weight carrageenan is degenerated to low weight unsafe poligeenans in the human gut such that they have been linked with many and varied cancers and digestive disorders.
"Since at least 1997 the FDA has known of Dr. Tobacman’s study of the risks within just two weeks of even extremely low doses of this food additive on mammary epithelial cells. (Consider the ubiquity of this additive and the commonness of breast cancer.) She discovered these extremely low doses disrupted the internal cellular architecture of healthy breast tissue that led to her conclusion that “The widely used food additive, carrageenan, has marked effects on the growth and characteristics of human mammary myoepithelial cells in tissue cultures at concentrations much less than those frequently used in food products to improve solubility,” for the advantage and profit of merchants, not consumers. When comparing guar gum, pectin, xanthan, and carrageenan, Dr. Tobacman found no link to cancer with the first three additives, but observed a “strong positive” with carrageenan. Robert Cohen has written an easily understood, excellent article about this food additive, including an informative report of Dr. Tobacman’s subject studies as well as others. (It appears Mr. Cohen is a vegan whose views regarding soy and milk [fresh] this researcher does not share.)
"For many years there has been “a voice crying in the wilderness” about carrageenan. I perhaps first learned the truth about dietary carrageenan during telecons with Raymond Peat, PhD, Professor Emeritus of endocrinology at the University of Oregon. In his article regarding this dangerous substance Dr. Peat explained that the food industry’s claim that
...polymers---gums, starches, peptides, polyester fat substitutes---and other particulate substances can be safely added to food because they are “too large to be absorbed” is very important to the food industry and its shills. Persorption refers to a process in which relatively large particles pass through the intact wall of the intestine and enter the blood or lymphatic vessels. It can be demonstrated easily, but food regulators prefer to act as though it didn't exist. When the bowel is inflamed, toxins are absorbed. The natural bacterial endotoxin produces many of the same inflammatory effects as the food additive, carrageenan. Like inflammatory bowel disease, the incidence of liver tumors and cirrhosis has increased rapidly. Liver damage leads to hormonal imbalance. Carrageenan produces inflammation and immunodeficiency, synergizing with estrogen, endotoxin and unsaturated fatty acids.
"I contacted Dr. Peat regarding other seaweed, but that’s for another article, for another time. The question now is how can you avoid carrageenan in your diet? Simply avoid most all processed, packaged foods, and instead consume the Creator’s fresh, whole foods diet presented in Eatin’ After Eden."
"Woe Unto Them That Call Evil Good, and Good Evil"
