Just when we thought bread loaves were yoga mat free, the United States dines on disregard once again.
The country’s household donut sprinkles are under risk of reform by the Food and Drug Administration, in light of research that states that their make-up of partially hydrogenated oils, known as trans fats, are no longer “generally recognized as safe,” according to CNN.
While America looks towards a glazed-over future, the European Union has been leading in action against the cardiovascular threat since 2003, with Denmark being the first to ban trans fat additives worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
“I think Europe is much more regulated in this sense,” assistant professor of Spanish Daniel Herrera Cepero at California State University, Long Beach said. “For example, the Coke here is made with corn syrup whereas it’s made of sugar in Europe—even in Mexico too.”
Growing up in Spain, Cepero spoke of the culture’s fresh lifestyle, where the origin of food isn’t a mystery, and tuna comes directly from a body of water rather than a can.
“One advantage of the food in the states is that we have so much diversity,” Cepero said, citing supermarkets that offer Mexican, Romanian and Chinese cuisines. “Here you have access to a very [broad range of] markets— it’s amazing.”
According to Breitbart, the EU took another stand against genetically modified crops in a November announcement, allowing member nations the jurisdiction to ban the crops from their soil even if in compliance with food regulations.
The FDA and the EU both provide food regulation and policy standards with the public’s quality of life in mind, but even though the two agencies share a mission— their operations run on both poles of the spectrum.
According to Yasmine Motarjemi and Hubb Lelieveld’s book, “Food Safety Management: A Practical Guide For the Food Industry,” the EU places the burden of responsibility to deliver a compliant product on the supplier, as part of their “farm to fork” approach cited to their website.
This system is not carried through the state’s FDA “where each new packaging application is directly validated … and the customer has almost no information on the composition of the material.”
The FDA must determine if there is a reasonable concern before discontinuing a product with additives that is ranked on a “generally recognized as safe “ or GRAS scale, according to a statement released by the FDA.
On the flip side of matters, the FDA’s supervisory approach heavily contrasts with the EU’s “better safe than sorry” initiative, the Precautionary Principle, which was inducted in 2002.
Rather than placing new pharmaceuticals or food additives with uncertain health risks on the market, the Precautionary Principle requires a rigorous process to ensure safety, according to Neal D. Fortin’s book “Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy and Practice.”
Outside of consumer-to-food relationships, the two systems continue to vary their missions.
While the EU takes special consideration of animal, plant and environmental health and affirms living wages for farmers, the FDA addresses their responsibility to ensure security of the food supply, according to the administrations’ respective websites.
American engineering student at CSULB Jason Morris has his own thoughts on the diverging regulations after experiencing the contrast first-hand on a trip to Italy.
“I think that we should focus less on quantity, and more on quality,” Morris said. “I don’t feel like our long term health is being considered here.”
Still, the FDA’s lax liberties with food regulation has opened the states’ gates to a number of chemical additives and food handling practices banned in several regions beyond the Land of the Free.
Food Dye:
Created solely to manipulate looks, food dyes are made from petroleum and coal tar as well as other chemicals. Food dyes may be found in commonly sold products, such as candies, cereal and flavored beverages, and snack foods such as Cheetos and Kellogg’s NutriGrain Bars.
The EU has taken on a more conservative path, banning many food dye additives. However, the U.S. has yet to ban any food color additives, even though Yellow #5 and Red #40 are internationally recognized to be potentially harmful.
Yellow #5 and Red #40 are both approved by the FDA. Yellow #5 is said to mutate DNA, but can be found in Doritos, Starburst and M&Ms. Red #40 is thought to cause tumors of the immune system, and can be found in ice cream, grenadine, fruit cocktail and maraschino cherries, according to CBS
The EU has banned Yellow #5, but allows Red #40 to be sold with an advisory label. The advisory states that the product is not recommended for children and those with low or developing immune systems.
Brominated Vegetable Oil:
Acting as an emulsifier in soda and sports drinks, BVO prevents soft drinks from separating. It is banned in more than 100 countries because it contains bromine, a chemical that produces corrosive or toxic vapors.
Potassium bromate, which is found in vegetable oil and is banned in most developed countries, is still actively used in food products in the U.S.; however, California requires a warning label to be added to any product containing potassium bromate.
Handling Regulations:
While the FDA focuses on mass production at a lower cost to ensure supply, the EU prioritizes health and sustainability.
In the U.S., chicken chlorination is a standard practice to avoid salmonella poisoning.
Through this process, all poultry intended for sale is chilled in antimicrobial baths that contain chlorine. This practice is prohibited in the EU, which hinders any poultry imports from the U.S.
The two also conflict in their plans regarding pesticide use in food products. The consumption of pesticides, even in trace amounts, can lead to cancer, reproductive harm, and endocrine disruption, according to Radcliffe’s Integrated Pest Management World Textbook.
The EU has placed a ban on 22 pesticides, typically found as residuals in the food chain.
Fruits and vegetables such as strawberries, kale and grapes are included in foods that are highly likely to contain pesticide residuals because they receive the highest dosage of pesticides, according to Radcliffe. The site also notes a USDA study that found pesticide residue to linger in fruits and vegetables even after being washed, peeled or cored.