Nanoparticles in food

[flyingiguana]

Is this the latest food worry?

 

What I can't figure it is whether the ingredients on these products list the ingredient (eg, titanium dioxide) but just don't mention that it's a nano particle.  Or if they actually aren't even listing the ingredient.  I don't have any of these in the house, so I can't look on the label.

 

http://grist.org/food/nanoparticles-in-your-food-youre-already-eating-them/

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/05/nanotech-food-safety-fda-nano-material

 

From Mother Jones:

 

"According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN)—a joint venture of Virginia Tech and the Wilson Center—there are more than 1,600 nanotechnology-based consumer products on the market today. If SmartSilver Anti-Odor Nanotechnology Underwear sounds like a rather intimate application for this novel technology, consider that the PEN database lists 96 food items currently on US grocery shelves that contain unlabeled nano ingredients. Examples include Dannon Greek Plain Yogurt, Silk Original Soy Milk, Rice Dream Rice Drink, Hershey's Bliss Dark Chocolate, and Kraft's iconic American Cheese Singles, all of which now contain nano-size titanium dioxide. As recently as 2008, only eight US food products were known to contain nanoparticles, according to a recent analysis from Friends of the Earth—a more than tenfold increase in just six years.

All of which raises the question of safety. Radically miniaturized particles are attractive to the food and textile industries for their novel properties. Nano-size titanium dioxide, for example, is used as a color enhancer—it makes white foods like yogurt and soy milk whiter, and brightens dark products like chocolate. But what unintended effects might it have?

That's where the nano story gets murky. Remarkably, the US Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of the food supply, both 1) acknowledges that nanoparticles pose risks that are substantially different from those of their regular-sized counterparts, and 2) has done nothing to slow down their rapid move into the food supply.

Back in 2012, the FDA released a draft, pending public comment, of a proposed new framework for bringing nano materials into food. The document reveals plenty of reason for concern. For example: "so-called nano-engineered food substances can have significantly altered bioavailability and may, therefore, raise new safety issues that have not been seen in their traditionally manufactured counterparts." The report went on to note that "particle size, surface area, aggregation/agglomeration, or shape may impact absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) and potentially the safety of the nano-engineered food substance."

What FDA is saying here is obvious: If nanoparticles didn't behave differently, the industry wouldn't be using them in the first place."

[Kathryn]

I'm so tired of having to worry about what nefarious things are lurking in our foods. Why can't it just be, you know, *food?*

[Harriet Vane]

I'm so tired of having to worry about what nefarious things are lurking in our foods. Why can't it just be, you know, *food?*

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

[mommymilkies]

Ugh.  Ugh.  I agree, just let us eat FOOD for cripes sake. 

[Farrar]

So they're putting this stuff in the food on purpose?  What function does it serve?

[Kathryn]

So they're putting this stuff in the food on purpose? What function does it serve?

It sounds like it's to make it pretty/brighter.

[BlueTaelon]

Yet another reason to grow as much of your own food as you can. 

[Moxie]

Something is going to kill me. Maybe it's nano particles. I'm putting this in my "things I refuse to think about" category.

[Jasperstone]

Great! Dangers lurking in our water, air and food!

 

GMO is bad enough, now this as well!

[SunnyDays]

I'm so tired of having to worry about what nefarious things are lurking in our foods. Why can't it just be, you know, *food?*

It sounds like such a reasonable request, doesn't it?!?

 

I'm trying to be more careful about what we eat. But honestly, I can't keep up and I just choose not to worry about some things.... Otherwise, as I am not a master gardener by any stretch of the imagination, we'd starve.

 

Something interesting to keep an eye on though...

[Alte Veste Academy]

Uncle. Seriously!