Cancer in a Cola Can?
The word caramel always makes me think warm fuzzy thoughts of childhood, complete with caramel-covered apples and vanilla ice cream topped off with just a little hot caramel sauce.
So I’ll be the first to admit that the seemingly innocent words “caramel color”—which appear on the ingredient lists for everything from sodas to bread—never gave me a moment’s pause, let alone conjure up perhaps the most feared word in the English language…cancer.
That is, of course, until a news release from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) hit my desk and I read about caramel color’s dirty…and potentially deadly…little secret.
It turns out that at least some of the chemical soup that’s known by the unassuming name caramel color is contaminated with two cancer-causing chemicals. And it’s resemblance to the caramel of your childhood pretty much starts and ends with the name.
Now, to be clear, there are actually four types of caramel coloring on the market.
- The first is actual caramel.
- The second, caramel II, is made in a process that involves creating a reaction between sugar and sulfites.
- The third, caramel III, is created using ammonium compound…and this is the point at which we start to get into trouble.
- The last, caramel IV, is the one most commonly found in soda pop and other acidic processed foods, and it’s made using both sulfite and ammonium compounds.
Actually the real villains here are the chemical byproducts that are produced when the sugar reacts with ammonia. Two of them, 2-methylimidazole (2-MI) and 4-methylimidazole (4-MI), have been found to be carcinogenic in animal studies. In rat and mouse studies, both chemicals have been shown to promote thyroid, liver, and lung tumors.
And do you want to know the really scary part? Avoiding caramel III and caramel IV is almost as difficult as nailing pudding to a wall. The reality is that there’s no real way to tell from a label which kind of caramel coloring you’re getting, and this stuff is just about as far-reaching in our food supply as its killer kissing cousin high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
CSPI has filed a petition with the FDA urging it to ban the use of these products. But you and I both know that’s as likely to happen as a snowstorm in July.
We’re going to have to look out for ourselves on this one. If you haven’t already given up soda in light of what we already know about HFCS, this latest news should be enough to have you swearing off the stuff forever.
And, as always, you should limit the amount of processed off-the-shelf foods in your diet. Making food from scratch, with fresh organic ingredients, not only tastes better it’s an easy way to avoid the dangerous chemicals that have been added to our food supply.
References:
“FDA Urder to Prohibit Carcinogenic “Caramel Coloring,” News Release, Center for Science in the Public Interest, February 16,2011
“Induction of thyroid and liver tumors by chronic exposure to 2-methylimidazole in F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice,” Arch Toxicol. 2008 Jun;82(6):399-412. Epub 2007 Oct 9.
“Induction of thyroid lesions in 14-week toxicity studies of 2 and 4-methylimidazole in Fischer 344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice,” Arch Toxicol. 2006 Mar;80(3):169-80. Epub 2005 Sep 23.
“Toxicology and carcinogensis studies of 2-methylimidazole (Cas No. 693-98-1) in B6C3F1 mice (feed studies),” Natl Toxicol Program Tech Rep Ser. 2004 Dec;(516):1-292.
“Toxicity and carcinogenicity studies of 4-methylimidazole in F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice,” Arch Toxicol. 2008 Jan;82(1):45-53. Epub 2007 Jul 10.
“NTP Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of 4-Methylimidazole (CAS No. 822-36-6) in F344/N Rats and B6C3F1 Mice (Feed Studies),” Natl Toxicol Program Tech Rep Ser. 2007 Jan;(535):1-274.
“Caramel Color – The Science and Art: Beverages and other Applications” William Kamuf, D.D. Williamson, caramel.com
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An enthusiastic believer in the power of natural healing, Alice has spent virtually her entire 17-year career in the natural-health publishing field helping to spread the word.
She is an advocate of self-education and is passionate about the power of group knowledge sharing, like the kind found right here on HealthierTalk.com. Alice loves to share her views on holistic and natural healing as well as her, sometimes contentious, thoughts on the profit-driven inner workings of traditional medicine.
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Comments
Boomer12k
Some times you are "preaching to the choir." The people you need to talk to are not the government so much, but the Soda Pop companies to see which type they use. Then tell them of the study. That way, you by pass the government, and all the "bought and paid for" red tape.
Food additives in general are bad for you, especially if you are sensitive. I was never all that sensitive, but since my Grave's Disease, etc.... I can't have a lot of things I use to.
Be well and happy!
Steve
Helen
I have heard carmal color was bad but did not know why.
I gave up soft drinks when I was a teen ager and had tummy pain Dr said stay away from soda drinks and am glad I did when you hear about what pop dose to your bones and teeth and waist line besides all these other problems. Water is as good as any drink.
Lori
Steve - we're all sensitive to food additives, even if we don't know it. We can talk to the manufacturers until we're blue in the face, but the problem is that they create their own safety data. And they'll show you a bunch of studies that dispute anything negative, or they'll say it's inconclusive. There are food additives still on the market that cause cancer, like nitrates and nitrites (they form nitrosamines in the stomach), but whiney, greedy food manufactures say they're needed to maintain the color of processed meats. After all, who wants green bacon? Until the public is educated and refuses to buy this stuff, any argument about food additives will continue to fall on deaf ears.
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