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-Established 1997-
page added: 9/28/09
Blu-ray Review
Reviews by
Jeff Kleist
The Digital Bits
Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection
1994-2002 (2009) - Paramount
Released on Blu-ray Disc on September 22nd, 2009
Also available on
Film Ratings (Overall): B-
Video (1-20): See Review Text
Audio (1-20): See Review Text
New Extras (Overall): C+
As with Bill's previous review of the
original movies box set
, I'm not going to spend time talking about the individual films. We've reviewed them all before in some detail here at
The Bits
. Rather, I'm going to look at what's new and improved over the previous 2-disc DVD releases.
Here's the good news: From a video standpoint, there's no question that anyone on the fence about this upgrade should do so. The improvements (after A/B-ing key sequences of each film against the DVDs) are always noticeable, and often dramatic. Gone is the macroblocking and compression from the previous transfers. The ships - particularly the physical models - show off their fine detail beautifully, with all the fine lines, panels and lifeboats achieving real depth and scale for the first time on disc. The elephant in the room unfortunately is that - like the previous feature film Blu-rays - noise reduction has been applied to these HD transfers. Fans can take heart however, that the filtering is much lighter this time around. Higher budgets, newer film stocks and a more recent vintage all seem to have helped in this regard. The result is a much more satisfying (if still flawed) HD image. For whatever reason,
First Contact
both appear to be far less blotchy and smoothed than their companion films, occasionally offering some really nice HD pop and fine detail. The other two,
, suffer much heavier levels of noise reduction. The former definitely has some issues with artificial sharpening that some may find distracting, particularly on the holodeck ship scene. Of all the movies,
probably fairs the worst with consistently high levels of DNR that dull the beautiful landscapes on the Ba'ku planet. Ultimately, casual viewers and those with screens smaller than 65" probably won't notice the filtering. Those with larger screens, or highly-refined eyes for HD video, will be less pleased. Still as I said, these transfers are significantly improved over the previous DVDs, and somewhat better than the older films on Blu-ray.
Unlike the video, no one should have any issue with the 5.1 Dolby TrueHD tracks present on each disc here. There's a consistency that just isn't heard in most of the previous movies on Blu-ray, thanks to these newer films having been mixed in 5.1 from the start.
Star Trek: Generations
' DTS laserdisc soundtrack was an early favorite among home theater enthusiasts, because of its dynamic sound design. That should carry over here: The saucer crash, Borg booms and
battles bristle with split and panning rear channels. Combined with the fantastic scores all of these films carry, this is avery, very good surround sound experience.
In terms of overall A/V quality, here's my grades for the individual films. Keep in mind that on our comparative grading scale (of 1-20), perfect looking (and sounding) DVDs would clock in at a 10 and the perfect Blu-rays would be 20:
Star Trek: Generations
Video - 16.5
Audio - 18.5
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Nemesis
In terms of bonus features, each disc carries over virtually all of the extras and Easter eggs from the previous 2-disc DVDs (save for the Okuda text commentaries), then adds approximately 30 minutes of new video-based material per film (most of it in HD). The new extras start with brand new commentary tracks on each film: Director David Carson and
producer Manny Coto on
Trek Movie
's Anthony Pascale and Damon Lindelof (producer of the new Abrams film) for
First Contact
; Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis on
; and Michael and Denise Okuda on
. As for the commentary experience, Carson and Coto have a history of working together and make a good team. Frakes and Sirtis are close to an old married couple and are loads of fun to listen to as well. The Okudas are a treasure trove of
knowledge, so their track is great too. Matching Lindelof and Pascale is a bit of a mystery however. Lindelof is obviously a bit lost (no pun intended) in the world of hardcore Trekker lore. While Pascale works diligently to offer comments of real substance and interest, Lindelof's lame attempts at humor constantly derail the track, and it gets a bit old. (Our hats off to Anthony for a game effort!)
The set's new video content starts with a new interview with actor Brent Spiner (Data) spread across all four discs. In roughly 8-minute chunks, he talks about his life, philosophy... and occasionally the movie with which the piece shares disc space. It's obvious that Spiner never wants to return to Data, and that's understandable, but as a fan it makes me a little sad.
Trek Roundtable
puts writer Larry Nemecek, the aforementioned Pascale, the Planetary Society's Charlene Anderson and
Geek Monthly
editor Jeff Bond together for about 10 minutes per movie, discussing their favorite scenes and the individual film's impact on the franchise as a whole. While fun, there really isn't time for it to be anything more than a disposable entertainment, which is disappointing after the superb
Captain's Summit
from the last set. Also contained on each disc are more
Starfleet Academy Briefings
. These feel like they belong on a mid-90s CD-ROM encyclopedia more than a 2009 Blu-ray, and contain little information you probably didn't just get from watching the movie. While I appreciate the concept, throwing a few scientists on to discuss the theoretical concepts would probably have been more enlightening for the same investment of time and money.
The set also contains a series of more original and interesting featurettes.
Today's Tech Tomorrow's Data
explores how close we really are to developing a positronic brain and artificial intelligence.
Robot Hall of Fame
covers Data's induction alongside other immortal fictional and real robots. I think my favorite new extra on the entire set is a shoot with Commander Michael Fincke, a NASA astronaut who recently served on the International Space Station. He spends his 10 minutes talking about how
Star Trek
inspired him to join the space program, and the rigors and dangers of real space travel. Finally,
Spaceship One's Historic Flight
tells the story of the real-life Zephram Cochran who took the controls for the world's first privately sponsored flight into space. (You'll have to use your imagination to spot him, but
Bill Hunt was present
in the crowd gathered to watch the flight.)
�bergeeks, the fun continues with
Next Generation Designer Flashback
, in which we catch up with Andrew Probert, designer of the movie refit Enterprise and the Enterprise-D. For some reason, however, he spends almost all of his time talking about the refit design and not the D, making me wonder if there were space concerns on the last set that kept it from being included there.
Scoring Star Trek
gives composer Dennis McCarthy a quick stint in the spotlight.
ILM: The Next Generation
mostly consists of archival footage from the refurbishment and filming of
's original 6-foot Enterprise-D model. The best of the new material is
Reunion with the Rikers
, in which Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis goof off in front of the camera about their personal friendship, and the sitcom they'd love to make featuring their characters. Finally,
Westmore's Legacy
gives an insight into the family of make-up pioneers that (among their many other accomplishments) spent close to 20 years bringing aliens to life in the
Star Trek
Exclusive to this box set is a special bonus disc called
. It contains a collection of fluffy throwaway material, much like you would find on the
Next Generation
Best Buy DVD bonus discs.
The Evolution of the Enterprise
is a superficial overview of the design of all 6 Enterprises, glossing over the differences and detail. The kind of people watching this disc are the same ones who have the technical manuals on their bookshelf, and they're VERY detail oriented. Surely, they could have asked Andrew Probert and some of the other designers to elaborate on their choices here and offer more details! It's a shame. Also disappointing are
Villains of Star Trek
I Love the Star Trek Movies
, each of which barely scratches its subject in any kind of interesting detail. These pieces would better serve a
I Love the 80s
marathon on VH-1 than a Blu-ray special edition.
As for the rest of the bonus disc featurettes... I've got a bit of a beef to share. I've never been to Las Vegas, but part of me has always wanted to go. I'd love to see Penn and Teller, I know I'd lose my shirt gambling, and I've ALWAYS wanted to check out the now-closed
Star Trek: The Experience
. So what I don't understand is how an almost 30-minute documentary on the last day of
The Experience
manages to say so little! It starts off well, with the performers backstage getting into makeup and costume, goofing around and saying their good-byes. But then, rather than documenting the full experience of
Klingon Encounter
Borg 4D
for fans for all time, we get just a fast sampling of the rides themselves! More time is given over to sad fans bemoaning its closure than the actual
. Very disappointing.
The final extra on the bonus disc,
Charting the Final Frontier
, is cool in principle... but I wish it was fleshed out more. It presents a series of space maps. (The style is immediately recognizable to anyone who owns a copy of Geoffrey Mandel's excellent book,
Star Trek: Star Charts
.) Clicking each movie indicator on the map brings up a fast video summary of the region in space where each movie takes place. As is the case with the
Starfleet Academy Briefings
, they really contain no additional information that a casual viewer hasn't already gleaned from just watching the movies.
Finally, this box set offers some fast-loading BD-Live content for those with properly-equipped players. Currently available on each movie is a trivia game called
Star Trek I.Q.
. There are pre-set question lists, but the really fun thing here is the ability to make your own question lists that can be uploaded and shared with others online. The ability to participate in ever-evolving content is really cool, and it's encouraging to see a studio continuing to exploit BD-Live as something other than a glorified chatroom and billboard.
Ultimately, Paramount's
Star Trek: The Next Generation Movie Collection
offers a very good video and audio upgrade over the existing DVDs. And if many of the new supplements feel like filler, there's enough good material here to push anyone on the fence over the top. I'm am a bit disappointed that some of the deleted scenes that still exist aren't included - like Quark's cut bit from
. But while it's by no means perfect, at a current street price that equates to a little over $10 a movie, this box set is still fairly easy to recommend.
Jeff Kleist
[email protected]
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Robert Bialecki wrote:
> Hi,
> What rule should I use to stop comunication between clients on lan?
> A client should only be able to go to the gateway (monowall) and not
> be able to comunicate on any port with any other client on lan.
> Thanks,
> Robert Bialecki
AFAIK, this is not something you can do with firewall rules. I am not
an expert on VLANs (I can barely spell it), but you may be able to use
VLANs to segregate the clients. I think all of your network gear would
need to support VLANs for this to work. NICs in both m0n0wall and
client computers, plus your switching hardware need to support it.
Basically, your LAN interface will have a VLAN for each of the client
Good luck.
James W. McKeand

subset: commoncrawl


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Just a couple of thoughts. Perhaps when you're just initially being surprised with combat, that exact moment is not the best time to tell me that I've unlocked a new fable entry. I can check on that later. Don't bother me with that when Bluebeard is punching me in the face. Bigby wasn't distracted with your stupid fable entries from his perspective, so don't punish me with this useless information.
Also, it seems that some ways of unlocking achievements involve making those other decisions that you wouldn't typically have chosen (such as ripping off Grendel's arm). Do I really have to punch Beast again just to unlock a fable entry, and thereby get the achievement? I haven't tried it yet, and I'm not sure achievement hunting is really worth it. I'm sure many people will disagree with me, though, and that's alright.
Overall, it was a fun episode 2. Wish I could say it was worth the wait. Tell me that it will take six months for episode 3. It's a lot of work, and I get that. Just tell me the truth. Don't say that it will be out in two weeks and then piss around for six months. That's some wolf shit there.


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Born and raised in Schenectady NY. The only thing I liked to do when I was a kid was listen to HARD ROCK and go to concerts. Although I couldn't play a single instrument, the closest I could get to music was by going into radio out of college.
The heat returns and will continue in the Capital Region over the next couple of days. Nothing beats the heat than grabbing an ice cream cone on a hot summer afternoon. How long would it take for a ice cream cone to melt if left on the sidewalk? The answer might surprise you. Check out this time lapsed video of a ice cream cone melting in the heat.
Depending upon what side you look at clock tower above Albany's City Hall will tell you what time it is... maybe. If you are standing on the west side, you won't know what time it is until you look at the north, south or east side, because the west side clock is missing. The clock has been scrutinized for years as always being broken, but now is finally being fixed!
Wait.. you can almost smell it.. It soon will be fair time in the Capital Region. Fried dough, sausage and peppers, cotton candy, will soon be waffling in the air, along with agricultural exhibits, animals, midway rides shows, attractions and games. The Saratoga County Fair which begins on Tuesday is the first of many local fairs to open in the area. We want to know what fair is the best?
She bared her cleavage and robbed a gas station down under in Australia last week . The surveillance video of the robbery which earned her the nickname Boxum Bandit went viral. She was on the run for six days as police searched for her. Tonee Williams 22, turned herself in to police and was charged with robbery and theft.
After the 4th of July Holiday, the Q103 Smarter Than The Q-Tease Trivia is back Wednesday night 7p-9p at the Lager House in Latham. Play trivia against the Q-Tease to win prizes including a private party at the Lager House for the winning team. Cheaters- Click get answers to questions that will be asked to help your team win.
In less than 2 months, SPAC will be exploding as Q-Ruption - the Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR festival will be unleashing it's fury on September 1st. Headlining with Shinedown, Godsmack will be back on stage with Sully Erna pushing his vocal cords to the limit. We wanted to know what is the best damn Godsmack song ever? Take our poll now!
Gillette Stadium, home to the NFL New England Patriots and MSL New England Revolution announced today that they will be banning smoking everywhere inside stadium gates. This smoking ban also includes concerts and other special events. What are your thoughts? Do you think its a good idea or bad idea?
Forget about Piranha's, there's a more dangerous species of fish towards man and it has been found in Illinois Lake Lou Yeager. This type of fish is called a Pacu and it eats testicles, well ok maybe not testicles but nuts.
More than a quarter of a million Americans could lose internet on Monday as the FBI is taking down a safety net protecting your computer from malicious software (malware). Find out if your computer is infected.
The closest star in our solar system otherwise known as the sun, has been very active this week. On Friday evening the sun erupted a powerful solar flare. A flare so big that it would take 15 Earths set side by side to match or over 118,000 miles long. Friday's solar flare is known as a X class flare, and is the most powerful so far this summer, however it's not the biggest this year. The biggest eruption happened in March and is the 5th X class flare in 2012. Watch the video.
The Q103 Q-Ruption is the Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival and it pulls into the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on September 1st. Shinedown, Godsmack, Staind, Papa Roach, Adelita's Way and many others will be performing on 3 stages. There will also be a unsigned local band that will also play the Q-Ruption stage. Currently there are more than 15 bands from the Capital Region have entered this bad ass contest, find out who they are and where they stand.
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"It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea..." Edgar Allan Poe
I love cemeteries, especially old ones. The artwork and care taken back then are unequalled in the machine-generated etchings of today's headstones. Beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
Leave me a comment. They make me strong.


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Ok, so I apologize for not posting a new wonderful project today to share but...
My step son Kasey took a 25 foot fall from a tree on Christmas eve and we spent the night in the hospital and didnt come home until 3 pm on Christmas day. I have not had time to even see my stamp room let alone create and today we spent the day cleaning the garage! Now to empty 3 antique trunks and sell them. We have lived here now a year and we have a 3 car garage and have YET to park in it! gasp! Tomorrow we will attack the last 6 boxes in our bedroom and then the 22 left downstairs. I cant stand the clutter anymore! So my creating will be next week after the hubby is back to work and the kids are in school.
I will be sharing some SAB swaps from my upline/sideline group tomorrow and each day so you will be able to see something fun- just not made by me.
I hope your week is going well and that your weekend was wonderful. My hubby says it was one of the 2 worst Christmas's he has ever had and I said its in my top 5. lol We are truly grateful and blessed that Kasey only has both bones in his left wrist broken and a lot of soreness and awful bruising. oh, and that grapefruit sized knot on the back of his head! yikes- for as far as he fell, he is blessed beyond measure.


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My daughter just turned 16 months, she's breastfed on demand, without restrictions. (We had thought about night weaning but have paused that effort for now). She has been a fairly great eater until the last 1.5 weeks or so... she ate veggies, fruit, cheese, meats, yogurt... LOVED to eat. But lately, I'll put the same types and varieties of food on her tray (or sit with her at her kid size table) and she won't touch much of anything. Except the occasional carbs we put down. For example, last night was spaghetti and meatballs plus mixed veggies. Typically she would devour 3-4 meatballs and the veggies, leaving the pasta noodles. Last night was the opposite. All noodles gone, nothing else touched other than to hand it me because she didn't want to eat it. I don't feel like I'm doing anything different, I've even tried to without nursing until after breakfast to see if that makes a difference, and at least right now, it doesn't. Tried mixing up what type of meats or fruits/veggies we offer. Essentially, if we offer a carb (cherrios, pasta, rice cake, ect) she's been eating it. Anythign else is very hit or miss. Even the "she always eats this" stuff like strawberries and yogurt are being refused. We've experienced a day or two food strike before when she's getting a tooth, but nothing this long and I don't see any teeth.
My question is, has anyone else experienced this? Have any tips? Common/normal with her being 16 months/becoming more opinionated or would you be concerned? Should we just give her the carbs? Normally if she wanted to gorge on a fruit, veggie, meat we would let her, but I am hesitant to do that with carbs. (I dunno why... is that silly of me?) My gut tells me that this eating strike/change is somewhat normal, but wanted to ask/read up just in case it's not a passing phase and see if anyone has experience with it. Very thankful to still be breastfeeding because in the meantime I know she's getting SOME nutrition. Planning on picking up some toddler vitamins during my grocery run tomorrow. She does also drink water in typical fashion.
Thank you
I do find she likes to share my food with me, that might be a trick to try.
ETA: I also only insist on one formal, high chair meal a day: dinner. We usually have breakfast and lunch camping out on the floor or hanging out on the sofa. Often I hang out and she runs around but I think it helps make eating a little more easygoing and less of a struggle.
My 12mo was starting to refuse certain things etc and while reading around a little I came across a really helpful (and reassuring) perspective on the Zero To Three website (US early childhood research org): parents and toddlers have different roles for toddler mealtimes! Our job is to provide several healthy choices, their job is to pick and eat what they want. Also, keep offering new foods or things they reject along with things they've eaten recently (since it can change fast and you want probably to make sure they don't eat the same thing every day for 6 months). So simple! It helped me relax a little, anyway.
And btw breastfeeding mamas have even less to worry about - it's not just "some" nutrition, it's still a complete nutritional base and there's no way you have to worry about vitamins if she's nursing on demand. This should also apply (just less perfectly) to toddler formula or any kind of enriched toddler milk too if that's available in your area, but I would be less confident following the standard US dairy indrustry/lobby advice on giving less nutritious and less digestible cow's milk from age 1 to replace whatever they had before (ok, that's another story). The main point anyway is offer healthy choices, let them choose, don't stress. Hope this helps!
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Hair and Make-up by Lucy St John
A friendly and reliable team of hair and make-up experts based in Richmond, South West London. Making life easy; we do all the travelling for you. In the comfort of your own home or meeting you at your function venue we will ensure that you will be ready for your special occasion looking your absolute best.
Our experienced professionals take the pressure off, so you can relax and enjoy every minute. We are here to advise you on great looks to personally suit you. You may have found a picture from a magazine that has inspired you. Lucy St John tailor makes your experience to suit your needs.
Lucy St John are proud creators of amazing hair. We are masters of the up do, the down do and the blow-dry. We can curl hair that holds and our specialized pinning technique means that "hair up" stays put – even at midnight when you are doing cartwheels on the dance floor! Always on trend we consider the entire face and head shape, your outfit and desired look. Whether you prefer your hair to float softly around your face, cover your ears or be kept away from your face, we will ensure that your hair suits you whatever the style.
Not sure what hair style to go for? Or maybe you've been collecting pictures from Pinterest or Google that you love but don't know if you would be able to carry it off? Our years of experience and passion for showing women their potential with hair and make-up mean that we can confidently guide you towards achieving your beautiful look.
This is what we do: We assess your colouring and match the right makeup for you. We know hair. We assess your hair type and advise you of all the exciting possibilities. We get to know you. Listening to what you say guides us towards your finished look. When you're happy, we're happy. We can tell when you're comfortable and looking like you at your best.
"I genuinely enjoy providing excellent service to all my clients. When I began my career, I bought a portfolio from Wilcox and I was very impressed with the knowledge and skills of the staff. Moreover, when I got my name embossed on my portfolio, I went to a binding shop in the City of London that was still going over 100 years after it opened. Again- the staff were dedicated and highly trained. 7 years ago, for my own wedding, I was shopping in the delicious material shops on Broadwick St and I was amazed by the staff who had made textiles their vocation and consequently, the service was excellent because it was their passion. I love the service that traditional London shops, hotels and suppliers provide. It makes me proud to be British and a Londoner. When we get it right, I feel that we lead the way in creating products and services. What is the difference between good and excellent? Going the extra mile. I enjoy thinking about my brides' weddings in my own time; checking the weather for the wedding day, making contact with the wedding party to discuss styles ahead of the big day and liaising with the venue in order to make life easier for the bride on her arrival. Being with the bride and her bridal party on the morning of the most important day of her life is a joy and a privilege. My job as hair and makeup artist begins days before the brushes and pallets come out."
Areas covered: East Sheen, Richmond, Putney, Fulham, Barnes, Teddington, Twickenham, Hampton, Hammersmith, Surrey, Chiswick, Chelsea, Clapham, Hownslow, Isleworth, Kew, Roehampton,Shepperton, Wandworth and other areas South West. Richmond venues.


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The old Trinity.
A summit was held in Temuka in March 2009 that resulted in four Presbyterian churches committing to becoming a single parish with four congregations. Trinity, St Stephen's, Chalmers and St Paul's churches will work together towards becoming one parish, in order to be more effective in mission. On 4 November 2011 the door to Chalmers Church were locked over growing concerns about the building's safety in an earthquake. Worship services planned will now be held at 9.30am on Sundays at Trinity Church on College Rd. In 2013 the parish had about 500 active members. It holds services at Trinity Church in College Rd and St Stephen's in Wai-iti Rd. On the 19 January 2014 St. Paul's on Seddon Rd was decommissioned.
Timaru Courier
13 June 2008
Rev. Ian Hyslop was appointed South Canterbury moderator in March 2008, taking over from Bill Penno, who had held the position for three years. It was a significant step for Mr Hyslop after 20 years in the ministry, which began at Edendale in Southland. For the past 12 years (March 1996) he has been the minister at St Andrew's Parish in Geraldine. The South Canterbury Presbytery incorporates 13 parishes from as far a field as Twizel and Waihao. Mission can include teams and teams can include a mix of ordained and lay preachers and parishioners, " Mr Hyslop said. "That's the challenge of the church. We must communicate the faith with whatever tools are available. Churches generally were grappling with change in society. In the Presbyterian Church I bat strongly for the creative approach, using the fabric and resources of society for support. An example of such support is our very own Presbyterian Support South Canterbury. This is an organisation providing a wonderful resource to the district in care. To remain relevant, a church needed to move with the times. We have electronic presentation equipment for the congregation." He had embraced technology in delivering his key messages of faith.
Feb. 2010. Timaru Presbyterian Parish - an amalgamation of the Chalmers, St Paul's, St Stephen's and Trinity parishes. Rev. Dr. Susan Jones appointed. PhD at the University of Otago.
29 Nov. 2009. Rev Mary-Jane Konings, Minister, Trinity Presbyterian Church Timaru, to Minister (part-time), Timaru Presbyterian Church -South Canterbury Presbytery (SCP ) (earlier Timaru Presbytery)
Pre 2008: Rev. Mary-Jane Konings and Rev. Chris Konings - Trinity Church Timaru and St Stephens Church Timaru (Joint Ministry)
Dec. 2007 Timaru's four Presbyterian churches: Trinity, St Stephens, St Paul's and Chalmers churches no longer have full-time ministers. To be to be more effective in the mission and ministry of the church amalgamation is a possibility in the future.
Right Reverend Ray Coster was the minister at Trinity Church in Timaru from 1977 to 1985.
March 2012:
Presently we are worshipping at Trinity Church in College Rd for traditional style of worship and St Stephen's for contemporary-style worship.
Timaru Presbyterian Parish closed Chalmers Church and St Paul's in November 2011 after unease grew about worshippers' safety during an earthquake.
Roy Miller window. Abstract slab glass windows, designed by Ken Bunton, executed by Roy Miller, 1960s.
The Trinity Presbyterian Church, Timaru, College Rd. Sunday services are at 10am.
To the Glory of God
This stone was laid by the oldest member
Miss L Pearson on 21st November 1965
Minister, Rev'd G.D. Falloon
Session Clerk, G.A. Hornsey
South Canterbury NZGenWeb Project


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Author Archive
With 'Read Your Labels Day' just around the corner, here's our current summary of the very worst ingredients to look for
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- April 9, 2015
It's almost here! Saturday will be the third annual Citizens for Health Read Your Labels Day. And in case you're wondering why we chose April 11 for the occasion, it's because of what you get when you dial 411 – information! And information is what you absolutely need before buying any of the many processed foods available in today's supermarkets in order to keep those products from having a serious impact on your own health and that of your family.
And by information, we don't just mean the kind provided by front-of-package claims, or the "Nutrition Facts" label, which is often misleading and omits the most important facts about what's in those products. We're talking about reading the part of the label that's often least visible, where actual ingredients are listed. Because a lot of those ingredients are basically unfit for human consumption, despite being designed as GRAS "generally recognized as safe" by the industry-friendly Food and Drug Administration. And many products contain not just one, but two or more of them.
So here, now, is a summary of the ones we consider the ten you should most avoid – the ones we've updated you on during the past month – leading up to our choices for the "worst of the worst":
Number 10: Artificial colors
The FDA's admission that at least 96 percent of children aged 2-5 years are being exposed to at least four artificial colors in food products – FD&C Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1 –came six years after the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned it have nine such dyes banned — and that an interim warning label be posted on foods containing them that they "cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems in some children." While an FDA committee concluded there was not enough evidence to take regulatory action, some companies such as Hershey's and Nestle USA, have started acting on their own to remove them from products in response to consumer pressure.
Number 9: BHA and BHT
These preservatives, which are made from coal tar or petroleum and banned in Japan and most of Europe, have long been the focus of health and behavioral concerns. Over 30 years ago studies found that after both were fed to pregnant mice, they weighed less, slept less and fought more than normal controls, and their offspring were born with altered brain chemistry. BHA is also listed as a carcinogen in California. But it wasn't until "Food Babe" Vani Hari circulated a petition on the Internet noting that BHT is absent in the European versions of popular cereals that Kellogg's and General Mills started making moves to eliminate it here as well, further demonstrating that pressure from consumers to have harmful additives removed from products does get results.
Number 8: Potassium bromate
Used to "improve" flour and make more uniform, attractive bakery products, potassium bromate has already been banned in many other countries. The FDA, however has merely asked the baking industry to voluntarily stop using it – despite a petition from CSPI back in 1999 noting that the agency had known since 1982 that it could cause tumors of the kidney, thyroid and other organs in animals and asking that its use be prohibited. While some commercial brands have replaced it, brominated flour is still widely used in restaurants and bakeries. In fact, General Mills, makers of Pillsbury and Gold Medal brand flours, offers 22 different brominated flours at its "professional baking solutions" site. Which is as good a reason as any to inquire about the ingredients in bakery items before you buy them.
Number 7: Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)
This additive, which is used to keep beverages from appearing cloudy, accumulates in fatty tissue and has been shown to cause heart damage in research animals. In fact, it has never actually been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, where its status has been in limbo for more than three decades. It finally took an Internet petition launched by Sarah Kavanagh, a Mississippi teen, along with TV's Dr. Oz calling BVO his "number one shocking health threat in your food" to get the countries two leading beverage manufacturers to agree to remove it from products. When we recently checked, however, it was still being listed in Pepsi's popular soda brand Mountain Dew.
Number 6: 'Hidden forms of MSG' (e,g., hydrolyzed protein, autolyzed yeast, sodium and calcium caseinate)
MSG" is a designation not just for monosodium glutamate, but for more than 40 ingredients containing "free" glutamate, or glutamic acid, as contrasted to the kind that's naturally "bound" in foods like tomatoes. And these additives can turn up in all kinds of products, usually as flavor enhancers, or as sources of added protein, even those that claim to have no added MSG. And their presence. even small amountgs can cause devastating reactions in highly sensitive people, making nearly all processed foods a dangerous proposition for them.
Number 5: Monosodium glutamate
This "big kahuna" of flavor enhancers is used to perk up the taste — or at least the way we perceive the taste — of all manner of foods, from snacks to soups (including standard brands like Campbell's). But is effects can be a lot worse than the relatively mild "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" attributed to it many years ago, In some cases, they can send unwary consumers to the ER, or even cause atrial fibrillation. It's also an "excitotoxin" – so named because it can literally excite brain cells in the hypothalamus to death, especially in children and the elderly – which was why it was removed from baby food many years ago.
Number 4: Aspartame (a.k.a. NutraSweet, Equal)
This pervasive artificial sweetener, found in most "diet" drinks was allowed on the market over the objections of FDA advisers after having has been known to cause brain tumors in rats and grand mal seizures in rhesus monkeys. It also has been the subject of thousands of reports of adverse effect, ranging from migraines to vision problems to memory loss. Despite that, it is still often represented as a "healthy" alternative to caloric sweeteners, and the dairy industry has even petitioned the FDA for a change that would make it easier to feed aspartame-laced milk to school kids. But with new research –for example, a study last year having found that women who drink just two diet sodas a day have a significantly higher risk of heart attacks and strokes – more and moreconsumers are becoming leery of it, as are some companies (such as Yoplait, which has removed it from its "Lite" yogurt).
Number 3: Carrageenan
Used in a wide variety of products to give them a nice texture, fatty "mouth feel" and a good appearance, this tasteless, non-nutritive seaweed derivative has long been known to cause harmful gastrointestinal inflammation and intestinal lesions. But what's especially disturbing is that it's found in some organic foods, the National Organic Standards Board having approved its use by a one-vote margin in 2012. If nothing else, that's a good reason for reading the ingredients label on organic products as well as conventional ones.
Number 2: Partially hydrogenated oil, or PHO (a.k.a. trans fat)
It will soon be a year and a half since the FDA proposed removing this artery-clogging substance, which gives products a longer shelf-life but causes an estimated 7,000 fatal heart attacks a year, from the GRAS list. But despite the fanfare that greeted that announcement, the agency has yet to take concrete action – even though a subsequent study showed PHO also impairs memory. Of course, it's always possible the FDA itself simply forgot to act on this much heralded plan – but what's more likely is that it was put off by objections from the food and baking industries.
Number 1: high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS (along with 'fructose')
Nearly two-thirds of Americans don't want this cheap laboratory sweetener in their food, according to a recent Nielsen international health and wellness survey. And there are good reasons for that, as studies (including a recent one from Harvard Medical School) have consistently linked HFCS to health problems like obesity, diabetes, heart disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Such popular rejection has prompted an increasing number of processed food companies to specify that their products contain "no HFCS." But at least a couple of the products making that claim now have "fructose" listed as an ingredient – one which the Corn Refiners Association claims is actually HFCS-90. Whether or not it is, "fructose" is a component of sugar that by itself or in unbound form (as in HFCS) the body has far more trouble assimilating than the "bound" glucose-fructose combo of which plain sugar consists.
As additives go, it's still the 'worst of the worst' – with even more support from science and a brand new 'spinoff'
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- April 7, 2015
With this Saturday designated as Citizens for Health's third annual Read Your Labels Day, we've finally come down to the number-one additive we strongly suggest you shun when examining those ingredients labels and deciding what products to put in your shopping cart. And it's the same one that topped our list last year – although this time, we've added a new variant that has started popping up on more and more of those labels.
Number 1: High fructose corn syrup, or HFCS (along with 'fructose')
There can no longer be any doubt about it – most consumers simply don't want high fructose corn syrup in the processed foods and beverages they buy. That was made quite evident back in January by a Nielsen international health and wellness survey's finding that "in the U.S., high fructose corn syrup was public enemy #1 and 65 percent of consumers said it was very or moderately important to buy products with labels touting its absence."
And that preference has been reflected in the increasing number of processed food packages on which "no high fructose corn syrup" is prominently displayed, as well as by food companies that have announced they are dropping the sweetener from products. (There are, however, instances where claims of "no HFCS" are misleading, as we shall see).
Not that the HFCS manufacturers haven't been attempting to fight back. Their lobbying group, the Corn Refiners Association, has continued to make HFCS appear to be pretty much the same thing as the sugar (or sucrose) it replaced (even though the Food and Drug Administration ruled in 2013 that it isn't), in addition to sponsoring university surveys of consumers purporting to show that they suffer from unfounded "food fears" fanned by Internet rumors.
Politicians have also helped to blur the distinction. Recently, for example, Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) proposed a bill labeled the "Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax Act of 2015" (or SWEET Act), the text of which includes statements such as "Adults who drink one sugar-sweetened beverage or more per day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese, regardless of income or ethnicity."(Of course, almost all the beverages it talks about contain no sugar, only HFCS)
The media and various web sites have also done their part to compound the confusion. Just last week, for example, an article at Rodale News claimed "research suggests that a steady diet of sugary, processed foods can mess with insulin in the brain" which "may trigger what some experts call type 3 diabetes, aka Alzheimer's disease" (the term "sugary" being frequently applied to foods containing HFCS). And stories at both The Washington Post and the Huffington Post websites both featured a video from the American Chemical Society that claimed "the current scientific consensus is that there's no difference" between the two sweeteners.
But even while making that assertion, the narrator of that video had to acknowledge that fructose "can do a number on your liver" and had been directly linked to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Maybe that's because so many studies have been finding that to be the case, it can no longer be ignored.
The key difference that research has uncovered
In just the past year, for example, Harvard Medical School researchers found that fructose "may have a particularly deleterious effect on health" by making people obese, less responsive to insulin and prone to develop fatty liver disease and abnormal blood lipid levels, which are precursors to diabetes and heart disease. They determined that blood levels of the hormone FGF21, which helps regulate the accumulation of fat, undergo a rapid and acute elevation following fructose ingestion. (Raised FGF21 levels in both humans and animals had already been linked by one of the study's lead authors to obesity, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.)
Their conclusion was based on a study involving 21 adult subjects, about half of whom were lean and fit and the rest suffering from obesity and at high risk for diabetes. All were given either 75 grams of glucose, the same amount of fructose or a mixture of the two to drink at various times.
In all subjects, the glucose, which is absorbed into the bloodstream and into fat and muscle tissues and converted into energy, had no immediate effect on levels of FGF21, with only mild changes detected three or four hours later. But the fructose, which is absorbed directly by the liver and raises triglycerides that can lead to problems such as diabetes and heart disease, caused levels of the hormone to sharply increase by 400 percent on average within just two hours of being consumed.
All of which might help explain the results of a 2013 University of Southern California study that found that countries using high-fructose corn syrup had rates of diabetes that were about 20% higher than countries that didn't mix the sweetener into foods.
But the persistent misidentification of HFCS as "sugar" hasn't been the only source of confusion surrounding this laboratory sweetener. It's also often referred to by the media as "corn syrup," which is actually the name of an older sweetening agent that contains no fructose. And within the past few months, we've found a couple of products that claim to have "no high fructose corn syrup" but do list "fructose" as an ingredient.
According to a posting on the website of the Corn Refiners Association, "fructose" is the term currently being used instead of HFCS-90, a type of high fructose corn syrup that's 90 percent fructose, which is a much higher amount than the 42 or 55 percent found in regular HFCS and allowed by the Food and Drug Administration. When we contacted Kellogg's about one such instance, however, a company spokesperson replied that "Kellogg products in the U.S. do not contain this ingredient. The ingredient 'fructose' on our packaging is not high fructose corn syrup and is simply 'fructose' as listed."
Whatever the case, what's becoming ever more evident is that "fructose" that's neither bound with fiber, as it is naturally in fruit, or with glucose to form sucrose, has a far different effect on our bodies than traditional sugar — one that can lead to metabolic dysfunction and a whole range of health problems, including obesity, diabetes, heart trouble and even pancreatic cancer. And that whether it's a component of high fructose corn syrup or simply "fructose" per se, its continued presence in so many food products is hazardous to both our individual and collective health.
On that point, both consumers and scientists are increasingly in agreement.
Trans fat from partially hydrogenated oil: the condemned killer that got a reprieve
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- April 2, 2015
The next additive on our list of the top ten to be avoided in our countdown toward Read Your Labels Day 2015 is one we decided deserves to be much closer to the top than it was last year. That's because it's the only one on this list that the Food and Drug Administration acknowledges is a killer – but still can't seem to bring itself to do something about.
Number 2: Partially hydrogenated oil, or PHO (a.k.a. trans fat)
Its purpose is mainly to extend the shelf life of the products to which it's added. But in the process, partially hydrogenated oil can also shorten the lives of those who consume it by clogging their arteries with trans fat. Not only do they increase LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, but they decrease your "good" HDL cholesterol. After estimating that 20,000 Americans suffer heart attacks every year and 7,000 die from the effects of PHO, the FDA in 2013 proposed that it be taken off the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list and phased out of processed food. In fact, it was widely assumed at the time that a prohibition on trans fat was already a 'done deal' – for example, Dr. Mark Hyman, writing in the Huffington Post, began by saying, "Thank God! Trans fats are banned at last".
But nearly a year and a half later, the initiative remains stalled, while this lethal substance remains in many products, particularly things like cookies and baked goods.
How many products? Well, at the beginning of September, a study by the New York Department of Health and Public and Mental Hygiene found that one in 10 processed foods still contained PHOs – and that 84 percent of those products are labeled as having "zero trans fats." How do they get away with doing that? By taking advantage of what we call the "trans fat loophole," which allows any amount less than 0.5 percent to be reduced to "zero" on the label (never mind that there's no really "safe" amount—or that the actual amounts consumed can easily exceed that threshold).
But the increased risk of dying from a heart attack isn't the only reported result of consuming such products. Last November, researchers at the University of California in San Diego found they may also act to impair memory after testing 1,000 young and middle-aged men who had not yet been diagnosed with heart disease after having them fill out questionnaires about their dietary habits. The subjects were given a "recurrent word" in which they were asked to remember whether certain words had already been shown to them on a series of 104 flash cards. When the results were compiled, it was found that the ones who ate the most PHOs could recall 11 or 12 fewer words than their peers, even when other factors were taken into account.
Study author Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a professor of medicine at the college, described that as "a pretty big detriment to function," given that the average number of words accurately recalled was 86. In fact, the researchers were able to estimate that every additional gram a day of trans fat consumed resulted inh 0.76 fewer words committed to memory. Golomb hypothesized that trans fats do far more than damage the cardiovascular system. She considers them to be "metabolic poisons" whose energy-sapping oxidative effects can effectively put brain cells that retain memories out of commission and even cause them to die off.
PHOs must go? Not so fast!
Now, given all that, you'd think the FDA wouldn't waste any time in banishing this heart- and-brain-damaging ingredient from grocery shelves. After all, protecting us from things like that is their job, isn't it?
You might think so. But the fact that nothing further has happened since the phase-out was proposed (with a lot of accompanying hoopla) would seem to indicate that the agency is having second thoughts. Could it be that a little pushback in the form of comments from industry (among the more than 1,500 received on the proposal during the comment period) is all it takes to clog the gears at the FDA as surely as PHOs clog our arteries?
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, for example, urged the agency to replace its proposed ban on PHOs "with a fundamentally different approach that will achieve a policy aim that will be supported by consumers, industry and the agency." Such a "prudent" course of action, the GMA maintained, could consist of a "less onerous proposal that builds on already existing programs that are successfully driving trans fat consumption to lower levels," lest the food supply be significantly disrupted and consumers "unjustifiably denied access to products such as baked goods, pastries, confectioneries, some flavors, seasonings and many other products."
A similar sentiment was voiced by Mark B. Andon, Ph.D., vice-president, research, quality and innovation at ConAgra Foods, Omaha, who contended that dropping the GRAS status of PHOs "would place potentially thousands of food products at risk of being deemed adulterated due to the presence of an ingredient that has been safely and commonly used in foods for over 50 years."
The food giant General Mills likewise expressed the opinion that "current low intakes of trans fat are safe" and suggested that a level of trans fat below 0.2 grams per serving either be established as the new "zero" (as did the American Bakers Association) or become a "threshold limit."
As an apparent result, we were told back in September by Marianna Naum, Ph.D. of the Strategic Communications and Public Engagement Staff of the FDA's Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine: "We continue to review comments to the proposal and at this time aren't able to conjecture on date of next action." When contacted late last week, she indicated that had not changed.
In other words, this condemned killer has been given an apparent reprieve – at least for now. But that doesn't mean you want to let it into your house – and the best way to keep your family safe is to check all processed food packages for the presence of "partially hydrogenated oil" before you check them out of the supermarket.
Even 'healthy' food can harbor this gut-wrenching additive that 'came from beneath the sea'
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 31, 2015
In revising our list of the top ten food additives to be avoided as we approach the third annual Read Your Labels Day on April 11, we've now assigned the Number 3 spot to one that wasn't included originally – carrageenan. Used in a wide variety of products – including, unfortunately, some organic ones — to give them a nice texture, fatty "mouth feel" and a good appearance, this tasteless, non-nutritive seaweed derivative has long been known to cause harmful gastrointestinal inflammation and intestinal lesions. It can also be replaced with safer ingredients that do the same job. Yet carrageenan continues to be used by many food companies, even some that claim to have only "healthy" ingredients in their products.
Number 3: Carrageenan
Concern about carrageenan dates back to the 1960s, when researchers linked its use in food to gastrointestinal disease and colon cancer in laboratory animals.
Two years ago, The Cornucopia Institute released a report titled "Carrageenan, How a 'natural' food additive is making us sick," which detailed the scientific studies and other evidence against this additive and urges consumers to avoid foods containing it. The report noted that "(f)or individuals who consume carrageenan on a regular or daily basis, the inflammation will be prolonged and constant, which is a serious health concern since prolonged inflammation is a precursor to more serious disease," and pointed out that there are over 100 human diseases, including cancer, associated with such constant inflammation.
The Institute, a non-profit farm policy research group based in Wisconsin, also sent a letter to the FDA asking the agency to reconsider a citizen petition filed in 2008 asking the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of carrageenan in food, which was turned down by the agency in 2012. The petition was submitted by Dr. Joanne Tobacman, a "physician-scientist" at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has been studying the effects of this additive for almost 20 years, publishing 18 peer-reviewed papers on the subject.
Tobacman stated, "When a body of publicly funded scientific literature points to harm from consuming a common, widely used yet unnecessary food ingredient, the FDA should act in the interest of public health," the Institute's letter said, adding that every claim that supports the safety of carrageenan in foods and beverages "can be refuted, based on strong scientific evidence."
Carrageenan comes from red seaweed and can be processed into either what's called "food grade" or "degraded." Degraded carrageenan, recognized as a "possible human carcinogen" and not permitted in food, is extremely inflammatory — so much so that it is used extensively in scientific studies to induce inflammation in laboratory animals on which to test anti-inflammatory drugs. While "food grade" sounds a lot nicer, numerous studies have shown even small levels of this version commonly used in food products are enough to cause inflammation in the human colon, and what's even more disturbing, it appears that "food grade" can turn into the potent inflammatory and carcinogenic "degraded" version in the human GI tract.
A stain on the organic industry's reputation
If all this sounds bad, perhaps even worse is the permitted use of carrageenan in organic foods.
Back in 2012, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), a group that determines what non-organic ingredients can be used in organic foods, approved, by a one-vote margin, the continued use of carrageenan in the certified organic food supply.
According to the Cornucopia Institute, the carrageenan lobby group "convinced enough corporate-friendly NOSB members…to ignore the disturbing findings of dozens of independently funded and peer-reviewed studies…" including those that found high rates of colon cancer in laboratory animals fed the "food grade" carrageenan. As the Institute observed "Organic foods should be a safe haven from harmful ingredients. In fact, the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, the law governing organic foods, requires that non-agricultural ingredients must be determined safe to human health and not deleterious to the environment before they can be added to organic foods. After all, if organic food isn't safer than conventional food, what's the point, right?"
Avoiding carrageenan in your diet (and your pet's diet as well) is yet another reason to read the ingredient label, even on organic foods.
Although industry predictably is trying to convince consumers with assurances that carrageenan is perfectly safe, as the Cornucopia Institute said in its letter to the FDA: "…there are no benefits to society or public health from adding carrageenan to foods or beverages. It is added solely to change the texture of food. Already, some food manufacturers are replacing carrageenan with other thickeners and stabilizers, or eliminating thickeners altogether and asking their customers to shake the product before consumption. If carrageenan is prohibited, the food industry will quickly adapt."
And in some cases, it already is in the process of doing so, if only in response to consumer pressure. As we reported last year, after "Food Babe" Vani Hari alerted her followers to the dangers of carrageenan," WhiteWave Foods, the company that makes Horizon and Silk brands, announced it would be removing carrageenan from those products. While still maintaining carrageenan was safe, the company said consumer "feedback" had indicated "it was time to make a change."
Apparently, then, such "feedback" is what's really required to get this inflammatory additive and other pernicious ingredients out of our food. That begins with reading the ingredients label on products (even organic ones, where carrageenan is concerned), avoiding those with harmful additives, and letting the manufacturers of those foods know the reason why.
Aspartame still a 'devil in disguise' – but studies steadily eroding its phony 'good guy' image
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 26, 2015
Although we've moved it from second to fourth place among the top ten additives to be avoided in our countdown to the Citizens for Health "Read Your Labels" Day April 11, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener aspartame can still be found in any number of products, and is still often being misrepresented as a "healthy" alternative to caloric sweeteners.
There have, however, been encouraging indications that the food industry is starting to have reservations about it, such as the decision last summer to remove it from Yoplait "Lite" Yogurt (where its presence turned a supposedly healthy product into a distinctly unhealthy one).
Number 4: Aspartame (a.k.a. NutraSweet, Equal)
The evidence of the ill effects produced by this excitotoxin cousin of MSG continues to mount from year to year, with a University of Iowa study last year having found that women who drink just two diet sodas (which are all sweetened with aspartame) a day have a significantly higher risk of heart attacks and strokes. Another 2014 study out of the University of North Dakota looked at the effects of aspartame consumption on healthy adults who consumed a high-aspartame diet for eight days followed by a low-aspartame diet for eight days, with a 2-week period in between.
When on the high-aspartame diet, participants had more irritable mood, exhibited more depression, and performed worse on spatial orientation tests. "Given that the higher intake level tested here was well below the maximum acceptable daily intake level of 40-50 mg/kg body weight/day," noted an abstract on the study, "careful consideration is warranted when consuming food products that may affect neurobehavioral health."
But then, such results hardly seem surprising, given that studies done over 40 years ago connected aspartame to the development of brain tumors in rodents and grand mal seizures in rhesus monkeys.
As we noted a year ago, "the aspartame fiasco is an example of how one bad regulatory decision can set the stage for a host of subsequent evils. In this case, the 'original sin' was a Food and Drug Administration commissioner's decision more than three decades ago to ignore the agency's own scientific advisers by clearing this laboratory-created synthetic sweetener for entry into the food supply, where it was soon firmly ensconced.
"Aspartame (originally marketed as NutraSweet), which was accidentally discovered by a chemist working for Searle while looking for a new ulcer drug, is made up of three neurotoxic chemicals – substances that are toxic to brain cells.
Citizens for Health Board Chair Jim Turner, a Washington, D.C. Attorney and author of the best-selling book The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on Food Protection at the FDA, along with his advocacy group managed to keep aspartame off the market for 11 years until 1981, when its use was approved over the advice of FDA scientists as well as the agency's Public Board of Inquiry that previously had concluded that it should not be permitted in the food supply.
That official OK was about as clear an example of corporate influence in government as has ever been seen, an obvious political favor to the then head of Searle, Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that Donald Rumsfeld) by the incoming Reagan administration for his help on the transition team. Turner summarizes the entire aspartame fiasco as a case of "political toxicity and biological toxicity working together to create toxic health problems for the public."
"Before long, thousands of aspartame-related health complaints about everything from migraines to memory loss to dizziness to vision problems were being reported to the FDA, which even acknowledged that adverse reactions might be possible, but did nothing to reverse the decision.
"Today, a growing number of health-conscious consumers avoid aspartame like the plague, avoiding any product described as "low calorie" or "sugar free. That, however, hasn't deterred the dairy industry from attempting to pass off aspartame-laced milk on school kids in a very underhanded manner.
Will aspartame in milk be the new 'standard'?
At present, the industry's petition that we reported on a year ago, which would allow the "standard of identity" for milk to be altered to allow for the addition of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, is still pending before the FDA. The petition filed by the National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association would "amend the standard identity of milk" (and 17 additional dairy products). If the FDA agrees, it would allow flavored milk with added artificial sweeteners such as aspartame to be labeled as just "milk," eliminating the now-required "low-cal" notice on the front of the package.
According to an FDA spokesperson we, the agency has received almost 45,000 comments on the petition, has now completed our review of all the comments, and is "actively working on developing a response to the petition as resources permit."
As we noted last year, "the dairy industry claims this would be all for the benefit of American kids. 'Promoting more healthful eating practices and decreasing childhood obesity is one of the most pressing problems facing our country today," notes the petition, which also states that the phrase "reduced calorie…' according to market research, 'doesn't appeal to children'.
"But what it does reflect is that milk consumption is way down, especially in schools where the amount of calories in the products sold in school lunchrooms are starting to be "officially" limited, and the feeling of the dairy industry that in order to sell more milk – the aspartame-sweetened kind, that is – they've 'got to hide it from the kids'.
"Fortunately, a lot of American consumers and parents who have by now become familiar with aspartame's long and ugly "rap sheet" – which includes actually promoting, rather than discouraging obesity — are no longer willing to go along with the idea that this neurotoxic additive is a "healthy" alternative to sugar, as reflected by the amount of public outrage the petition has sparked, including a counter-petition to "tell the FDA we don't want aspartame in our milk," and over 40,000 comments sent into the FDA docket.
"But it does leave one to wonder about how a really bad additive actor, believed to have caused brain tumors in one set of test animals and brain seizures in another (the latter after being fed a milk-based formula), to say nothing of countless other adverse health effects, can come to be categorized as a "safe and suitable sweetener" for chocolate milk being sold to school children."
'Glutamic bombs' — all members of the MSG family – still lurking in numerous food products
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 24, 2015
As we continue this year's countdown toward what Citizens for Health has designated as "Read Your Labels Day," on April 11, we are once again recalibrating and updating our list of the top ten food additives to be avoided, both to allow for any new developments in the past year and to accommodate a 'new' ingredient that we'll be talking about shortly (although some of our readers may have already guessed its identity).
That's why we've now not only condensed what were three classifications into two, but expanded one of them. Both cover related ingredients that experts have dubbed "excitotoxins" (because they can literally excite certain neurons in the brain to death) and that we like to refer to as "glutamic bombs."
Number 5: Monosodium glutamate
Not much has changed in the way this "flavor enhancer" is used to perk up the taste — or at least the way we perceive the taste — of all manner of foods, from snacks to soups (including standard brands like Campbell's). As we noted a year ago, "it allows products with bland or sparse ingredients to taste really exciting, both saving companies money and adding immensely to sales."
The history of monosodium glutamate, as we also pointed out, use is a sneaky one as well. This substance, which is misrepresented as "natural," but which is actually anything but (consisting of a processed free form of glutamic acid, rather than the natural kind that is bound up in certain fruits and veggies) found its way into more and more products during the 1950s and '60s, its use having reportedly doubled in each decade since the 1940s. In addition to being marketed as an 'off the shelf' flavor enhancer, it was also at one time added to baby food. But in the late 1950s, researchers tested the chemical on infant mice and discovered it destroyed nerve cells in the inner layers of the retina. A decade later, prominent neurosurgeon Dr. John Olney, found it had a similar effect on cells, or neurons, in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Disclosure of that information to Congress in 1969 was enough to get monosodium glutamate voluntarily removed from baby food, to which it was being added in amounts equivalent to those that had produced brain damage in test animals.
In addition, monosodium glutamate (often called MSG for short, although as we shall see, that label also applies to a number of other ingredients as well) can cause a range of "side effects," ranging from mild to severe that can necessitate a trip to the ER. These can include everything from migraines to seizures to uncontrollable anger (could this be one of the causes of "road rage?") to atrial fibrillation, or AFIB.
While many people who know they are hypersensitive to monosodium glutamate try hard to avoid it, we were appalled last year to discover a flagrant misrepresentation that could well result in its being inadvertently consumed by such individuals. This deception involved the use of the name and image of a familiar product, Old Bay Seasoning, which is MSG-free, to identify a line of "Old Bay Seasoned" snacks put out by Herr's which actually list monosodium glutamate as an ingredient.
But, as we noted, there other forms of MSG besides monosodium glutamate — ones hidden under other names. And those are the ones covered by our sixth category of undesirable additives:
Number 6: 'Hidden forms of MSG' (e,g., hydrolyzed protein, autolyzed yeast, sodium and calcium caseinate)
Assurances like "NO MSG ADDED" can often be found on the labels of food products that actually contain manufactured glutamic acid that may be concealed under the names of more than 40 different ingredients.
Like monosodium glutamate itself, these additives in even small amounts can cause devastating reactions in highly sensitive people, making nearly all processed foods a dangerous proposition for them. One such individual was the late Jack Samuels, who with his wife Adrienne, a Ph.D. focusing on research methodology, founded the Truth in Labeling Campaign, sharing studies and information they learned over decades of research at their web site www.truthinlabeling.org.
And if you want to know why such dangerous ingredients are still allowed in food, we suggest you read The Man Who Sued the FDA, by Adrienne Samuels, which documents Jack and Adrienne's own story of 'discovery' in regard to MSG that spans several decades. The story of how the Food and Drug Administration gave in to industry interests – and continues to do so – in allowing such dangerous additives to be so widely used in so many food products is not only shocking in itself, but a powerful reminder of how important it is to read those ingredient labels– even when you think you can trust a product because of its familiar brand name.
Wire service confirms collusion we disclosed between industry and dietitians
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 19, 2015
When you're looking for expert advice on what and what not to eat and drink, who ya gonna ask?
Why a registered dietitian, of course! After all, who can you trust for an authoritative and impartial answer about whether or not something is good for you if not a trained, credentialed and certified professional in that very field?
Or so goes the conventional wisdom, in any case. The reality, however, is often not quite so simple and legit, as this blog has revealed on a number of occasions.
But you don't just have to take our word for it. The inside story of what really goes on in the murky world of food industry "consulting" has now been disclosed by the Associated Press, complete with 'confessions' of sorts from individuals on both sides of such transactions.
"We have a network of dietitians we work with," admitted Coca-Cola spokesman Ben Sheidler, who added, "Every big brand works with bloggers or has paid talent."
And one such dietitian, Robyn Flipse, who wrote a "sponsored article" suggesting that a mini-can of Coke might make a great snack, which appeared on the sites of major news outlets, said she came up with the idea at the behest of a public relations agency for the company that asked her to do a piece on heart health.
Flipse also acknowledged having worked with the American Beverage Association for years, with one of her jobs being to disseminate social media rebuttals to the idea that so-called "sugary drinks" (which actually contain high fructose corn syrup rather than sugar) cause obesity and offering her "expert" opinions to news outlets. She further noted that she would ask the PR agency if she should say something to refute negative information in a story about artificial sweeteners as well.
Well, that certainly explains a lot.
It explains, for example, the column I found posted online by the Gannett newspaper Florida Today that I talked about in a Food Identity Theft blog last May – one written by Susie Bond, identified as a registered/licensed dietitian and nutritionist for Health First's ProHealth & Fitness Centers, and appearing under the headline "More from Susie: sugar vs. high fructose corn syrup."
Surprise, surprise!
Here's what I wrote back then:
"When we first read Bond's attempts to debunk the 'myths' regarding HFCS, we couldn't help thinking that we'd seen this all somewhere before. And as it turned out, we had – at none other than the 'Sweet Surprise' website maintained by the Corn Refiners Association, the trade group that has spent huge amounts of money trying to convince the public that this cheap synthetic sweetener is nothing more than a "natural" form of 'sugar made from corn'.
"That wasn't the only thing we discovered on revisiting the 'Sweet Surprise' site, however. Because there, in a section labeled 'in the News' was – yes, you guessed it – a link to the very same article.
"But since the column consisted of only a slightly rewritten restatement of the claims already made at the site, it looks like the only purpose served by that link is to lend more seeming legitimacy to the CRA's long-held position that HFCS is really no different from natural sugar. The similarity was so pronounced, in fact, that Bond's last two 'myths' are virtually identical to those listed on the website about HFCS supposedly being 'banned in Europe' and 'subsidized by the U.S. government'. Coincidence?"
Apparently not.
But what might have looked to the uninformed like blatant plagiarism was actually just business as usual for the partnership that has formed between the food industry and a group of so-called "professionals" who are supposed to be giving us the benefit of sound, scientific advice on health and nutrition.
As I observed in that blog, "far too many registered dietitians and nutritionists are unduly influenced by industry groups and large food corporations that maintain a huge presence at their conferences with booths and seminars. (A recent one in California even had lunch catered by McDonald's!) The situation has become so embarrassing to some of the more conscientious members of this group that they've rebelled and formed their own group, Dietitians for Professional Integrity, as we reported here more than a year ago."
So what the AP has now reported should really come as no big surprise, but more like a confirmation of the collusion that's become so commonplace in the American marketplace that they don't even have to try to hide it anymore.
The 'brominated brothers': one partly down, one still standing
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 17, 2015
Next on the Food Identity Theft list of additives to avoid that comprise our annual countdown to "Read Your Labels" Day are the two we call "the brominated brothers" brominated vegetable oil and potassium bromate, which we've now moved down to the seventh and eighth positions.
Number 7: Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)
Ten months ago, much was made of a promise by the nation's two largest soft drink makers, the Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola companies, to drop brominated vegetable oil, the sole purpose of which is to keep certain kinds of beverages from appearing cloudy. The decision by the two companies to get rid of this unhealthy ingredient, which was already banned by the European Union, India and Japan, was a result of petitions launched on the website Change.org by Sarah Kavanagh, a Mississippi teen, that amassed more than 200,000 signatures and ensuing pressure from consumers, augmented by television's Dr. Oz, who called BVO his "number one shocking health threat in your food" The affected products include the soft drinks Fanta and Fresca, put out by Coke, and Pepsi's Mountain Dew and Amp energy drinks.
Following those announcements, we said BVO would remain on our list of the ten most undesirable food additives "for the time being, until it's actually been removed from the products in question."
So why are we still listing it? Well, because so far, those promises have only been partly kept.
While a scan of products in our local supermarket found no sign of BVO in any of the Fanta and Fresca varieties on the shelf (or in Coke's energy drink Powerade, the subject of another petition launched by Kavanagh), it was still listed as an ingredient in the popular soda brand Mountain Dew.
So once again, here's the "rap sheet on BVO:
It isn't just that BVO is used as a flame retardant, which Kavanagh noted in her petition and which alarmed a lot of consumers. This additive, which is used to keep beverages from appearing cloudy, accumulates in fatty tissue and has been shown to cause heart damage in research animals. In fact, it has never actually been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, where its status has been in limbo for more than three decades.
And if that's not enough, it was described by the website Marketing Daily as "a synthetic chemical formed by bonding vegetable oil to bromine," which is "a heavy, volatile, mobile, dangerous reddish-brown liquid," according to webelements.com.
Then there's this from the holistic website NaturalNews.com: "All bromines are endocrine disruptors (that) can also interfere with iodine absorption by the thyroid, breast tissue and prostate tissue, causing nutritional deficiencies which can promote cancer."
There's also a frightening bit of information that we featured in a blog post at the end of 2011:
"While the FDA has set a 'safe limit' for BVO at 15 parts per million, (an) Environmental Health News article describes several cases of bromine poisoning in humans following BVO-containing soda binges, including a 1997 report of 'severe bromine intoxication' in a patient who drank two or more liters of orange sodas every day."
In other words, this innocent-sounding additive is nothing that the FDA should ever have allowed to be added to beverages in the first place.
But despite its safety status having remained in limbo all these years — and a lawsuit that Citizens for Health Board Chair Jim Turner and Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), filed against the FDA to prohibit BVO use back in the 1970s – the federal regulators have still not taken steps to order its removal from food (or more specifically, beverages).
Number 8: Potassium bromate
Used to "improve" flour and make more uniform, attractive bakery products, potassium bromate (or bromated flour) has been on the list of carcinogens in California since 1991. And while many other countries have banned its use entirely, the Food and Drug Administration has merely asked the baking industry to voluntarily stop using it.
According to the American Bakers Association, if potassium bromate is used "properly" no detectable residues will be found; however, if too much is used, or any number of other procedures are not followed (such as proper temperature settings or baking time) a residue of this carcinogenic additive will end up in the finished product.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has also pointed out that FDA tests going back to 1992 and 1998 found levels of bromate in "several dozen baked goods" that would be "considered unsafe by the agency (FDA)." One sample, CSPI noted in a press release "had almost 1,000 times the detection limit."
In 1999 CSPI submitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration to ban this additive, saying that "The FDA has known since 1982 that potassium bromate can cause tumors of the kidney, thyroid and other organs in animals," with additional studies over the years all confirming its toxic properties.
While some commercial brands have replaced potassium bromate with other dough-enhancing additives, brominated flour is still widely used in restaurants and bakeries. General Mills, makers of Pillsbury and Gold Medal brand flours, offers no less than 22 different brominated flours at its "professional baking solutions" site. Bottom line: if a bakery can't tell you what ingredients it uses in making its cakes, cookies and bread, it's time to find another bakery. The oddest product that we found potassium bromate in – considering its big "benefit" is to promote yeast rising — was New York brand flatbreads.
Stay tuned for the rest of our Read Your Labels Day countdown – as well as a new addition to the list.
Cereal makers poised to ditch one of these two controversial preservatives
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 13, 2015
Here at Food Identity Theft, we consider the approach of our third annual "Read Your Labels Day" as an opportunity to both update you on any developments concerning our 10 top additives to be avoided and if necessary, to change the order of importance we're assigning them if we think it's indicated.
In the latter regard, the changes we're making this year include moving "trans fats," which was ninth on our list, much closer to the top (and also renaming the category "partially hydrogenated oil"), and moving the preservatives BHA and BHT to ninth place because of some encouraging new signs in the marketplace.
Number 9: BHA and BHT (Butylated Hydroxyanisole and Butylated Hydroxytoulene)
Just as artificial colors are in the process of being phased out by about the country's two biggest chocolate makers, Nestle's and Hershey's (as noted in our previous blog), one of the above named preservatives may also be on the verge of being dumped by two major cereal manufacturers, General Mills and Kellogg's.
As we noted a year ago, both BHA and BHT, which are banned in Japan and most European countries, have been found to alter brain chemistry in mice exposed prenatally. In fact, by adding these chemicals to its list of "eliminated" ingredients, the Feingold Diet almost doubled its success rate for treating kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)!
But, as in other instances, it wasn't until a contemporary champion of consumer advocacy, "Food Babe" Vani Hari, got involved with a petition on the Internet that things started to click in regard to anything being done by the industry to find replacements. As she pointed out, the fact that European versions of some of the top-selling cereals made by these companies don't contain BHT shows that it's not an essential ingredient.
Not that whether General Mills or Kellogg's will acknowledge that Hari deserves the credit or that "food safety" has anything to do with their reevaluation. A General Mills media relations manager is quoted as saying the company was "well down the path of removing it from our cereals … not for safety reasons, but because we think consumers will embrace it," while a spokesperson for Kellogg's has maintained that the company has been in the process of "actively testing" natural alternatives to BHT "to ensure the same flavor and freshness," adding, "we know some people are looking for options without BHT."
Both BHA and BHT, which are actually made from coal tar or petroleum, have been the focus of behavioral and health concerns for decades, although the Food and Drug Administration continues to allow the use of these industrial anti-oxidants in food products (as well as medicines and cosmetics).
Over 30 years ago studies found that after pregnant mice were fed BHT and BHA, their offspring were born with altered brain chemistry. According to the researchers, "the affected mice weighed less, slept less and fought more than normal controls." On top of that, BHA is considered a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization and listed as a carcinogen in California.
While there has been some controversy over how much BHT should be considered potentially carcinogenic, Hari wants to know why it's "OK for Americans to eat this risky chemical for breakfast when these companies have already figured out a way to make and sell their cereals fine without it?"
ADHD-linked artificial colors may be starting to lose their luster
Posted by Linda Bonvie -- March 10, 2015
The good news about artificial colors, tenth on our list of food additives to be avoided, is that they're now showing signs of fading from the food scene. That became evident just last month when the country' two best known makers of chocolate candy announced they were phasing such synthetic dyes out of their products.
First Nestlé USA announced its commitment to removing FDA-certified colors, like Red 40 and Yellow 5, as well as artificial flavors, from all of its confections. By the end of 2015, more than 250 products and 10 brands including such standard candy bar brands as Butterfinger, Crunch, Chunky, Raisinets, Goobers, Oh Henry and Baby Ruth candy bars. The products will begin appearing on store shelves by mid-2015. "We're excited to be the first major U.S. candy manufacturer to make this commitment," noted division president Dorren Ida.
Not to be outdone, Hershey's came out a few days later with its own 'clean-label initiative" that not only included a pledge to "transition existing products" to exclude not only artificial colors and flavors, but high fructose corn syrup (our number one additive to be avoided) as well.
Such movies have not only come about in response to consumer pressure, but from an acknowledgment by the Food and Drug Administration that at least 96 percent of children aged 2-5 years are being exposed to at least four artificial colors in food products – FD&C Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1. And that came six years after a petition was submitted to the FDA by the Center for Science in the Public Interest asking that nine such food colorings be banned — and that an interim warning label be posted on foods containing them that they "cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems in some children." (The agency's initial response to that and nearly 8,000 comments on the topic was to convene a Food Advisory Committee, which concluded there was not enough evidence to take regulatory action.)
But, as we reported here last September, research has increasingly demonstrated a connection between the consumption of synthetic food dyes and behavioral problems in kids. A few years ago, for example, studies were performed at Yale University's Department of Pediatric Neurology to determine the effects of five common synthetic food dyes on baby rats. Only unlike experiments that have used excessive amounts of substances in question, these used the equivalent of the "real world" exposures our kids have to these dyes. And the results were alarming – the rats became hyperactive and showed diminished learning ability.
Nor is this an effect that has been confined to lab rats. A couple years ago, a British study, published in The Lancet, which found that artificial food dyes increased hyperactivity in children, prompted the American Academy of Pediatricians to acknowledge a link between their consumption and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and to recommend parents try removing them from the diet of a child who suffers from the condition.
Or as we observed, the road to Ritalin could well be paved with all those FD&C's you see listed among the ingredients of today's processed food products. In fact, the link between food dyes (and certain other ingredients, as well as foods themselves) and behavioral problems in kids has been known for quite a while. It goes back to the 1970s when the late Dr. Benjamin Feingold, a California pediatrician and pioneer in the field of allergy and immunology, discovered the connection between what we eat and how it affects the way we feel and act. Since then, the Feingold Center he founded has helped scores of kids with hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder by eliminating certain additives from their diets – all without resorting to drugs such as Ritalin.
Of course, as in the case of other ingredients, European regulators have already beat us to the punch. Since 2010, they've required food products containing these unnatural hues to carry a warning label stating that consumption "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children."
But wait – there's more!
And hyperactivity isn't the only health problem that might be caused by these fake hues. Red dye No. 40, a petroleum derivative and the most commonly used artificial color, has been known to cause allergic reactions such as hives and swelling around the mouth, and is a suspected carcinogen. Yellow No. 5 (tartrazine) has been linked to chromosomal damage and may cause allergic reactions and migraines. Yellow No. 6 (sunset yellow), currently banned in Norway and Sweden, can cause gastrointestinal distress, swelling of the skin, nettle rash and migraines, and may also be carcinogenic. And Blue No. 1, or "brilliant blue," which has been banned in France and Finland, may trigger asthma, low blood pressure, hives and other allergic reactions. (It also caused serious complications and death in hospital patients when used in feeding tube solutions several years ago.)
But then, as we also previously noted, the entire history of artificial colors has been colored by controversy. While they may make products appear more attractive, they represent just the kind of chemical additives we should delete from our diets – something that's especially true for kids. But then, the fact that so many supposedly "harmless" coloring agents have been found to be otherwise is hardly surprising when you consider their origins and backgrounds. Many of the older dyes were made from coal tar – a thick, black liquid derived from, well, coal. (Now, does that sound like anything you'd like to ingest?) Some are still in use today, while many newer ones are petroleum extracts. They may also contain measurable amounts of toxic contaminants, such as lead, mercury and arsenic.
Stay tuned for more updates on our top ten ingredients to be avoided (along with an extra one) in advance of our third annual Read Your Labels Day April 11.