Antifreeze in your ice cream ❄️

Ingredients scanner apps have become increasingly popular with concerned shoppers seeking the holy grail of shelf stable and non-toxic snacks.

However, these apps miss the unappetizing unlisted processes, ingredients and “processing aids” that are not required to be declared on labels.

If it is in a box or a bag, it came from a factory. Packaged food producers have a ton of wiggle room in regard to what is considered “food safe”

An ice cream with only whole-food ingredients on the label is perfectly within its rights to use propylene glycol, a common anti-freeze agent in ice creams, for example, simply because this is considered an “industry standard”.

See: Antifreeze in your ice cream

Table of Contents

• Release agents & processing aids

• Natural flavors

• Extrusion

• Irradiated Produce

• Mycotoxin Thresholds

• Organic Labels for Processed Foods

• What’s left to eat?

Release agents & processing aids

There are a laundry list of industrially-assistive compounds used in food factories to loosen up the gears and make things operate more smoothly.

It’s perfectly allowed for surfaces that food items come into contact with to be coated in petroleum products, vaseline, or liquid silicone since the amounts consumed are considered to be “negligible”.

Additionally, various substances can be added directly to food as “anti-foaming agents” (often seed oils).

Neurotoxic hexane used in all seed oil production would also fall in this bucket, and is regularly found in testable amounts, though below safety thresholds.

Natural flavors

Seemingly ALWAYS hiding out at the end of the ingredient label, from La Croix to Rx Bars are the mysterious black box of “natural flavors”.

A natural flavoring is defined by the FDA as "the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional."

Essentially as long as the input exists in nature, you can do basically anything to it to isolate a flavor molecule. These compounds often have a chemical taste to the astute palate, and only need to be GRAS-certified by the FDA, which is very lax.

Extrusion

Extrusion is a food processing method where ingredients are pushed through a machine that uses extremely high heat and pressure to cook and shape them.

Imagine squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, but with food ingredients being cooked and formed into shapes like cereal, pasta, or snack puffs. It's used to make a wide variety of foods such as breakfast cereals, snack foods, pet foods, pasta, and even some meat substitutes.

The forces in this process are so intense that it denatures proteins, destroys vitamins and gelatinizes the starches, turning foods into cookie-cutter crunchy shapes that are chemically unrecognizable.

This is not taken into account on ingredients labels, yet is a complete change in the chemical makeup of a food.

Irradiated Produce

Produce doesn’t need an ingredients label, but it should probably have a processing label. Irradiation is used to kill bacteria and extend shelf life, but it can also alter the nutritional content and flavor of fruits and vegetables. This process is not always disclosed to consumers.

See food irradiation

Mycotoxin Thresholds

Mycotoxins are toxic compounds produced by certain molds found in food. There are regulatory thresholds for mycotoxins in food products, but even "safe" levels can accumulate over time, posing health risks. This is particularly concerning for peanuts in particular

Organic Labels for Processed Foods

Organic labels on processed foods indicate that the ingredients were grown without synthetic pesticides or GMOs. However, the processing methods can still be extensive, involving high heat, pressure, and approved additives. This means organic processed foods can still be highly processed, despite the organic label.

Many artificial sweeteners are labeled “organic” because they come from corn or another natural ingredient, yet they are only produced in Chinese factories via a slew of highly complex chemical steps.

What’s left to eat?

All of this emphasized the importance of shortening your food supply chain. Even produce thats shipped internationally is far more likely to be hosed with preservatives and processed in some way than something from the farmers’ market.