Free Republic

Give us this day our daily foam expander. It may sound odd, but in America, your loaf of bread can contain ingredients with industrial applications – additives that also appear in things like yoga mats, pesticides, hair straighteners, explosives and petroleum products. Some of these chemicals, used as optional whiteners, dough conditioners and rising agents, may be harmful to human health. Potassium bromate, a potent oxidizer that helps bread rise, has been linked to kidney and thyroid cancers in rodents. Azodicarbonamide (ACA), a chemical that forms bubbles in foams and plastics like vinyl, is used to bleach and leaven dough...

We often think of food additives as complex chemical substances produced by modern society. However, food additives date from ancient times. Early people used salt to preserve meat and fish, herbs and spices to season foods, sugar to preserve fruits, and vinegar to pickle cucumbers. Today American food manufacturers use about 3,000 direct food additives. Some of these additives sound familiar: salt, sugar, yeast and vanilla. Others have complex scientific names that may sound unfamiliar: ascorbic acid, butylated hydroxyanisol (BHA), sodium benzoate, sodium erythorbate and carrageenan. Whether familiar, all food additives are useful and must be approved by the Food...

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...