[nugator]

As a European I'm interested in knowing what most Americans thinks about this (their food has additives that is forbidden in Europe). Is there a feeling of Europeans being too cautious or would you like to have the same rules?

[tchaffee]

Having lived in both places for extended periods and observing that it's mostly America that has an alarming obesity problem, I think there is something to be said for simple foods that come out of the ground and aren't highly processed with chemicals. It's only a suspicion and I don't have proof. But even most of the packaged foods in Europe have a much simpler list of ingredients, all stuff you would recognize as basic ingredients you use at home.

[asveikau]

I think you will find both reactions here in the United States. I am strongly of the opinion that we have too many food additives and things like antibiotics in meat. I'm not alone in this. I know a lot of people on the other hand who hear phrases like "EU regulation" and as a knee-jerk reaction start rolling their eyes and mocking Europe and/or the concept of government. I guess short of that, you have people on this thread arguing that the specific additives are not a problem.

[Nasrudith]

The perception I'm aware of is that it is mixed in sensibility from early bans of carcinogenic while also including frustratingly absurd junk science bans and luddite paranoia over GMOs pushed by absurdly protectionist farmers who literally would riot over their neighbors one kilometer from the province border being given the right to use a name for identical food stuffs despite the climate and soil being identical - the whole division was literally political since ancient times.

The bit with dyes on kid focus issues for instance. That doesn't sound like a health effect - it sounds like kids being excited over bright colors as they are prone to be! It seems to fit so well with the suggestion bias of thinking kids were more hyperactive when they were given candy.

[opencl]

At least some of the bans seem overly cautious. For example looking at the first item on the list, KBrO3 aka potassium bromate used as a flour additive. KBrO3 is a demonstrated carcinogen but it converts almost completely to KBr during the baking process. Straight from the paper[1] that seems to have been the basis of the ban, "adverse effects are not evident in animals fed bread-based diets made from flour treated with KBrO3".

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/

[slavik81]

Lots of people eat raw dough. Licking the beaters is a tradition. If it's carcinogenic when uncooked, that really should have a warning so that people can ensure they prepare it properly. Though, apparently I don't need to worry about that, because it's banned in Canada.

[opencl]

The lowest dose found to have any effect in rats would be equivalent to eating ~5kg of uncooked flour per day, every day. I do not think many people eat anything remotely close to that amount of raw dough.

[code_beers]

In isolation, sure. How many of these little doses of toxins from hundreds of food additives does it take before the diet as a whole is toxic enough to have an adverse effect? Is anyone even watching the combinations found in typical diets?

[RyJones]

I kind of don't care. I don't think a lot about what's in what I eat beyond avoiding carbs and starch.

I prefer the way you order steaks in, at least, Holland and Switzerland. The steak comes with nothing - which is almost always what I want. In the US I have to explicitly ask for no potatoes, for instance.

[briandear]

If the bans are supported by reproducible, peer-reviewed science, then I obviously support them. But if the ban is a result of “possibility” as opposed to “proven,” then I feel that food bans have a way of becoming less about public health and more about politics. Grilled meat has carcinogens, but to actually get cancer from grilled meat, one would have to eat a hundred pounds a day (or some absurd equivalent.) I realize that grilled meat isn’t banned, but my point is, any substance can be harmful in large enough quantities and concentrations, but Europe bans some things that would have to be consumed in unlikely quantities before they’d be “harmful.”

There is a lot of “people have more allergies/obsessing/whatever than the old days,” and the assumption is that it’s because of the food, without actual science proving that’s the case; it’s just a hypothesis that doesn’t necessarily account for thousands of other variables.

People have more allergies now than they used to. Could that not be caused by more electromagnetic radiation? More TV watching? Typing more?

[lj3]

I would love to if the US had the same food quality laws that European countries have. By HN standards, I'm a right wing nutcase and am in favor of as small a government as we can stand, but our food is killing us.

Bread has sugar in it. If you want bread without sugar in it, you must either pay more for the organic stuff or make it yourself. If you want bread without any additives or preservatives at all, you must buy your wheat from outside the country. Wheat in the US is fortified with iron and vitamin B by law.

[maxerickson]

Starch is just polymerized sugar.

There's probably some room for slower digestion and absorption to matter, but calorie availability and density is likely the bigger problem then the exact nature of the calories.

[chrischen]

You can buy unflavored white/whole grain bread from all supermarkets.

[rleigh]

Sugar is in pretty much all bread. It's a matter of quantity.

I bake all my own bread. I use one level teaspoon of caster sugar in warm water to get the yeast going. You can add a bit more to get a harder crust on the bread. But this is so little, and it mostly gets used by the yeast, so that it has negligible effect upon the taste. Salt makes a vastly bigger difference.

I understand that much mass-produced bread in the US has greatly larger quantities of sugar in it. In the UK, this is only seen in "long-life" bread (which tastes terrible, and I don't know of anyone who buys it).

[kyriakos]

Bread has sugar in Europe too. You can choose a sugar free variety though easily.

[Markoff]

pretty sure sugar it's basic ingredient to make bread even in Europe to help yeast in warm water by my small experience with baking bread and going through tons of recipes

also what's wrong with iron and vitamin?

[tptacek]

"Bread with sugar in it" isn't banned in Europe.

[kyriakos]

I believe the difference is that you can buy bread without sugar without resorting to overpriced organic bread.

[RyJones]

Indeed. It's everywhere.

[kortilla]

So do you propose that bread with sugar be banned?