Newsom signs bill to make California first state in nation to ban "toxic" food additives

Ahhh but I don't have enough cancer yet :( On a serious note, sometimes people shit talk California but they have a massive economy and when they do things like this it has a huge positive benefit for the entire country. Most companies will just reformulate instead of having California specific products so everyone benefits.

Kinda weird this has to be done at the bill level, there isn't a health agency that monitors these things and bans as necessary?

the fact that its

... "toxic" food additives

and not

... "toxic food additives"

makes me think the one who made the title inserted their opinions.

Since the article didn't list many examples, I looked them up.

brominated vegetable oil- used in sodas, usually citrus flavored ones
potassium bromate- look out for this in breads
propylparaben- used in packaged baked goods, mostly pastries and tortillas
red dye No. 3- aka Erythrosine, its a pink dye, so watch out for that ingredient in any pink foods

and lastly to cover all bases:
titanium dioxide- its a white dye, so watch out for that ingredient in any white foods

For anyone interested in trying to avoid bad stuff, there’s this free app called Yuka I’ve been using for a year or so now where you can scan foods and other products and it gives them a score and a comprehensive breakdown of the additives and overall health of the food with linked sources.

If the food conglomerates are whining then there is truth to the legislation.

Well this follows the example of Europe, UK and Canada on dealing with toxic ingredients.

Work for a food company dealing with fallout from this, all of our strawberry products have red #3 in it and there’s alot of discussion swirling around this (though none of the stuff I personally work on is affected, so I’m not privy to any specifics). For whatever reason, they’re not going with any alternative red dyes (cost is a probable factor), so we’re just going to have not-pink strawberry stuff. Though I think there was quite a bit of market research done and alot of people just preferred not having any sort of coloring added. So then we have to wrestle with the packaging because how do you convey that this vanilla-looking food is actually strawberry-flavored? It messes a bit with the packaging we already had, but whatever. I imagine food companies all over the place are dealing with this same question.

The bromate ingredients are only dangerous if the factory fucked up during production as well. If they're doing their job correctly, there is no bromate in your food.

It's sort of like how you don't have to worry about food poisoning from chicken when it's cooked through, even though it's not recommended to risk eating the raw stuff.

No idea about the other two banned ingredients, but the risk seems pretty low for these at least. I wouldn't bother throwing food away over their presence, personally, but that's just me.

Edit: too tired

Well great. If I can't count on my food choices to kill me some day, what am I even eating food for. At least saturated fats are still legal.

Welp, I’m gonna check my pantry now for any of these ingredients.

I hope it won't go the way of the "may contain carcinogens" warning label.

Wait so eating titanium is ok still?

This is the right move, I just wish it was done decades ago when we knew these additives were problematic. Like how many lives have been impacted since we knew? I wish karma was a thing as those who knew and carried on as is, have blood on their hands.

Peeps.

Why did it have to be peeps.

Dissapointed that I don't see Olestra on that list.

Permanently Deleted

The law will take effect Jan. 1, 2027, and impose fines of up to $10,000 for violations.

Start stockpiling your “original peeps” now