Stop Worrying About
the Wrong Things!
by Ann Enverga
Propylene glycol
is present in many foods that are consumed daily, such as frostings, candies,
baked goods, alcoholic beverages, sweeteners and many more. It helps make food
taste good as it distributes the flavor evenly in the product and allows the
flavor to last for a long period of time.
It also absorbs water that helps food products maintain their moisture. In addition to food products, propylene
glycol is also used in pharmaceutical, cosmetic products and vehicles. It has
been proven to be safe to use for more than 50 years. But 50 years of proven
safety doesn’t seem to be enough to silence the voices of those who want to ban
propylene glycol. Since it is used in cosmetics and vehicles, many fall under
the impression that it is dangerous and should not be consumed. Is this also
saying that since water is used in motor vehicles or cosmetic products, it shouldn’t
be consumed as well?
Various
websites have deemed propylene glycol as unacceptable. Food
Babe believes that it makes logical sense to add it on the list of
unacceptable ingredients. Saveourbones
website placed propylene glycol in their “worst offenders” ingredient list due
it being present in motor vehicles as antifreeze, which prevents vehicles from
freezing during the winter. This
antifreeze property can also be applied in food. For instance, propylene glycol
is used in ice cream to prevent it from being too icy when stored in the
freezer. Saveourbones
website claims that with Americans eating ice cream 5 times more than they did
50 years ago, the long term effects of propylene glycol can kill a person
slowly. Moreover, the Healthy
Home Economist website claims that propylene glycol causes heart, kidney
and brain damage. It is also contaminated with ethylene oxide, which causes
development delay and cancer.
The
Environmental
Protection Agency states that propylene glycol is a type of antifreeze that
is less toxic compared to ethylene glycol, which can damage the internal organs
when inhaled. The LD50 (dose to kill 50% test sample) of ethylene
oxide is 4.7g/kg body weight in rats while propylene glycol is 20g/kg body
weight in rats. These values can be compared to the LD50 of table
sugar, which is 29g/kg body weight in rats. Propylene glycol has a closer value to the LD50
of table sugar than ethylene glycol. Since ethylene glycol is a toxic
antifreeze, it made some people to believe that all antifreeze products are
toxic. The FDA
categorizes propylene glycol as a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)
ingredient. This means that the risk of propylene glycol toxicity is very
low. It takes about 6g per kg body
weight to cause acute toxicities in the body. This means that a 70kg person
will need to consume about 420g of propylene glycol, an amount that does not
even exist, since it is added in very small amounts in food products.
Furthermore, once ingested, it is quickly removed from the body and does not
accumulate.
Despite
the proven safety of propylene glycol, many believe that it is harmful since it
is used in cosmetic products and motor vehicles. Just because it is used in a
non-food product doesn’t make a substance toxic. It is the dose that makes a
substance toxic, similar to medicine. In
reality, when is the last time one has heard of propylene glycol poisoning?
There are more important issues to be concerned about instead of an ingredient
in a food product that actually makes food taste good. How about foodborne
diseases? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 1 out of 6
Americans get ill from foodborne diseases. 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000
die from these diseases. Most of these were caused by improper handling or
cooking preparations, such as undercooking food, that lets disease causing
microbes, called pathogens, survive in the food. In fact, a co-worker of mine
was absent for a week due to salmonella from eating unwashed grapes. Isn’t this
a more important issue to be concerned about? Besides pathogens, food allergies
cause more than 300,000 visits in ambulatory care for children under 18 years
of age (CDC). How about malnutrition (over and under
nutrition), poverty and hunger? Poor areas around the world don’t even know or
worry about propylene glycol because they are busy worrying about their next
meal in order to survive. We need to focus more on the important things in life
that affect our health. There is a need
for re-examining what the real concerns are in the food industry as well as the
need to increase the trust of the organizations that safe guard the food
system.
