The confectionery industry is aware of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) recent petition to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to ban artificial food dyes linked to behavior problems. CSPI’s petition asks the FDA to require a warning label on foods with artificial dyes while it consider CSPI’s previous request to ban the dyes outright. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains that these food dyes are safe.
Food colors, both artificial and natural, are used in many food products, including some candies. All food colors used in …

Every day we are bombarded with information about food products that are healthy, all natural, have no artificial ingredients, no preservatives, low fat, no fat, no cholesterol, sugar free, vitamin fortified and provide 100% of your daily vitamin requirements. Are these foods as healthy as the advertising tries to make us believe they are?
Let’s look at the facts. There are more than 3000 different chemicals added to our food. The company that wants to produce the chemicals or use the chemicals in the foods they produce usually does the testing …

Sometimes you get a little more than you bargained for with your kung-pao chicken or your sugar-free pudding.
Namely: additives.
For some people, these instigate headaches, allergy-like reactions or even heart palpitations. See if these ingredients are the culprits:
Sulfites: Sulfur-based additives used mainly to prevent darkening of light-coloured vegetables and fruits, and to stop the growth of microorganisms in fermented products, such as wine. Some people have allergy-like reactions to them that can be life-threatening. Fortunately, the label is required to tell you that sulfites are present.
Aspartame: This no-calorie sweetener is associated …

The Food and Drug Administration today has seized products from a company that makes heart pills and other drugs which in the past have been found to be over-sized and carry potentially deadly overdoses of active ingredients.
Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories Ltd is accused of repeatedly failing to conform to the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practices, which are rules designed to assure that manufactured drugs are safe. Federal marshals, under the direction of the FDA, raided three Caraco facilities in Michigan, seizing drugs and drug ingredients held there, officials said.
“The FDA is committed …

Bartenders don’t differentiate between the three kinds of mix. We simply don’t have the space and use one mix for everything. But for the home bartender; is there really a difference?
Of course, the manufacturing companies want you to believe that margarita mix is only for margaritas, collins/sour mix is only for collins/sour drinks and sweet n sour mix is for, well, everything else. The truth is, regardless of what the label reads there are really only two categories of mixer: sweet n sour and sour.
 
Whichever bottle you pick up, if …

Food ingredients Asia-China opens in Shanghai today and the foodingredients industry will be there. After the unprecedented success of the2008 show, Food Ingredients (Fi) Asia-China will once again run alongsideHealth ingredients (Hi) and Natural ingredients (Ni), as well as CPhI, P-MECand ICSE, on 23-25 June, 2009 in Shanghai, China.
Ingredients for Healthy Living
The success of the show underscores an increasing interest in health andnatural ingredients. By running all three ingredient shows simultaneouslyunder one roof, organiser United Business Media (UBM) says exhibitors willbenefit from unrivalled visitor numbers, while visitors will have access …

Drink a diet soda and get a headache. Sip a cup of tomato soup and suddenly you feel numbness in your arms and back. You wolf down a small bag of chips and later get a stomach ache.
It is believed that since World War II more than 80,000 new man-made chemicals have been created. These chemicals are used in our cars, homes and on our jobs. But many of them appear as additions to our foods. Research has suggested that many of these food additives are making us sick.
Along with …

There are several food ingredients that are best to avoid as they offer no nutritional value and may be detrimental to your health. Reading the list of ingredients on pre-packaged foods should be the first thing you do when deciding if a product is worth buying.
A basic rule of thumb for choosing food products is if there are ingredients that you are unfamiliar with or cannot pronounce then the product is best left on the shelf. Typically, the least amount of ingredients a product contains, the better it is. Products …

Reuters reports that Starbucks Corp, which has tried for years to jump-start a much-criticized food division, plans to revamp its menu at the end of this month to lure health- and cost-conscious consumers.
On June 30, the world’s top coffee chain will begin selling baked goods without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial flavors and dyes, and will introduce salads and other items.
“Food has been the Achilles’ heel of the company … That statement will be long buried after we launch this program,” Michelle Gass, Starbucks’ executive vice president of marketing, told …

As part of its efforts to improve the quality of medicines and food ingredients worldwide, the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention this week reached three new cooperative agreements with Chinese drug control authorities. Because Chinese manufacturers supply so much of the world’s drug and food ingredients, these agreements—coupled with three previous agreements between USP and other government organizations in China—mark a significant commitment to ensure that concerns about quality are addressed. USP is a scientific, nonprofit organization that sets standards for the quality of prescription and over-the-counter drugs that are enforced …