MisFiT City Forum
Health Discussions => SayNOtoMSG.com :: To Your Health - Dedicated MSG Section => Topic started by: Sassafras on August 12, 2013, 12:18:35 PM
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Carrageenan is a very dangerous ingredient which is found in foods like ice cream, sour cream, cottage cheese, and coffee creamer. It's also found in chocolate milk.
Read: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401181/Is-Carrageenan-Safe.html
Keep up the good fight!!
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Sass
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I think it is time to quote from the article Sassafras cited.
"Carrageenan is a common food additive that is extracted from a red seaweed, Chondrus crispus, which is popularly known as Irish moss. Carrageenan, which has no nutritional value, has been used as a thickener and emulsifier to improve the texture of ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, soy milk and other processed foods."
Read what is quoted, "...no nutritional value," It is only used to thicken something...something that used to thicken on its own before the food industry started synthesizing ingredients.
"When I first wrote about carrageenan on this site 10 years ago, I reported that some animal studies had linked degraded forms of it (the type not used in food) to ulcerations and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. But around that time, a prominent researcher in the field, Joanne K. Tobacman, M.D., now associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, conducted studies linking undegraded carrageenan - the type that is widely used in foods - with malignancies and other stomach problems. (Degraded and undegraded carrageenan differ by molecular weight with undegraded carrageenan having the higher weight.)
Over the years Dr. Tobacman has published 18 peer-reviewed studies that address the biological effects of carrageenan and is convinced that it is harmful to human health. In April 2012, she addressed the National Organic Standards Board on this issue and urged reconsideration of the use of carrageenan in organic foods."
So, it not only doesn't have any nutritional value, it can cause damage to our body.
"In her presentation, Dr. Tobacman said that her research has shown that exposure to carrageenan causes inflammation and that when we consume processed foods containing it, we ingest enough to cause inflammation in our bodies. She explained that all forms of carrageenan are capable of causing inflammation. This is bad news. We know that chronic inflammation is a root cause of many serious diseases including heart disease, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and cancer."
And we don't have to consume a lot of it. Just depend on the food industry to include enough of it so we can get some pretty serious diseases.
"Dr. Tobacman also told the board that in the past, drug investigators actually used carrageenan to cause inflammation in tissues in order to test the anti-inflammatory properties of new drugs. And she reported further that when laboratory mice are exposed to low concentrations of carrageenan for 18 days, they develop "profound" glucose intolerance and impaired insulin action, both of which can lead to diabetes."
What Dr. Tobacman didn't tell us is that carrageenan was initially developed so the pharmaceutical industry could create Alzheimer and Parkinson disease type symptoms in lab animals and they could test their medications on these subjects. It must be quite a story of how this chemical traveled from a laboratory toxin to a food additive.
I suggest you do not use any food that has carrageenan in it. How much you ask me? According to Dr. Tobacman, "All told, I recommend avoiding regular consumption of foods containing carrageenan. This is especially important advice for persons with inflammatory bowel disease." I recommend something different. Eat no, none, zero, nil quantity of food that contains carrageenan and whenever you favorite ice cream, toothpaste, cottage cheese, etc contains it, write that letter to the company and demand they stop using it and write them again and again.
Keep up the good fight
Mick