In this video, the host discusses ten foods that should be banned and the reasons behind their banning in many countries. Farm-raised salmon is mentioned as having higher levels of dioxins and PCBs than wild salmon, and its artificial coloring using synthetic astaxanthin from petroleum-based products raises concerns. Genetically modified foods (GMOs) are associated with more allergies and cancer, and their long-term effects are still unknown. Meat from animals fed ractopamine is banned in 160 countries due to contamination concerns. Foods containing bromine derivatives, food additives, and trans fats are also discussed as potential health risks. The host emphasizes the importance of consumer choices in driving change.
Key Insights:
- Farm-raised salmon, specifically, has higher levels of dioxins and PCBs, making it less healthy compared to wild salmon.
- GMO foods have been associated with more allergies, cancer, and digestive complaints, and their long-term effects are still uncertain.
- Meat from animals fed ractopamine is banned in 160 countries due to its health risks and contamination.
- Foods containing bromine or its derivatives can compete with iodine for thyroid receptors, leading to thyroid diseases and autoimmunity.
- Artificial food additives, including flavorings, sweeteners, and colorings, have links to allergies, hyperactivity, and behavioral changes.
- Azodicarbonamide (ADA), known as the „yoga mat compound,“ is used as a dough conditioner in foods and is banned in Europe.
- Olestra, a fat substitute, caused gastrointestinal issues and increased appetite and has been banned in Europe and Canada.
- Bovine growth hormones (rBGH or rBST) used in dairy cows have detrimental effects on their health, leading to mastitis and reproductive problems.
- Margarine, high in trans fats, is banned in many European countries due to its negative impact on health.
- Chemicals such as BHA and BHT, used as preservatives and flavor enhancers, are banned in the European Union due to their carcinogenic properties.
Transcript:
Hello Health Champions. What are the top 10 foods that should be banned? And why is it that all of these foods are banned in many countries but are still sold in the US.
Number one is farm-raised salmon, farm-raised fish in general, but specifically farm-raised salmon because the levels of dioxins and PCBs are much higher. PCBs are Polychlorinated Biphenyls and they can be as much as 10 times higher in farm-raised salmon because they grow up close to the land where there’s a lot more pollution than out in the ocean. The farm-raised fish are limited to what we feed them, which isn’t the best, and as a result, and because they don’t move much, they have lower omega-3 to omega-6 ratios. The fatty acids are not as beneficial as in wild and in the wild, they eat plankton and they get something called astaxanthins which have a pink pigment and that’s why the salmon gets that reddish color. But in the farm-raised version, they turn out gray and pale, so they make a synthetic astaxanthin from petroleum from coal products basically and they feed it to them, so it’s like an artificial coloring agent, and that’s one of the reasons that it’s banned in many countries. But fish farming is also really bad for the environment. These fish don’t move much, they’re in very close quarters, so they’re much more prone to infections and pathogens and parasites. So there’s a new epidemic of sea lice because of fish farming. Furthermore, they have to feed them more fish that they gather close to the coast, so there’s more risk of overfishing than if the salmon are free to eat on their own. And besides feeding them bad food because of the parasites, they also have to give them antibiotics and chemicals, and for all these reasons, farmed salmon is banned in Australia and New Zealand, and very recently Argentina became the first country to put a complete ban on not just the consumption but on all salmon farming.
Number two food that should be banned are any type of GMO foods. They are associated with more allergies and more cancer and more digestive complaints, but these GMO plants are bred to be more resistant so they can use higher levels of pesticides and herbicides, and therefore there is also the possibility of developing superbugs just like we have overused antibiotics and produced superbugs. Another reason is that we really have no idea what these things are going to do to us long term. Some research says that there are severe problems, other research says that they’re very safe, but it’s kind of split 50-50, and as usual with research, it depends on who pays for the research because if it’s favorable it’s going to get published, if it’s not favorable it’s going to get buried. Another problem is that food production is one of the most basic rights of any living thing on the planet, but with GMO, we end up concentrating all of the patents and all the copyrights and all the ownership in only six companies that basically own all the seeds for these GMO plants. For all these reasons, there are 19 out of 27 countries in the European Union who have mostly or completely banned GMOs, and even though there’s no conclusive evidence, they say that there’s an unfavorable risk-benefit ratio, so they say there’s enough question marks that we don’t even want to give this a try. We’d better be safe than sorry, whereas in the US they look at things a little differently, and maybe it’s because we have the best politicians money can buy.
Number three food that should be banned is any meat from an animal fed ractopamine. So this is a chemical that promotes lean muscle growth so they can make the animal grow faster with less feed and obviously increase profits. But this is actually banned in 160 countries, and as a result, there is no one in the world who wants US pork because it is very often tainted with this ractopamine.
Number four is any food or food additive that contains bromine or a derivative of bromine. And why is that such a big deal? Because we have an epidemic of thyroid disease, and iodine is specific for the thyroid, but bromine or bromide competes with iodine for those receptor sites, so it basically poisons the thyroid and is one of the reasons we have this thyroid epidemic. As a result of these foods being bromated or sometimes they call them brominated, we have hypothyroid cancer and autoimmunity on the rise. It’s been used in baking flour as a rising agent and dough conditioner, but it’s also used in a chemical where they combine it with vegetable oil and they call it brominated vegetable oil or BVO, and what it does is it helps keep the flavors in synthetic drinks suspended. So it’s added to a lot of things like Gatorade and mountain dew, and this has been banned in Europe and Japan for quite some time. But there is so much pressure on the whole global community that Pepsi Cola, who makes Gatorade in Mountain Dew, they agreed in 2014 to eliminate this, but then it still took six years to actually do it. And then, of course, when they did, they had to replace it with something else, so now instead, you can read on the label sucrose acetate isobutyrate. So the moral of the story is we probably shouldn’t be using any food products or drinks where they need to use that type of chemicals at all. Just stop it.
Number five is food additives. There are over 3000 different forms of artificial flavoring, artificial sweeteners, artificial coloring, and countries around the world are becoming more aware, more restrictive about this, especially the coloring because there’s such a close link to allergies and hyperactivity and behavioral changes. So because of that, these have been banned in some countries or in most countries in the European Union, they carry a warning label that it’s linked to behavioral changes. And this is mostly with the coloring. There are no bans against the flavorings and the sweeteners yet, but there’s a lot of debate and there’s a lot of increased scrutiny, so I believe that it’s just a matter of time until we’re smart enough to stop putting that stuff in food.
Number six is azodicarbonamide or known as ADA, and in food, it’s used as a dough conditioner and bleach, but it made some headlines recently known as the yoga mat compound. And a lot of people were wondering if this is used as a foaming agent to create things like a yoga mat, what is it doing in my food? They just weren’t real comfortable with that idea. And then they found out that it had made it into about 500 different foods, primarily bread products. Well, this harmful chemical has been banned in Europe for a while, and not only have they banned it in food, but they have banned it in foam food containers as well. Now, it’s still legal in the United States, but here’s an interesting thing. Because of this public pressure because of this attention in social media, where they associated it with a yoga mat compound, Subway and Wendy’s stopped using this chemical voluntarily. Why? Because of public pressure. So the manufacturers, the commercial companies, even if there’s no ban, they will listen if we put enough pressure on them. If it becomes embarrassing enough, or if they stand to lose money, they will change.
Number seven is Olestra, also known as Olean as a market brand, and it became quite popular in some fat-free snacks. And it’s one of these absurd ideas where you take something that is similar to fat, it has the mouth feel and texture of fat, but because we don’t want to absorb calories, we see that as a problem, we design something, we alter something at a molecular level to where the body rejects it. And it quickly lost popularity because there was a huge increase in gastrointestinal diseases and problems, increased explosive diarrhea, and an increase in appetite. So this was designed to help people not absorb calories. Well, the body is smart, it wants some calories, so it increased the appetite instead, and like many of these worst chemicals, it’s been banned in Europe and Canada, still sold in the US, but fortunately, there’s not much demand for it anymore.
Number eight item that should be banned is bovine growth hormones, we see them as rBGH or rBST, which stands for recombinant bovine growth hormone and the ST just stands for somatotropin, which is another word for growth hormone. So they’re the same thing, and what you’re going to find on a lot of dairy packages is this disclaimer. The FDA determined that there was no significant difference between milk from cows that were treated with rBST and those that were not. Now this is kind of interesting, I think „determined“ is pretty strong language, to me determine no significant difference. And here’s what you want to think about, just because they didn’t find any significant differences in that time span that they were studying, doesn’t mean that there were no significant differences. And you also want to keep in mind who is driving, who is lobbying for them to make certain decisions, and if you’re not very interested in finding something, you’re not very likely to find it. But even though they haven’t found anything definite for humans, there are plenty of problems for the cows. They have found hugely increased rates of mastitis, which is inflammation of the udders, they have foot problems, and they have reproductive problems. And this was enough for Europe to ban this hormone, this synthetic hormone in 1990, but in the US it’s still legal. But here’s where it gets interesting because there is voluntary labeling and every package I’ve ever seen has a label where it says „this milk comes from cows not treated with rBST“, but here’s what I’m wondering, if nobody wants it, if the consumers don’t want it, and it’s a strong enough public pressure that they put the labels on every product and no manufacturer admits to using it, then why is it still registered for sale in 20 countries, including the United States? And my thinking is that maybe they’re using it more than they want to admit.
Number nine thing that should be banned is margarine because through the processing of margarine they make something called trans fats, and that’s from partially hydrogenated oil. So when they take a liquid oil and they bombard it with hydrogen and high pressure and high heat, they solidify, they change the molecular structure, and it becomes a trans fat. So because this is so strongly documented to be like the worst idea for your health in every way, it has been banned in many, many European countries, and things like Ritz crackers cannot be sold in those countries, at least not the American version. In the US, however, we have to settle for certain labeling, which unfortunately is a loophole for these manufacturers. So oftentimes the label on the package will say „trans fat-free“, but really what they mean by that is that it has 0 grams per serving, and that 0 grams is rounded down. So if it’s 0.49 grams, it’s rounded to zero, and the manufacturer determines how big a serving is. So they can make the serving really small, have less than 0.5 grams, and still have 10 percent of this horrendous substance in the product. So what you really want to look for is don’t fall for the trans fat-free or zero grams per serving, you read the fine print on the label, and if it has „partially hydrogenated“ anything on the label, then that’s a bad sign.
And number 10 thing that should be banned is BHA or BHT. That stands for butylated hydroxyanisole or butylated hydroxytoluene, and these are chemicals used as preservatives and flavor enhancers. In the United States, these chemicals have made it onto a list called GRAS or generally regarded as safe, while in the European Union, they have been banned because they are a known human carcinogen. They promote tumors and they impair blood clotting among other things. But while it’s on the list of generally regarded as safe, BHA is also listed in a United States government report on carcinogens as „reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen“, and this was a clip from the New York Times. Now reasonably anticipated, what does that mean? Reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen, what on earth does that mean? The only thing I can come up with is they say „it can kill you, but just a little bit“.
So what can you do? Even though all these 10 items deserve to be banned today, we know that the people making the decisions tend to take their time, but manufacturers will respond the moment you stop buying their product. So you buy real food, you shop the periphery of the grocery store because that’s where the real food is. You stay away from the packaged stuff in the middle aisles, and you vote with your wallet. If you don’t buy it, they won’t make it.
