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"Today's bipartisan vote marks a huge step forward in our effort to protect children and families in California from dangerous and toxic chemicals in our food supply. It's unacceptable that the U.S. is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to food safety. This bill will not ban any foods or products - it simply will require food companies to make minor modifications to their recipes and switch to the safer alternative ingredients that they already use in Europe and so many other places around the globe.Former Governor and sports and fitness icon Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently endorsed AB 418 in his daily Pump Club Newsletter, said:
"There's a readily available substitute for each of these ingredients. For example, sorbic acid is often used instead of propyl paraben, ester gum instead of brominated vegetable oil, and calcium carbonate instead of titanium dioxide.
"It's possible for companies to make a healthy profit without poisoning kids. In many cases they now have increased confidence from consumers who want to buy foods that are healthy."
"Things like this aren't partisan. They're common sense. I'm a small government guy. But I've also seen that sometimes, in a world where every big industry has an army of lobbyists, and our kids have no one fighting for them, government has to step in."AB 418 was amended in the State Senate to remove titanium dioxide from the list of banned additives and to delay implementation of the bill until 2027, thereby giving food companies more than enough time to negotiate new contracts and phase in new recipes.
"Everyone in that operating theatre got the shock of their life when the surgeon took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm. Even if you take away the yuck factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being,"
Comment: What foods are these dangerous ingredients in, and why?