Your ‘healthy’ food has a secret ingredient the FDA won’t tell you about

Most Americans assume the ingredient label tells the whole story.

But according to Ashley and Patrick Sullivan, creators of the documentary “Breaking Big Food,” that assumption is usually wrong — and they’re exposing one loophole Big Food uses to keep cheap but toxic ingredients hidden from the public.

“What would you say is maybe one ingredient that people don’t know to look for? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about seed oils and different things, but what would you say is maybe one that doesn’t get enough attention that people need to look out for?” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey asks.

“I think natural flavors can be tricky. Sometimes, they can be from naturally derived sources, but specifically if they are used in savory foods, a lot of times it can be code for MSG,” Ashley tells Stuckey.

MSG is monosodium glutamate, which Patrick explains is an “excitotoxin.”

At specific dosages, this acts as a neurotoxin to the brain.

“So think of like your Stove Top Stuffing kind of thing that has natural flavors. That ‘natural flavors’ is likely a monosodium glutamate,” Patrick says.

“You’re saying it could be in something that’s marketed as healthy, that doesn’t have any other bad ingredients, but it does have natural flavors, which honestly a lot of times I’ve kind of just resigned myself to being like, ‘Well, that’s the only thing in it then whatever,’” Stuckey says.

“But you’re saying it could be MSG,” she adds.

“Yeah, and that would be something that you kind of look at the FDA and say, ‘I think they’re asleep at the wheel here on yet another issue regarding food labeling,’” Patrick says. “I think most Americans want to know, they want to educate themselves. They want to feed their families healthy food.”

“And they’re sort of expecting the FDA, whoever is in charge of what is on the grocery store shelves, they kind of expect that the FDA has kind of done their homework,” he continues. “They’re sadly mistaken that there are loopholes like natural flavors.”

But it’s not just “natural flavors” that consumers have to worry about.

“There’s also the loopholes of like GRAS, ‘generally recognized as safe,’ where in America, you have to prove harm rather than proving safety,” Patrick says.

“So for the past 30 years, the FDA was overwhelmed, and they allowed Big Food to begin introducing new chemicals into the food supply that they allow the food companies to self regulate as well. We think that’s generally recognized as safe,” he continues.

“And as a result, you hear claims, I’m not sure if the number is correct, but there’s about 10,000 chemicals in the United States that are allowed to be used under generally recognized as safe principles,” he explains, adding, “And those same chemicals are not allowed to be used in Europe.”

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