This day in age, it pays to check the label before you decide to chow down on anything. Manufacturers are often found using questionable ingredients that could be harmful to your health. Some of the products we see on grocery store shelves end up being banned because of their ingredients. But there are lots of things being sold for consumption in the U.S. that are banned in other countries.
Here are 10 products that were banned because of their sketchy ingredients:
1) Hormone Filled Milk
Countries like Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan, Australia, and 29 other places in Europe have put restrictions on the sale of milk. Many farmers will pump their cows full of hormones so they produce more milk. Recombinant bovine growth hormone rBGH and recombinant bovine somatotropin rBST, a synthetic version of bovine growth hormone, are banned in many countries because of their alleged impacts on human and bovine health or for economic or technological reasons, according to ABC News.
2) Kinder Surprise
Kinder Surprise is beloved by children everywhere because they are a toy and candy wrapped in one. But they were once banned in the U.S. A 1938 law banned the selling of food products that contained nonedible elements in it. But since Kinder Surprise is sold as a cultural food item and circumvent the importation law.
3) Olestra or Olean
Olestra is a fat substitute that is banned in the U.K. and Canada. Olestra is banned on the basis that it depletes fat-soluble vitamins and carotenoid which prevents us from getting the nutrition we need.
4) Farmed Salmon
Salmon that is grown in a farm setting instead of the wild are often fed an unnatural diet which includes grains and antibiotics. This makes them turn grey. To give them that pink color, the fish are given synthetic astaxanthin made from petrochemicals. Fish that are given this are banned in Australia and New Zealand.
5) Potassium Bromate/Bromated Flour
Potassium bromate is put in flour to strengthen dough and is also put in vegetable oil. It is banned in Europe, Canada, and China. As for the rest of the U.S., manufacturers say that it disappears when baked. California requires products with potassium bromate to be labeled.
6) Ractopamine Fed Meat
The European Union, China, and Taiwan don’t allow the sale of meat from animals that were fed ractopamine. It is associated with cardiovascular problems and causing hyperactivity in humans and pigs. About 80 percent of farmed pigs in the U.S. are fed the drug, according to Fox News.
7) Azodicarbonamide Baked Goods
Azodicarbonamide is a chemical that bleaches flour and is used to improve the machinability of the dough. It has been associated in some countries with asthma. Though it’s banned in Australia, the U.K., and several European countries, the U.S. allows up to 45 parts per million in food.
8) Food Dye
Some of our favorite foods are packed with coloring agents that are banned in countries like Norway and Austria. The European Union requires a warning notice on boxes of food with artificial flavors. Dyes blue#1 and #2, yellow #5 and #6, and red #40 have been linked to behavior problems, cancer, birth defects and other problems in lab animals. The yellow #6 found in boxed macaroni and cheese are said to cause hypersensitivity, according to Fox News.
9) Foie Gras
Places like California, Italy, India, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Isreal, and Germany have either banned or place restrictions on foie gras because of the inhumane way it is produced. The French delicacy is made by force-feeding a duck with tubes in order to enlarge the liver 10 times larger than its normal size.
10) Sassafras Oil
Sassafras oil is the main flavoring ingredient to an authentic root beer, but the modern-day version of root beer uses artificial flavoring since sassafras oil is banned in the U.S. It is considered to be a carcinogen and linked to liver damage. It has also been used as a hallucinogenic drug like MDMA.
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