Although the majority of the world has caught on the bad affects some food products have, Americans still consume them. There are many reasons behind this, the important thing is to spread the world and not jeopardize your health any further. These 10 foods are banned across the world, but Americans still eat them for some reason.
1. Farm-Raised Salmon
Salmon is amazing for pretty much everything, and it’s probably the healthiest fish on the face of the Earth.
However, farm-raised salmon is something that shouldn’t be consumed. Furthermore, salmon shouldn’t be farm-raised at all.
Farm-raised salmon is raised on an unnatural diet of grains (including genetically engineered ones) and are given a bunch of toxins, vitamins, drugs, antibiotics, and chemicals which are not safe for human beings.
Farm-raised salmon is fattier than wild salmon, but it also contains 50% less omega-3 fats and much less protein. It also doesn’t have the well-known pink-red color so it has to be fed with synthetic astaxanthin (made from petrochemicals).
2. Genetically Engineered Papaya
You might have thought that genetically engineered papaya can’t be that harmful, since it is fruit at the end of the day, and it’s not a living being whose meat is consumed.
However, that’s not really the case. Papaya, the popular, healthy, and absolutely delicious orange-yellowish fruit is loved by many, but due to the huge demands it is now genetically engineered.
In fact, most of Hawaiian papaya is now grown this way, so it can be resistant to the ringspot virus (which destroyed many US crops in the 90’s). Now that papaya is packed with GMOs, papaya isn’t as healthy as one would expect.
3. Ractopamine-Tainted Meat
Meat is just not how it used to be. There’s no guarantee anymore that what you’re buying is actually meat, at least a 100%.
Also, most animals get fed with certain drugs which affect their body in many ways.
Ractopamine is a beta-agonist drug for livestock, also known as Paylean, which gets fed to livestock so it will reduce the overall fat content of the meat.
It was originally used to treat asthma, but is now used as a muscle enhancer in the US. 45% of pigs, 30% of ration-fed cattle, and an unknown percentage of turkeys get fed with Ractopamine daily.
4. Flame Retardant Citrus-Flavored Drinks
Yes, you are reading this correctly. It does sound really strange and highly unorthodox, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in everyday soda production.
Brominated vegetable oil, which was originally patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant, is found in many citrus-flavored drinks and sport drinks produced in America.
It was approved by the FDA in 1977, and it has been shown to bioaccumulate in human tissue and breast milk, while it can also cause reproductive and behavioral problems in large doses.
It can be found in Gatorade, Fanta, Powerade, Mountain Dew, and many other sodas.
5. Artificialy-Colored Processed Foods
This one shouldn’t be a huge surprise, since you probably figured out a long time ago that many processed foods don’t naturally come in certain colors.
In fact, more than 3000 food additives (like flavorings, colors, preservatives, etc.) are added on a regular basis to many foods manufactured in the US, including infant foods and foods for younger children!
The most popular dyes are red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, and blue 2 and they can be found in everything from Mac and cheese, cheese flavored crackers, many cereals for kids, and even jell-o.
These additives have been linked to cancer, birth defects, behavioral problems, and allergy-like hypersensitivity reaction with kids.
6. Arsenic-Laced Chicken
If terms “chicken” and “arsenic” don’t sound good when used in the same sentence, what do you think they do when combined in your body?
Yes, it’s sounds awful, but it happens on a regular basis and you, as a consumer, keep on munching it like it’s no big deal.
Arsenic-based drugs are approved to be fed to animals in the US because they make animals grow quicker, while also making the animals’ meat look fresher and pinker.
If that sounds wrong to you it’s because it is. Even in this day and age, 70% of all broiler-grown chickens (around 9 billion of them per year) are fed Roxarsone, which is an arsenic-based drug.
7. Potassium-Bromate Bread
Next time you go out to get some bread or anything made with flour for that matter, think about all of the potassium you’re about to consume.
What does potassium have to do with bread, you might ask?
Well, surprisingly (or not, when you think about it), many breads, bagels, wraps, rolls, and plain old bread crumbs, are made with brominated flour.
Its name comes from its huge ingredient – potassium bromated. Many commercial baking companies use this flour because it, as they claim, “makes the dough more elastic and better able to stand up to bread hooks.”
Potassium bromated has been linked to nervous system and kidney damage, gastrointestinal discomfort, thyroid problems, and cancer.
8. Olean-Based Fat-Free Snacks
If you’re in the mood for some fat-free chips, you might want to reconsider your desire for it and choose a snack that doesn’t have harmful ingredients in it.
Many fat-free snacks are packed with olean (also called olestra) because it works as a fat substitute.
Approved by the FDA in 1996, it has been recently titles “one of the worst 50 inventions ever” by Time magazine.
It’s commonly used in French fries, chips, and many other potato-based snacks. Olean affects your weights, but it can cause much harsher problems like leaky bowels, cramps, diarrhea, and oily anal leakage. We guess you’re not in the mood for some fake fat anymore.
9. BHT And BHA Preservatives
Found in almost every food product on the planet, butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene are preservatives which are incredibly toxic.
This, of course, means that they are bad for you as bad gets.
They’re commonly used in many everyday food products, such as breakfast cereals, chewing gum, nut mixes, beer, meat, dehydrated potatoes, and butter spread.
BHA triggers allergic reactions and hyperactivity, while BHT can cause severe organ system toxicity. BHA has also been shown to cause cancer in rats, which means that it can also be a cancer-causing agent in humans as well. These preservatives have been banned by the European Union and Japan.
10. RBGH-Laced Dairy Products
We’ve got some bad news for all dairy fans out there. Many dairy products (and milk in general) are laced with rBGH – a synthetic version of a hormone produced in cows’ pituitary glands.
This synthetic version of natural bovine somatotropin is used to increase milk production. It’s developed from genetically engineered E. coli bacteria, commonly called Posilac.
All rBGH-injected cows suffer at least 16 different adverse health conditions, most commonly mastitis which contaminated milk with pus and antibiotics. rBGH is banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. One in every six cows in injected with growth hormones on a regular basis.
