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What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

nytimes.com

111–120 of 130 posts

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#111

Anytime we talk about "banning" something I prefer a very conservative approach (conservative as in let's not ban things unless we are really sure). We are constantly learning new things that upend what we used to accept as science regarding nutrition and how the human body works. I think we do ourselves a disservice sometimes by banning things that we don't understand (and sometimes we think we understand but really…

I wonder if the citrus is that the land were the groves are farmed has been saturated year after year with pesticides. In addition the fruit is less dense in nutrients, less nutrients in the soil, might lead to the plants trying to use the pesticides in the place of standard nutrients? Very wild hypothesis

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying hamburgers are allowed, you just can't have any ground beef in them. Haggis is made from sheep's lung - that's what it is. They just do a phony version for the Americans and call it haggis anyway.

I believe I understand your viewpoint. Here's further commentary on the US version of haggis - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21128089 - and Canadian - https://www.macleans.ca/culture/the-lung-debate-over-authent... . I do not agree with your analogy. People do refer to "vegetarian hamburgers". For examples, https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Vegetarian-Hamburgers-626992?p... and https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserRev…

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Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#113
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people eat raw dough. Licking the beaters is a tradition. If it's carcinogenic when uncooked, that really should have a warning so that people can ensure they prepare it properly. Though, apparently I don't need to worry about that, because it's banned in Canada.

The lowest dose found to have any effect in rats would be equivalent to eating ~5kg of uncooked flour per day, every day. I do not think many people eat anything remotely close to that amount of raw dough.

In isolation, sure. How many of these little doses of toxins from hundreds of food additives does it take before the diet as a whole is toxic enough to have an adverse effect? Is anyone even watching the combinations found in typical diets?

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#114
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to prove that a food item is safe. The two categories are known to be bad and not know to be bad.

We’re pretty sure that wheat is safe, right? We don’t have a proof in a mathematical sense but it’s clear that wheat is ok to eat.

shrugs 30 years ago, everybody would have agreed that bread is safe. Now: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/295235.php

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#115
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely it makes more sense to be cautious about the things we ingest.. Completely agree > If you aren't sure, then I don't think I get the logic on the default being "okay, feed it to your kids!". False dichotomy. I don't think the choices are either "ban it" or "okay, feed it to your kids!" There's a middle ground there that I think makes more sense.

What’s the middle ground you are referrring to? Don’t feed it to kids but feed to adults? If you don’t know something is safe for consumption then it shoulnd’t be sold, right?

Isn't that what we do for alcohol? We already tried prohibition. It didn't stick.

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raw milk cheese is a classic

Raw milk cheese is not banned in the US, in fact it has a specific exemption in the federal law regarding unpasteurized milk. Further, those laws only apply to transportation across states, so you can legally buy raw milk within most (all?) states.

> For now, these are the states that allow the sale of raw milk at retail stores: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Vermont

https://www.epicurious.com/archive/blogs/editor/2014/04/wher...

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#118
post #25
post #7

As a European I'm interested in knowing what most Americans thinks about this (their food has additives that is forbidden in Europe). Is there a feeling of Europeans being too cautious or would you like to have the same rules?

I would love to if the US had the same food quality laws that European countries have. By HN standards, I'm a right wing nutcase and am in favor of as small a government as we can stand, but our food is killing us. Bread has sugar in it. If you want bread without sugar in it, you must either pay more for the organic stuff or make it yourself. If you want bread without any additives or preservatives at all, you must b…

Bread has sugar in Europe too. You can choose a sugar free variety though easily.

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#119
post #42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to if the US had the same food quality laws that European countries have. By HN standards, I'm a right wing nutcase and am in favor of as small a government as we can stand, but our food is killing us. Bread has sugar in it. If you want bread without sugar in it, you must either pay more for the organic stuff or make it yourself. If you want bread without any additives or preservatives at all, you must b…

"Bread with sugar in it" isn't banned in Europe.

I believe the difference is that you can buy bread without sugar without resorting to overpriced organic bread.

Re: What Foods Are Banned in Europe but Not Banned in the U.S.?

#120
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washed eggs (required in the US) vs unwashed eggs (required in Europe)

Interesting, never knew there was a difference. Just looked it up: in EU chickens are vaccinated against salmonella and the US not. But cleaning them does make the eggs vulnerable due to removing the outer protective layer. Hence they need to be refrigerated. Still strange though every fridge I know comes with a egg basket though nobody I know in the Netherlands puts their eggs in the fridge.

Netherlands may not be hot enough but in Cyprus for example we store our eggs in the fridge or they go bad much sooner.
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