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

nytimes.com

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

#51

Post by manicdee »

freedomben wrote: post #22
DRW_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 reall…

> 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.

Is the middle ground “feed it to someone else’s kids”?

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

#54

Post by ilikehurdles »

kortilla wrote: post #23
orf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a disservice to demand we are sure something won't harm us before we build and industry around it? Can you name any specific items that you feel it was a disservice to ban, and say why?

Many of these food tech choices are the difference between more starvation and high enough yield to feed poor people. If we farmed the way we did 100 years ago, there would be mass starvation. The yield just isn’t there. The FDA faces the same ethical dilemma every time they decide on new drugs. A slow approval process is literally letting people suffer and die in exchange for trials with more certainty. The old FDA…

If the cause of starvation were under-production, I’d sympathize with this argument. But given the amount of food waste in Western countries, I’d say the real issue is one of distribution or access. Producers make production efficient not in order to feed the poor, but to increase margin by lowering the costs of production.

Growth hormones exist to make the agriculturist more money, they don’t help feed a war torn country.

If the priority of these systems were solving hunger, we’d disincentive meat and dairy production and incentivize high nutritious vegetarian production.

When we’re dumping corn into salmon feed, sugars, and vehicle fuel, I can’t fall for the idea that food is constrained by supply.

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

#55

Post by kortilla »

lj3 wrote: post #25
nugator wrote: 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…

So do you propose that bread with sugar be banned?

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

#56

Post by RyJones »

nugator wrote: 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 kind of don't care. I don't think a lot about what's in what I eat beyond avoiding carbs and starch.

I prefer the way you order steaks in, at least, Holland and Switzerland. The steak comes with nothing - which is almost always what I want. In the US I have to explicitly ask for no potatoes, for instance.

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

#57

Post by Nasrudith »

nugator wrote: 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?

The perception I'm aware of is that it is mixed in sensibility from early bans of carcinogenic while also including frustratingly absurd junk science bans and luddite paranoia over GMOs pushed by absurdly protectionist farmers who literally would riot over their neighbors one kilometer from the province border being given the right to use a name for identical food stuffs despite the climate and soil being identical - the whole division was literally political since ancient times.

The bit with dyes on kid focus issues for instance. That doesn't sound like a health effect - it sounds like kids being excited over bright colors as they are prone to be! It seems to fit so well with the suggestion bias of thinking kids were more hyperactive when they were given candy.

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

#58

Post by CorvusCrypto »

nugator wrote: post #9
chrisseaton wrote: post #5

And of course some foods are banned in the US but not Europe.

Do you have any examples? (Genuinely interested)

Horse meat, anything deemed unsanitary like haggis (edit: think like scottish-made haggis, meaning containing "unsanitary parts" like lung), unpasteurized milk (though some states override this). I think banana tree oil and sassafras oil are allowed in EU as well but are banned in US due to links to cancer.

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

#59

Post by Someone1234 »

applecrazy wrote: post #41
Someone1234 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinder Eggs aren't banned in the US, Kinder Surprise is. Even Costco sells Kinder Eggs.

There are two types of Kinder Eggs: Kinder Surprise[1] and Kinder Joy[2]. Kinder Surprise is banned in the US because it contains "non-nutritive objects" inside the egg. Kinder Joy packs the toy separately and has been sold in the US since 2017. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Surprise [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Joy

The person I responded to said "Kinder Eggs." Which they do in fact sell in the US, and this distinction doesn't change that.

If they had wished to say Kinder Surprise, they could and should have done so.

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

#60

Post by freedomben »

skh wrote: post #48
will4274 wrote: post #27

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.

Actually, no, there's plenty of people that believe wheat not be safe. Obviously this is true as well if you have Celiacs, which also wasn't widely known until relatively recently.
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