The relationship between food waste and processed foods, as well as the connectedness of biotechnology with food affordability and accessibility, were just two of the thought-provoking topics during the 2020 Best Food Facts TASTE Tour.

This year’s tour went virtual, with the influencers involved in one of three video conferences. The discussions were:

• Sustainable Food with conversations about food waste, processed foods, biotechnology and food affordability
• Sustainable Egg Farming, providing dialogue on hen housing and impacts on animal well-being, food affordability and natural resources
• Sustainable Crop Farming with a focus on crop practices and environmental stewardship

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability. Learn more about the project.

“Our main concern with our food supply right now is the amount of waste that we have. We are wasting so much of our food,” Dr. MacDonald said during the conversation on sustainable food. Processing is one of the most effective ways to make our food system more resilient, she said.

“That’s not sustainable when you think about a third of the food that we produce is just going out into the trash. We have to balance this idea that processing is a negative. It really isn’t. If you process foods, they stay fresher longer. You don’t have to throw them away after a couple of days,” Dr. McDonald said.

Julie Tran Deiley, who blogs at The Little Kitchen, said the tour changed her perception about processed food.

“I feel like she’s right. It is essential to sustainability because if we only used fresh foods, we have more food waste,” Deiley said. “So that really opened my eyes and it made me think, well okay it’s fine that I use the processed foods in my cooking and my everyday life.”

Dr. MacDonald also talked with the influencers about chemicals used in food and the impact they have on making food more sustainable.

“We have used the FDA as our governing body for assessing what ingredients can go into food and which ones and how much they can be used in what kinds of food systems,” she said.

Sometimes people pick out a specific ingredient on a food label and avoid it because it is a chemical.

“But everything in food is a chemical. Something like tocopherol or arachidonic acid might sound like a really horrible thing, but both of those are essential nutrients,” Dr. MacDonald said. “So you can’t just automatically assume that because it has a chemically sounding name it’s somehow bad for me. Those ingredients all have a function in there and they’re used in a way that has been tested and shown to be safe.”

The insights struck a chord with Rachael Yerkes of Eazy Peazy Mealz.

“One of the things that she mentioned is that everything in food is a chemical, so when we look at a package of processed food and we see chemicals, we sometimes get like leery of that food. But that’s not something to be afraid of, because everything in the food already is a chemical,” she said.

Other experts who were part of the discussion were Jennie Schmidt, a registered dietitian and farmer from Maryland, and Amanda Moder, a registered dietitian with Hy-Vee.

The Cookie Rookie Becky Hardin said what she learned on the TASTE tour gave her confidence with her food choice.

“The FDA does approve all of those ingredients that are on shelf-stable foods so I can trust those. I don’t have to go through with a fine-tooth comb every single item that I buy. If I trust the brand and I trust the ingredients that I’m seeing, that’s a great thing and I can feed our family longer. We can feel good about doing that,” she said.

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability, an initiative of The Center for Food Integrity that supports understand and prioritize factors to decisions that are most sustainable. In addition to the tour, Best Food Facts examined sustainability impacts and the topics of grass-fed and grain-fed beef, pesticides and GMOs. Learn more about the project and read all of the influencers articles.

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The post made the statement that TBHQ is highly toxic and made from butane, a toxic gas used in lighter fluid. To find out the facts, we turned to one of our experts, Dr. Sean O’Keefe, a food science professor at Virginia Tech.

What is TBHQ?

Dr. O’Keefe explained it is a synthetic antioxidant that is added to foods to prevent or delay oxidation. Oxidation causes food to lose flavor quality, color and can even cause foods to become toxic. In addition, oxidation causes vitamins to break down, causing food to lose some of its nutritional value.

TBHQ, which stands for tertiary butylhydroquinone, is commonly used in foods such as crackers, microwave popcorn, butter and chicken nuggets. Dr. O’Keefe explains, “It is not made from butane, it does not contain butane but it does contain a tertiary butyl group.”

Science Blogs and Livestrong offer more insight into the chemical makeup of TBHQ and the mistaken connection to butane.

Is TBHQ toxic?

“When discussing toxicity, you need to look at the dose. Ethanol (which is found in alcoholic drinks) is toxic at high levels and can easily kill you by depressing respiration, but a glass of wine or two helps with relaxation,” Dr. O’Keefe said.

He went on to explain that research has shown that at high doses, TBHQ has been reported to have negative effects, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the amount of TBHQ that can be added to foods. He emphasized that the amount consumed in foods is well within the range determined to be safe by regulators. “Studies that show toxicity at very high levels are irrelevant and just obfuscate the safety issues with food additives. The FDA allows use of TBHQ at 200 ppm in the fat of many foods and it improves quality by delaying oxidation.”

TBHQ is banned in some countries, so is it dangerous?

“Different ingredients are approved in different countries, so the fact that some countries allow TBHQ and others don’t is not something I worry about. Canada allows cyclamates as artificial sweeteners but bans saccharine. The United States allows saccharine but bans cyclamates. This is nothing I worry about,” Dr. O’Keefe said.

A scientist at Michigan State University is researching a possible link between TBHQ and food allergies. “More studies are needed to see if there is a link in humans,” Dr. O’Keefe said.

TBHQ is new to most of us, but it has been used in common foods for decades and helps preserve the quality, safety and nutritional values of many foods we safely enjoy.

The post TBHQ: What is it and is it dangerous? appeared first on Best Food Facts.

How about the YouTube video showing a cheeseburger that’s four years old?

We reached out to Dr. Sean O’Keefe, a food science professor at Virginia Tech, and asked him why fast food doesn’t spoil.

Why doesn’t fast food spoil? Shouldn’t the bun and burger get moldy? Why don’t the fries spoil?

Dr. O’Keefe:

Fast food spoils the same as any other food. A couple of things about the fast foods in question make them less susceptible to spoilage. The high salt and low moisture contents in the fries and burgers keep them from mold growth. The bun, like most bread, has propionic acid added (a natural product from microbial action), which prevents mold for a long enough time until the moisture in the bun decreases to a point where mold will not grow. The burger patty has high salt and is dried during the cooking process. The fries have low moisture and high salt contents. So the combination of high salt and low moisture prevents spoilage.

It may not look like it, but #fastfood spoils just the same as any other food.
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If I cook a burger at home, will it spoil? Won’t the bun spoil?

Dr. O’Keefe:

Let’s define spoil. Foods deteriorate via a number of different mechanisms. Mold growth is one obvious way foods can spoil. I guarantee I can measure things like oxidation and lipolysis in the fries and burgers in those pictures and show that they are spoiled even though there is no obvious mold growth. If you cook a high fat, high salt burger at home in a thin patty and then leave it where it will dry out, I do not expect that it will get moldy quickly. That is not to say it is not spoiled – probably, pathogenic bacteria may have grown or other chemical reactions have occurred, resulting in spoilage.

The people aging these fast food products are doing so to try and paint fast food as unhealthy because they are full of preservatives. This is not correct. They are looking for mold growth as a measure of spoilage and mold does not grow at very low levels of available water.  Peanut butter does not get moldy because it has low available water, but it will definitely spoil if stored at room temperature in presence of oxygen (via oxidation reactions). Are these people spazzing out about peanut butter? I didn’t think so. If I let a hamburger bun dry out, it will never get moldy, as long as the available water level is low.

Should we be concerned about the food we eat from fast food restaurants?

Dr. O’Keefe:

Fast food can be part of a healthy diet, but you should not be eating fast food three times a day, seven times a week. Once in a while, as a treat, it is perfectly fine to eat fast food. But many fast food choices have high sodium and fat contents, and some fast food choices have extremely high levels of calories and fat. You should look at the caloric content information available at the restaurants and make menu choices based on that. Your normal diet should have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Does fast food contain a lot of preservatives?

Dr. O’Keefe:

Fast food is consumed almost immediately after cooking, so there is no logical need for preservatives. The reason the burger, fries and buns do not mold in those cases is that they have low available moisture and high salt (the fries and burger). Drying and salting have been used to preserve foods for many thousands of years. The fact that drying and salting prevent or delay mold growth is no surprise at all. Buns would probably have the same mold growth inhibitor used in most commercial bread, propionic acid. Propionic acid delays mold growth and is found naturally in things like Swiss cheese. So the short answer is no: fast food does not have more preservatives than any other processed food.

How long does fast food keep before it should be thrown out?

Dr. O’Keefe:

We separate foods into perishable, semi-perishable and non-perishable categories. Perishable would be things that require refrigeration. Semi-perishable are things like bread that are OK at room temperature but will get moldy eventually, and non-perishable are things like crackers that can stay many months at room temperature without spoiling. Fast food is a combination of perishable and semi-perishable items. You can store these at low humidity, allowing them to dry out, then leave them for months without growth of mold. But they would not be safe to eat.

You should treat fast food as any other food.  If you have a meat item, eat it immediately or refrigerate a day or two. Fries can be held longer because they have less free water than the burger patty (free water is needed for bacteria and mold growth), but they wouldn’t taste very good the next day, so why bother?

The people showing pictures of these burgers are trying to grind an axe and say fast food is full of preservatives and are therefore bad for you. The reason we don’t see mold is simply low moisture and high salt in the foods, something people knew would preserve foods many thousands of years ago – why should people be surprised at this today?

_{“Burger/Ink” by Christian Kadlubamizo is licensed under CC BY-SA.}

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