Paul Whaley posted this eye-opening news at the Health & Environment blog:
“Parabens … are widely used as preservatives in cosmetics… and have appeared in the news because of concern about their endocrine-disrupting potential, in particular their ability to mimic oestrogen…”
“However, people may be less aware of the use of parabens in foodstuffs, identifiable on labelling as additives E214-219. The most commonly-used parabens in food are methylparaben (food additive E218) and ethylparaben (E214)…”
I had no idea! And I’ve looked into a lot of contamination issues with foods! These are chemicals we wouldn’t normally think we are ingesting orally. Pesticides we now know about, some of us knew about phthalates, but parabens too?
Ok, it turns out some folks already knew, but only so far as those that are listed on labels, (and I haven’t bought much food requiring a label in years) but this new research shows them also appearing in foods that do not require ingredient labels! And these weren’t just the naturally occurring parabens, (as there are some, it turns out) but synthetic parabens were also found!
I recently wrote about other research that confirmed how commonly phthalates are found in supermarket foods, contamination from fragrance and plastic, but it seems we have more reasons to be careful about the foods and drinks we choose:
From the Abstract: “Parabens are esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid and are widely used as preservatives in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, including beverages”