TBHQ, tert-Butylhydroquinone – You might have noticed this new chemical in some food you buy and eat. It's a new food preservative being used, I presume, to replace or help lower the amount of hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils already being used. As you know, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils decrease good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol – a double whammy. (I avoid these foods like the plaque wherever possible.)
Anyway, butane (yes, that's lighter fluid) is used in the production of TBHQ and comes from natural gas and crude oil. Yuck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tert-Butylhydroquinone :
"In high doses, it has some negative health effects on lab animals, such as precursors to stomach tumors and damage to DNA.[1] A number of studies have shown that prolonged exposure to TBHQ may induce carcinogenity.[2] Other studies, however, have shown inhibition against HCA-induced carcinogenesis (by depression of metabolic activation) for TBHQ and other phenolic antioxidants."
Maybe it's just me, but I thought that food production was efficient to the point of no longer needing questionable preservatives. If I buy cookies, I know they wont last more than 2 weeks before they're eaten. So that brings the question, just how long are these foods sitting around before they are sold to the public? Months, years?
It's bad enough knowing what can go into the production of flour, eggs, butter, and sugar (very basic cake ingredients) let alone adding man made chemicals for the sake of making money.
