What is Trisodium Phosphate doing in thousands of consumer products, including kid’s cereals?
Did you know Trisodium Phosphate (also known as TSP) is an additive and flavor enhancer found in thousands of frozen and processed foods including processed meat, processed cheese, commercial bakes and goods, canned foods, nutritional supplements, and even kids cereals?
Trisodium Phosphate is found in other consumer products including toothpastes, baby toothpastes, shampoos, mouthwash, cosmetics, hair coloring and bleaching agents.
When I looked at the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) to learn more about TSP, I realized that it used to be an ingredient inside industrial cleaners until EPA and OSHA found it too toxic for employees.
Amazingly, Trisodium Phosphate currently used as an industrial paint thinner is used inside children’s breakfast cereals in stores like Trader Joe's.
Trisodium Phosphate is an inorganic salt commonly used by construction workers and developer, but most parents who buy breakfast cereals for their kids, don’t expect to find TSP as an ingredient in cereals of stores like Trader Joe's that offer people a higher quality of food.
A concerned mother writes that she contacted General Mills to find out what TSP is doing inside her kids cereals. Here is what General Mills had to say:
"TSP is used as a buffer to adjust the acidic nature of the cereal dough. In home cleaning products TSP is used in large quantities. In our food products we use very small amounts. Theoretically, any food grade base could be used: sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, ammonium phosphate, etc. At General Mills we have found that TSP works best in our particular products, and has been approved as safe for use in food by the Food and Drug Administration."
Obviously there is a limit on how much poison can be tested on human beings since TSP is known to be hazardous to human’s health:
Although FDA claims that smaller levels of TSP isn’t hazardous to human’s health, other agencies have reported TSP as a hazardous substance and have linked TSP to carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, Abdominal burning, or reproductive failures.
The Clean Water Act has now taken steps to limit the use of TSP in cleaning products, because it damages the environment. Although TSP has not been proven to be toxic to human’s health (because no agency has invested enough time and money to research it any further), it has shown to be severely irritating to gastric mucosa.
Excessive TSP is also known to lead to kidney toxicity, calcium deficiency and osteoporosis and imbalances of minerals in the bones.
FDA safely limit of TSP is about 70 mg per day, however, (with TSP being used in thousands of consumer products), an average American can be exposed to more than 500mg of TSP a day.
Here the list of common cereals that have Trisodium Phosphate as an ingredient:
-Trader Joe's O's
- Mom's Best Cereals
- Cheerios
- General Mills
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- Golden Grahams
- Honeycomb
- Lucky Charms
- Wheat Squares Cereals
- Trix
- Cocoa Puffs
- Triple Berry Toasted
- Wheat chex
- Cookie Crisp
- Party Mix
- Tasteeos
- Reese's Puffs
- Heart Healthy Cereal
- Kix
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- Froot loops
- Meijer Honey Nut Toasted Oats
- Oatmeal Crisp Cereal
- Nestle Nesquik Cereal
- Cookie Crisp Cereal
- Magic Stars Cereal
- Nestle Oats & More Raisin
- Quaker
- Kellogg’s Corn Pops
Tell FDA and your local grocery store to remove Trisodium Phosphate from food products:
Thousands of consumer products are filled with toxic ingredients, additives and preservatives that are banned in many countries. Find out more about Top 10 foods, additives and preservatives that are banned in many countries except US: http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/foods-banned-in-other-countries-but-we-eat-in-us.php
While your dinner is banned in 30 other countries, biotech and chemicals companies spend millions of dollars to keep GMOs hidden in our food supply. The only way to make your voices heard is to boycott cancer-causing chemicals and toxic additives that are regulated and considered safe in your food by FDA.
Be the change you want to see in the world and boycott consumer products that have tons of toxic additives like Trisodium Phosphate. We must fight for our right to non-toxic foods. Please submit your comment to FDA and ask them to ban toxic additives like TSP from our food: http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/contactfda/default.htm
Sources:
http://inrfood.com/ingredients/5694
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/0206/goldies.html
http://naturalsociety.com/paint-thinner-kids-cereals-fda-approved/
