It may sound delicious, but “caramel coloring” hides potential risks

What do you get when you pressure-cook corn sugar with ammonia at high temperature?

Burnt sugar, of course!

This is also known by its more appealing name: “caramel coloring” — the stuff that gives colas and other dark soft drinks their color.

New research shows that the cooking process that creates caramel coloring also creates two chemicals that cause thyroid, lung, and liver tumors in lab animals.

California regulators have identified one of those chemicals as a carcinogen. And health hazard scientists have determined that a 12-ounce bottle of dark-colored soda contains enough of the two chemicals to pose a potential cancer risk to those who drink sodas frequently.

That estimate prompted the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) to petition the FDA to ban caramel coloring.

And that ban wouldn’t stop at soft drinks. Caramel coloring is also used in gravy, doughnuts, cookies, ice cream, custards, potato chips, dessert mixes, brown bread, beer, and dark liquors such as rum and brandy.

How surprising that in this veritable list of health foods, there’s something that could harm you!

Sources:
“Do the Chemicals That Turn Soda Brown Also Cause Cancer?” Bryan Walsh, Time magazine, healthland.time.com