Another untested drug is sneaking into your food

here’s a new drug in town, and it’s headed right for your… supermarket.

It’s going to start creeping into foods like chips, soup, salad dressings. Just about anything that’s salty or has a “savory” flavor.

And only a select group of people know anything about what it is or how it’s made.

Sound familiar? Well, it should.

I recently warned you about a very similar drug being put into Pepsi drinks created by the same company. And like that first one, called Sweetmyx, this also is a mystery to everyone but the company that invented it.

And that includes the FDA.

Fortunately, a lot more people know to watch out for Sweetmyx now, since I’ve been talking about it and Dr. Oz warned about it on a recent show.

But this new one, called Savorymyx, is pretty much still an industry secret.

A secret ingredient that they want to force-feed us blindly — like laboratory rats

Savorymyx, is made by a biotech company in San Diego called Senomyx. The company says it uses “proprietary taste science” to make “novel flavor ingredients.”

They say “science,” but it sounds more like sci-fi. Because these Senomyx ingredients have no real taste. Instead, they work by making your brain “think” it has perceived a sweet, and now, a savory flavor.

To figure that one out, Senomyx first needed to clone human taste receptors. Once they managed to do that, they tested “millions of molecules” to find which ones can “bind” with your taste buds to achieve that make-believe-taste.

Savorymyx will be added to food to duplicate the taste of MSG, or as they call it, a “savory” flavor.

Food companies know that many shoppers try to avoid MSG, so this is a way to take it out of food products and deceive us into thinking what we are eating is more “natural.”

I told you that Dr. Oz had warned about Sweetmyx on his show. He called it a “mysterious” additive, and said that “we are overwhelmed by smart science that knows how to trick us.”

But it’s not just “science” that’s tricking us here. It’s also the FDA.

That’s because the FDA allows these drugs to be added to food under the alias of “artificial flavors.”

The Feingold Association, a non-profit group that studies how additives and colors affect kids, has this to say about all that “smart science”:

“…when a chemical has a profound effect on how the body works (in this case, on how the taste buds work), it is considered a drug. A drug must undergo stringent regulations and testing, including discovery of side effects and interactions with drugs, for FDA approval — far beyond anything required for approval of a ‘flavoring.'”

And that makes even more sense when you discover where the smart scientists who created this came from.

They’re from Pfizer, Novartis and Merck. It’s a case of Big Pharma meets Big Food. And even what Senomyx says about its inventions sounds like it’s straight out of a drug company’s mouth.

“Our focus is to help consumers with diabetes or high blood pressure have a better quality of life.”

Well, thanks Senomyx! But if we want advice about those health issues we’ll ask our doctor. When we eat potato chips or soup or salad dressing, we don’t want your untested drugs in them.

But since they’re not about to tell us what this chemical additive is or where it’s used, the only question left is how can you avoid it in food?

And the only answer seems to be to read labels and steer clear of any “artificial flavors.” Another tip is to watch out for products that make a big point of having “no MSG” in them.

As Dr. Oz said, something as “sacred” as taste buds shouldn’t be fooled with.

But to this company — and the FDA — it seems that nothing is sacred.

 

Sources:
“Pepsico enters research agreement with taste technology company to find new salt flavor modifiers” Sophie Langley, April 16, 2014, AFN Thought for food, ausfoodnews.com.au

“Current flavor programs” Senomyx web site, senomyx.com

“The addictive new ingredient hiding in your food” Dr. Oz show April 23, 2014, doctoroz.com