Fiber in the Diet and Other 'Safe' Stuff the FDA Allows in Our Food

The Food and Drug Administration, that same organization which okays certain amounts of rat droppings and insect parts in our food, says wood pulp is just fine…! 

By Egon E. Mosum

It’s no secret that the corporate food industry is decidedly not the health industry.

Besides chemicals in our food that can’t be pronounced, besides certain tolerances for rat poop and insect parts that the Food and Drug Administration says are within ‘safe’ levels, there’s another ingredient our federal regulators allow us to consume…

Wood.

Maybe you’ve been to one of those old-time bars or restaurants that have sawdust on the floor. Maybe you would rather walk on it than eat it, but if you consume certain foods, you’ll be doing just that — eating sawdust.

Now, it may be called cellulose, but it can also be referred to as wood pulp.

What kinds of foods contain wood pulp?

Like some grated parmesan on your pasta? Up to almost nine percent of it can be wood pulp.

Bagel in the morning? Wood pulp in that also.

Heat up the frozen pizza in the oven? You’re cooking wood pulp too.

Salad dressing? Yes. Breakfast cereal? Wood pulp. Veggie burgers, because you think meat is unhealthy? Have some wood pulp, termites love the stuff.[1]

There’s a lot more foods that contain wood pulp, but if I gave a complete list, it would ruin your appetite…

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The Food and Drug Administration, that same organization which okays certain amounts of rat droppings and insect parts in our food, says wood pulp is just fine. 

You don’t break it down, and it helps you with, shall we say, the process of elimination.

So, maybe it’s time to go out for some fast food, and have a burger that contains — you guessed it — wood pulp. But it isn’t just the burger, wood pulp ‘can now be found in buns, cheeses, sauces, cakes, shakes, rolls, fries, onion rings, smoothies…basically everything.’[2]

Perhaps, instead of going to the Golden Arches, we might stop into the lumber yard for lunch. Plenty of wood pulp there, and remember, it isn’t harmful according to our government experts.

Using wood pulp in food goes back fifty years ago. ‘Companies quickly realized that they could also increase their profits by adding bulk and cellulose fiber to their foods in the form of this wood sawdust.’

Even if wood pulp isn’t physically harmful, it can be legally harmful if a company lies about it.

In a 2016 posting from the website of Philadelphia Class Action attorneys Golomb Spirt Grunfeld, P.C, reference was made to a case where ‘Castle Cheese, Inc. used wood pulp or cellulose, along with a mix of cheap cheddar, in its 100% Parmesan cheese. As a result, the President of Castle Cheese is facing hefty fines and even prison time because of directly violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.’[3]

It’s perfectly fine to love and respect trees, but we don’t need to eat them.

What about smoking, that’s hazardous to our health, but there is even an allowable percentage of cigarette butts that can be in our food, or at least some spices.

‘The FDA defines foreign matter as "objectionable" materials, including sticks, stones, burlap bagging and even cigarette butts. Still, foreign matter is considered an aesthetic defect.

Some foreign matter is allowed in mace (a spice similar to nutmeg), whole black or white pepper and sesame seeds.’

That might add a new definition to smoked foods.

That information about ‘objectionable materials’ comes from a 2016 Live Science article which also cooks up the other dirty details about what is allowed for our consumption.

Are you a connoisseur of insect parts? If so, you might enjoy cinnamon, ground marjoram, and crushed oregano.

What about that aforementioned rat poop? Have you developed a taste for rodent excrement? If so, you can find it in spices like ginger, mace, fennel and sesame seeds. 

How about a cup of hot chocolate with that, because guess what’s allowed in cocoa beans?

You guessed it, rat poop.

But don’t let that bug you, because going back to bugs, as in insect heads, if you like fig paste, in every 100 grams, you can benefit from thirteen insect heads.

Like mushrooms? This might change your mind, because there can be up to seventy-five mites in a can of mushrooms.

(We owe a special thank you to Live Science for the information provided, and a link to the article will be found in the footnotes.)[4]

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

The consumption of food for some might be an art form, for some a daily hobby, but for all of us, it is a necessity. 

It would be nice if we had a government agency in charge of food that wouldn’t be so tolerant of rat feces, insect heads, cigarette butts and wood pulp in what we consume.

Carried to absurdity, perhaps one of our large food corporations could come out with a product that is completely made from tolerable levels of insect parts, rat poop, sawdust, and cigarette butts. 

They could put it in a bright package, call it “New and Improved,” and get some celebrity spokesperson to tell us about how great it tastes, how it helps build strong bodies twelve ways, and if you eat it regularly and buy the economy size, you will live forever.

All of the above might make you think that the Food and Drug Administration is in the pocket of big food manufacturers — or at least lying down on the job.

You’d be right.

In a 2022 Politico article, it was acknowledged, ‘Over the years, the food side of FDA has been so ignored and grown so dysfunctional that even former FDA commissioners readily acknowledged problems in interviews.’

The Politico article reported, ‘There is a remarkable level of consensus that the agency is simply not working. Current and former officials and industry professionals used terms like “ridiculous,” “impossible,” “broken,” “byzantine” and “a joke” to describe the state of food regulation at FDA.’[5]

Now, the FDA is from the government and here to help us, right.

Not necessarily, because when it comes to ingredients in what we eat and the safety thereof, ‘The current FDA process allows the food industry to regulate itself when it comes to thousands of added ingredients — by determining for itself which ingredients should be considered “generally recognized as safe.’[6]

So if we mix all of these ingredients together, allowable percentages of garbage in our foods, an agency that is not working, and an agency that allows the food industry that is profiting from our purchases to determine which ingredients in the ‘stuff’ they sell us are safe, we get a plateful of incompetence, conflicted interest, and literal crap.

Having swallowed all of that as an entrée, perhaps for dessert someone will serve the public with an answer, who will regulate the regulators?

[1] 31 FOODS YOU’RE EATING THAT CONTAIN SAWDUST Praderio, 3/3/16 PREVENTION https://www.prevention.com/food-nutrition/healthy-eating/a20457107/31-foods-that-contain-sawdust/

[2] THERE IS A SECRET INGREDIENT IN YOUR BURGER-WOOD PULP Cohen, 7/21/22 QUARTZ https://qz.com/223742/there-is-a-secret-ingredient-in-your-burgers-wood-pulp

[3] THE REAL PROBLEM WITH WOOD PULP IN OUR CHEESE 3/29/16 https://www.golomblegal.com/blog/2016/march/what-is-the-real-problem-with-having-wood-pulp-i/

[4] 9 DISGUSTING THINGS THAT THE FDA ALLOWS IN YOUR FOOD Sara G. Miller 7/28/16 LIVE SCIENCE https://www.livescience.com/55459-fda-acceptable-food-defects.html

[5] THE FDA’S FOOD FAILURE Evich, 4/8/22 POLITICO https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/fda-fails-regulate-food-health-safety-hazards/

[6] HOW A LEGAL LOOPHOLE ALLOWS UNSAFE INGREDIENTS IN U.S. FOODS Rachel Harrison, 8/8/24 NYU https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2024/august/legal-loophole-unsafe-ingredients.html

^*Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur. 

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