"cp1c" wrote in message ...
Ingredients identified in the Foray 48B spray are
methyl paraben
(methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate), benzoic acid/sodium benzoate,
propylene glycol, potassium sorbate, sorbitol, hydrochloric acid,
and polyacrylic acid.

The other ingredients - Btk, fermentation solids and water - are already
publicly known.


all harmless by themselves but some people react badly to this combination
in a very fine aerosol when inhaled

A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not more
widely.

What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Any clarification welcome. It looks as tho' all groups in the header
would be relevant in one way or another, but aplogies if I'm OT for
some.

Steve B.

Steve Bell wrote:

"cp1c" wrote in message ...
Ingredients identified in the Foray 48B spray are
methyl paraben
(methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate), benzoic acid/sodium benzoate,
propylene glycol, potassium sorbate, sorbitol, hydrochloric acid,
and polyacrylic acid.

The other ingredients - Btk, fermentation solids and water - are already
publicly known.


all harmless by themselves but some people react badly to this combination
in a very fine aerosol when inhaled

A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not more
widely.

What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Any clarification welcome. It looks as tho' all groups in the header
would be relevant in one way or another, but aplogies if I'm OT for
some.

Steve B.

Why don't you just give up bread like I did?
It's not that good for you anyway....

That way you won't have to worry about it. ;-)

And it helps in weight loss/maintenance.
If you eat bread, you may just as well be
eating donuts. :-P Refined flour is as bad
as sugar when it comes to carbohydrate metabolism.

But, that's just my opinion...

When I did my research on food sensitivities in an attempt
to control my IBS, (two of the main contributors to that
painful, lifelong condition are food sensitivities and stress),
I discovered that 5%, 1 out of every 20 people, is sensitive or
allergic to wheat proteins!

That's one hell of a lot of people.

K.

--
^,,^ Cats-haven Hobby Farm ^,,^ ^,,^

"There are millions of intelligent species in the universe, and they are
all owned by cats" -- Asimov

Custom handcrafts, Sterling silver beaded jewelry
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...s&userid=katra

A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not
more widely.
What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Moulds that grow on wheat aren't generally very toxic. Benzoate has
next to no toxicity, but a pretty high allergenicity risk. The main
reason for the preservative is that customers won't buy mouldy bread
rather than because it might harm them if they did.

As other people have pointed out, bread is also a problem for people
with some common food intolerances. If you have an allergy to benzoate,
your diet will already be somewhat restricted and having such a common
food as bread ruled out will be seriously inconvenient. Conversely, if
you don't have a problem with benzoate but do have one with wheat, the
fact that wheat is increasingly being added to the most bizarre things
(*potato crisps*, for crying out loud) makes for restrictions you
wouldn't have had to make five years ago. Increasingly, what capitalist
food processing leads to is feeding people on what amounts to pigswill
in gratuitously variable physical forms - every meal contains traces of
almost every category of basic foodstuffs. For people with serious
food intolerances this makes life far more difficult than it would be
under more traditional and physiologically rational systems of production.
(GM is just taking this one stage further, breeding food organisms to
*be* pigswill in their protein makeup).

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

On 21 Aug 2003 10:11:40 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:


A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not
more widely.
What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Moulds that grow on wheat aren't generally very toxic. Benzoate has
next to no toxicity, but a pretty high allergenicity risk. The main
reason for the preservative is that customers won't buy mouldy bread
rather than because it might harm them if they did.

So: produce "bread" and "hypo-allegenic bread". The latter will be
exactly equivalent to the bread that we have no choice but to eat
today, and won't be any more expensive. The former will be distinctive
on the NZ market in that it won't go mouldy after as little as four
days. God, we now have advertisements that actually boast that a
certain brand of bread will go for three days without losing its
freshness!

In the Bad Old Days when I was a child in Britain, a loaf of bread
might last a week (in an ordinary "bread bin", not having to be put in
the fridge), and loaves actually got *finished* before they became
inedible - certainly before there was the slightest sign of mould.

In NZ today, I an forced to throw away about 20% of the bread I buy.
Who are the "capitalists" trying to control our eating to their own
profit?

Can't two sets of sensitivites and two sets of "freedoms" be
accommodated at once?

I feel there must be another reason for this deprivation, other than
potential allergenicity.

Any more ideas?

Steve B.

In sci.agriculture Steve B wrote:
On 21 Aug 2003 10:11:40 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:

In the Bad Old Days when I was a child in Britain, a loaf of bread
might last a week (in an ordinary "bread bin", not having to be put in
the fridge), and loaves actually got *finished* before they became
inedible - certainly before there was the slightest sign of mould.

In the fifties we use to buy `half a loaf of bread' here. That was
about the weight of a current package of bread, and people eleswhere
would call it a loaf. It was baked by putting two dollops of dough
into a tin so the two `quarters' could be pulled apart, and you only
had to buy a quarter.

In NZ today, I an forced to throw away about 20% of the bread I buy.
Who are the "capitalists" trying to control our eating to their own
profit?

Maybe you can find a dairy which would cut a bit off a loaf for you.

Can't two sets of sensitivites and two sets of "freedoms" be
accommodated at once?

I feel there must be another reason for this deprivation, other than
potential allergenicity.

Any more ideas?

If benzoate is a bacteriostat in bread would it also be inside us? A
very large proprtion of our faeces is bacteria. Whereas benzoate may
not hurt us immediately it might over a duration, especailly for
people who have bread as a greater proportion of their diet.

On 21 Aug 2003 23:38:10 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

If benzoate is a bacteriostat in bread would it also be inside us? A
very large proprtion of our faeces is bacteria. Whereas benzoate may
not hurt us immediately it might over a duration, especailly for
people who have bread as a greater proportion of their diet.

I had 30 years on British bread (in the early part of that, at least,
it was probably benzoate-ridden) and it didn't seem to affect my
faeces. Mind you, I've never known how to answer the embarrassing
question "are you keeping regular?" Well, no, I don't get terribly
concerned if I have to squat at different times today from yesterday.
Maybe I should.

At any rate, I haven't noticed any difference in the operation of my
intestinal processes before and after benzoate.

I repeat, there's always the option of "benzoate-free bread" just as
we have "gluten-free bread" for people sensitive to that.

Or, if you insist: "bread" and "benzoate-enriched Neva-Mold bread"
(with a government warning about a possible risk of deviant
digestion). I don't see it would do anyone any harm.

Let us take responsibility for our own health.

Steve B.

A couple of groups pruned: asthma is clearly less relevant to bread
than cotton, and I don't know why either is particularly pertinent to
Hamilton.

In sci.med.nutrition Steve B wrote:
On 21 Aug 2003 23:38:10 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

If benzoate is a bacteriostat in bread would it also be inside us? A
very large proprtion of our faeces is bacteria. Whereas benzoate may
not hurt us immediately it might over a duration, especailly for
people who have bread as a greater proportion of their diet.

I had 30 years on British bread (in the early part of that, at least,
it was probably benzoate-ridden) and it didn't seem to affect my
faeces.

You say `seem' but you didn't do tests.

And faeces is not something that just has importance by being done.

I said it is mainly bacteria (apart from water) to indicate bacteria
have a huge importance in how the body works. Resist some species
of them and perhaps you will be short of a vitamin which they
synthesise.


Mind you, I've never known how to answer the embarrassing
question "are you keeping regular?" Well, no, I don't get terribly
concerned if I have to squat at different times today from yesterday.
Maybe I should.

At any rate, I haven't noticed any difference in the operation of my
intestinal processes before and after benzoate.

Perhaps you got by with vitamins you ate in food.

Tomato sauce used to have benzoate as a preservative, too. I haven't
read the ingrediatns for a while.

I repeat, there's always the option of "benzoate-free bread" just as
we have "gluten-free bread" for people sensitive to that.

Or, if you insist: "bread" and "benzoate-enriched Neva-Mold bread"
(with a government warning about a possible risk of deviant
digestion). I don't see it would do anyone any harm.

Let us take responsibility for our own health.

Like leaving iodine out of salt, folic acid out of grain products,
vitamin D out of milk (it isn't added in NZ anyway).

It is partly the plastic wrapping on bread which causes the mold.
Also read the use by date on it when you buy it. When it comes in to
the shop it should have some 9 days usable life left I think.

Thanks to doe for sci.med.nutrition article. I wonder if Steve knows
of a time in Britain when the children were getting too much rickets
and so the bran was removed to reduce the phytate you mention from
bread and lime added.

That reminds me I remember seeing a fellow at Crop Research have
sandwiches half white half wholemeal bread.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 18:18:24 -0500, Katra
posted:



Steve Bell wrote:

"cp1c" wrote in message ...
Ingredients identified in the Foray 48B spray are
methyl paraben
(methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate), benzoic acid/sodium benzoate,
propylene glycol, potassium sorbate, sorbitol, hydrochloric acid,
and polyacrylic acid.

The other ingredients - Btk, fermentation solids and water - are already
publicly known.


all harmless by themselves but some people react badly to this combination
in a very fine aerosol when inhaled

A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not more
widely.

What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Any clarification welcome. It looks as tho' all groups in the header
would be relevant in one way or another, but aplogies if I'm OT for
some.

Steve B.

Why don't you just give up bread like I did?

But aren't you obese diabetes 2?

It's not that good for you anyway....

Not for you, but it is for everyone else.

That way you won't have to worry about it. ;-)

On that strange logic, you could avoid all worry by giving up eating.

And it helps in weight loss/maintenance.

Exactly. You'll definitely lose weight if you eat less.

If you eat bread, you may just as well be
eating donuts. :-P

Do they have whole-multigrain donuts?

Refined flour is as bad
as sugar when it comes to carbohydrate metabolism.

All refined foods should be avoided.
White flour has some protein in it.

But, that's just my opinion...

Ayup. You really should state where you are coming from though.

When I did my research on food sensitivities in an attempt
to control my IBS, (two of the main contributors to that
painful, lifelong condition are food sensitivities and stress),
I discovered that 5%, 1 out of every 20 people, is sensitive or
allergic to wheat proteins!

In which population, and how measured?

That's one hell of a lot of people.

See questions above

I wonder if a population who ONLY eats pure white bread might become
sensitive to all the wheat protein that one is exposed to quickly in
this food.

On 21 Aug 2003 10:11:40 GMT, (bogus address)
posted:


A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not
more widely.
What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Moulds that grow on wheat aren't generally very toxic. Benzoate has
next to no toxicity, but a pretty high allergenicity risk. The main
reason for the preservative is that customers won't buy mouldy bread
rather than because it might harm them if they did.

As other people have pointed out, bread is also a problem for people
with some common food intolerances. If you have an allergy to benzoate,
your diet will already be somewhat restricted and having such a common
food as bread ruled out will be seriously inconvenient. Conversely, if
you don't have a problem with benzoate but do have one with wheat, the
fact that wheat is increasingly being added to the most bizarre things
(*potato crisps*, for crying out loud) makes for restrictions you
wouldn't have had to make five years ago. Increasingly, what capitalist
food processing leads to is feeding people on what amounts to pigswill
in gratuitously variable physical forms - every meal contains traces of
almost every category of basic foodstuffs. For people with serious
food intolerances this makes life far more difficult than it would be
under more traditional and physiologically rational systems of production.
(GM is just taking this one stage further, breeding food organisms to
*be* pigswill in their protein makeup).


Can you give some examples of foods that cause troubles, and are
essential to eat?

Potato crisps are not what I would regard as sound nutrition.

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:40:35 +1200, Steve B
posted:

On 21 Aug 2003 10:11:40 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:


A question that's long been in the back of my mind: I understand
sodium benzoate and methyl benzoate are (or were) used as mould
retardants in bread, but are now banned, at least in NZ, if not
more widely.
What is the perceived harm here, and is it greater than the potential
ill-effects of eating mouldy bread?

Moulds that grow on wheat aren't generally very toxic. Benzoate has
next to no toxicity, but a pretty high allergenicity risk. The main
reason for the preservative is that customers won't buy mouldy bread
rather than because it might harm them if they did.

So: produce "bread" and "hypo-allegenic bread". The latter will be
exactly equivalent to the bread that we have no choice but to eat
today, and won't be any more expensive. The former will be distinctive
on the NZ market in that it won't go mouldy after as little as four
days. God, we now have advertisements that actually boast that a
certain brand of bread will go for three days without losing its
freshness!

In the Bad Old Days when I was a child in Britain, a loaf of bread
might last a week (in an ordinary "bread bin", not having to be put in
the fridge), and loaves actually got *finished* before they became
inedible - certainly before there was the slightest sign of mould.

In NZ today, I an forced to throw away about 20% of the bread I buy.
Who are the "capitalists" trying to control our eating to their own
profit?

Can't two sets of sensitivites and two sets of "freedoms" be
accommodated at once?

I feel there must be another reason for this deprivation, other than
potential allergenicity.

Any more ideas?

Steve B.


Make yer own.

On 21 Aug 2003 23:38:10 GMT, Brian Sandle
posted:

In sci.agriculture Steve B wrote:
On 21 Aug 2003 10:11:40 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:

In the Bad Old Days when I was a child in Britain, a loaf of bread
might last a week (in an ordinary "bread bin", not having to be put in
the fridge), and loaves actually got *finished* before they became
inedible - certainly before there was the slightest sign of mould.

In the fifties we use to buy `half a loaf of bread' here. That was
about the weight of a current package of bread, and people eleswhere
would call it a loaf. It was baked by putting two dollops of dough
into a tin so the two `quarters' could be pulled apart, and you only
had to buy a quarter.

In NZ today, I an forced to throw away about 20% of the bread I buy.
Who are the "capitalists" trying to control our eating to their own
profit?

Maybe you can find a dairy which would cut a bit off a loaf for you.

Can't two sets of sensitivites and two sets of "freedoms" be
accommodated at once?

I feel there must be another reason for this deprivation, other than
potential allergenicity.

Any more ideas?

If benzoate is a bacteriostat in bread would it also be inside us? A
very large proprtion of our faeces is bacteria. Whereas benzoate may
not hurt us immediately it might over a duration, especailly for
people who have bread as a greater proportion of their diet.

First find the fate of benzoate in the human GI tract.
Then do a sensitivity culture of common gut commensals.

On 22 Aug 2003 12:02:00 GMT, Brian Sandle
posted:

In sci.med.nutrition Steve B wrote:
On 21 Aug 2003 23:38:10 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

If benzoate is a bacteriostat in bread would it also be inside us? A
very large proprtion of our faeces is bacteria. Whereas benzoate may
not hurt us immediately it might over a duration, especailly for
people who have bread as a greater proportion of their diet.

I had 30 years on British bread (in the early part of that, at least,
it was probably benzoate-ridden) and it didn't seem to affect my
faeces.

You say `seem' but you didn't do tests.

And faeces is not something that just has importance by being done.

I said it is mainly bacteria (apart from water) to indicate bacteria
have a huge importance in how the body works. Resist some species
of them and perhaps you will be short of a vitamin which they
synthesise.

Like what (other than some B12)?

Mind you, I've never known how to answer the embarrassing
question "are you keeping regular?" Well, no, I don't get terribly
concerned if I have to squat at different times today from yesterday.
Maybe I should.

At any rate, I haven't noticed any difference in the operation of my
intestinal processes before and after benzoate.

Perhaps you got by with vitamins you ate in food.

We all get by with the nutrients we get in our food.

Tomato sauce used to have benzoate as a preservative, too. I haven't
read the ingrediatns for a while.

It's quite common I seem to recall.

I repeat, there's always the option of "benzoate-free bread" just as
we have "gluten-free bread" for people sensitive to that.

Or, if you insist: "bread" and "benzoate-enriched Neva-Mold bread"
(with a government warning about a possible risk of deviant
digestion). I don't see it would do anyone any harm.

Let us take responsibility for our own health.

Like leaving iodine out of salt, folic acid out of grain products,
vitamin D out of milk (it isn't added in NZ anyway).

No need, unless the population being treated is deficient.

It is partly the plastic wrapping on bread which causes the mold.
Also read the use by date on it when you buy it. When it comes in to
the shop it should have some 9 days usable life left I think.

Sounds like good keeping to me. I always freeze it, but haven't bought
bread for quite some time.

Thanks to doe for sci.med.nutrition article. I wonder if Steve knows
of a time in Britain when the children were getting too much rickets
and so the bran was removed to reduce the phytate you mention from
bread and lime added.

They were getting ricketts from no sunlight. Like they are getting in
Australia today from the recent sunlight scare.

That reminds me I remember seeing a fellow at Crop Research have
sandwiches half white half wholemeal bread.

Did he say what for?