
The Chemicals in Your Mac and Cheese - brandonhall
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/well/eat/the-chemicals-in-your-mac-and-cheese.html
======
refurb
_“The phthalate concentrations in powder from mac and cheese mixes were more
than four times higher than in block cheese and other natural cheeses like
shredded cheese, string cheese and cottage cheese,”_

As a chemist, I have to ask, how much phthalate was actually found? Telling me
it's 4x higher than block cheese tells me nothing since block cheese may have
barely detectable phthalates.

The dose makes the poison.

Our ability to detect chemicals has vastly improved over the years. It's not
hard to detect chemicals in the parts per trillion (ppt) at this point in
time.

You can't say "the chemical is there, let's be scared". The levels need to be
quantified.

That's why drinking water has acceptable levels for things like cyanide, lead
and mercury. No matter what water you test, you'll find those things. But if
the amount is well below toxic levels, then it's not a big deal.

~~~
hammock
From the article:

>Although the concentration of phthalates in food may be quite low, measured
in parts per billion, they are still present at higher levels than the natural
hormones in the body, said Heather B. Patisaul, a professor of biological
sciences at the Center for Human Health and the Environment at North Carolina
State University in Raleigh

~~~
icelancer
>they are still present at higher levels than the natural hormones in the body

This still doesn't mean anything. How does the body process said chemicals? Is
there evidence that it's actually unsafe at the levels published?

There's probably a reason this study wasn't published in a peer-reviewed
journal.

------
fpgaminer
On a related note, I've spent an embarrassing amount of time searching for
good, creamy mac and cheese, including from-scratch recipes.

So far, this has been the winner:
[http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/3-ingredient-
stov...](http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/3-ingredient-stovetop-mac-
and-cheese-recipe.html)

It's three ingredients, stupidly simple, and you pick the cheeses you want.
I'd argue it's as easy as boxed; you don't even have to drain the pasta. (P.S.
if you've never cooked pasta the way the recipe instructs, you'll be blown
away by how much more rich the flavor will be!)

We use sharp white cheddar from the grocery store, mixed with a little bit of
American. Add a dash of dijon mustard and Frank's hot sauce. Feel free to
experiment (but stick to good melting cheeses)!

I also add a dash of sodium citrate before adding the cheese. It helps the
cheese remain completely smooth and more tolerant of careless cooking. You can
buy a huge bag off Amazon.

EDIT: Also, when we have friends over for this, we've started cooking it in a
large dutch oven. Sounds crazy, but it actually turned out even better. The
heat regulation and retention of the dutch oven I think helps the cheese melt
more evenly and consistently. Plus you can keep it warm for longer after
cooking.

~~~
sunsetMurk
Seriouseats / Kenji Lopez has some of the best info on the web when it comes
to making tasty food.

Here is the video for the mac and cheese you're talking about:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWaYdGQqxQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWaYdGQqxQU)

------
flunhat
Every time I read an article like this, I'm reminded of Michael Pollan's
writings on food. His advice, even though I read it years and years ago, has
stood the test of time for me:

> Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html)

~~~
savanaly
That's about nutrition though, and this is about contamination from packaging.
The article would still have been written if mac and cheese were an entirely
untreated plant product.

~~~
novia
Something that Michael Pollan advocates is avoiding processed foods. In the
quote above, though counterintuitive, "food" as defined by Pollan does not
include processed foods like boxed mac and cheese.

From the article the GP post linked:

 _1\. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier
said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother
wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as
the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a
time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many
foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food
(Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.

2\. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re
apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t
forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was
more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give
people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart
Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly
compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their
endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have
nothing valuable to say about health.

3\. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a)
unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain
high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful
in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have
been highly processed._

~~~
mistermann
Ok, but why? I'm sure leafy greens are objectively "better", but is eating Mac
& Cheese once a week (for example) going to cause physical harm? Do I need to
adopt a zero tolerance policy?

~~~
anigbrowl
No, of course not. But let's not overlook the fact that there are people who
eat that every other day and lots of people who eat nothing but processed food
to the point that they find real food sort of gross and hard to cook, eat or
digest. This is a Bad Thing.

------
coldtea
To pre-empt the inane pedantic reactions that always seem to accompany
discussions on such articles: yes, water is a chemical too, as are vitamins,
etc.

When people talk about "chemicals in food" they mean additional, lab created
stuff added to the food, like artificial sweeteners, additives, preservatives,
coloring, remains from the production and transportation process, etc.

Those against "chemicals" in food obviously don't advocate for food made
without any kind of molecules and chemical substances.

Amazingly not only functions can be overloaded, but words too.

~~~
chemicalscare
those against "chemicals" in food often demonstrably have no idea what they're
talking about. the overloading is a rhetorical attempt to associate fear and
lack of knowledge with everyday experience. your defense of this practice is
vastly more inane than any objections to it.

~~~
_jal
I ignore anyone who makes pedantic word-choice arguments when everyone is
clearly capable of understanding what's going on. At best, it is more obsessed
with their own cleverness than actual discourse, but more usually is just
dishonest.

------
ravenstine
When I was a child, for various reasons, I was quite a chow hound. I've long
wondered if whether or not things like phthalates and BPA had significant
effects on my growing body; I had a lot of less-than-masculine features to my
body, some of which is correctable and some not. It could very well be that
being an overweight adolescent meant that excess body fat caused me to have
too much estrogen, but perhaps there was more going on. Maybe I'd have more
androgen receptors by now and I'd be able to work less for the same muscle
mass. IDK

At the same time, I don't think I can really say that the amount of any of
these chemicals in mac-n-cheese would make me avoid it outright. Really, you
should only be occasionally eating junk food link mac-n-cheese, and the amount
of anything you would have in a box every week or two is not going to make a
lick of difference to your endocrine system. Perhaps it's particularly bad for
the poor who eat lots of cheap junk like Kraft products, but there are also
far cheaper and healthier ways to get your nutrition – rice, beans, real
butter, and actual cheese alone are much more cost effective than buying boxes
of mac-n-cheese; just visit a Mexican market and you'll see what I mean.

------
bharrison
Am I incorrect in assuming that any study not submitted for peer review is
questionable at best and bad science at worst?

~~~
icelancer
There's a fair number of case studies that aren't suitable for peer-review.
But in those cases, just publish the data openly for analysis. This "study"
didn't do that, and had a lot of other issues mentioned in the comments here.

So your intuition wasn't wrong here, but overall, you may be discarding a lot
of relevant case study work due to over-reliance on the peer-review process.

~~~
vectorpush
I agree and I appreciate the nuanced tone of your answer.

~~~
icelancer
I unfortunately submit stuff for peer-review and do case study work, so I know
a lot about both sides of the garbage aisles. Lot of crap makes it through
peer-review, and a lot of good work never does because of cronyism and single-
blind review.

------
plandis
Misleading title. Should be "Chemicals in boxed mac and cheese". It's entirely
possible (and way more delicious!) to make mac and cheese from scratch in a
very little amount of time

~~~
zzalpha
Misleading summary. Should be "Chemicals in fatty foods that come in contact
with plastics, particularly cheese, and especially cheese powder." As the
article (eventually) notes:

 _Since they bind with fats, they tend to build up in fatty foods, including
not just cheese but baked goods, infant formula, meats, oils and fats, and
fast food, studies show._

So these chemicals are present in concentrations four times higher than in
block cheeses (probably due to all the extra processing), but they aren't
absent in real cheese (or other products).

