Birthday Bruce will never be the same again

October 15, 2021 12:40 PM

Sprinklegate : British bakery Get Baked was forced to shut down for a day after an anonymous customer reported it for using "illegal" U.S. sprinkles.

Via The Jasmine Guillory Newsletter

posted by carolr (83 comments total)

where is Brussels to take the blame now

seriously, it says something that an ingredient that millions of Americans imbibe every morning on donuts is too dangerous for other countries -- apparently it's because it might have a link to child hyperactivity
posted by Countess Elena at 12:48 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

I now have a strong desire to sample British sprinkles so that I, too, can have experiential authority on the matter and determine for myself just how shit they actually are.
posted by phunniemee at 12:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [13 favorites]

I thought in the UK they were called "hundreds and thousands" instead of "sprinkles"?* Either way I respect a principled stance and I'm sorry this baker cannot get licit sprinkles that are up to his standards.

*I learned this from Agatha Christie, one of my primary sources of knowing stuff
posted by an octopus IRL at 1:03 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]

'E127, is "only approved for use in the U.K. and the E.U. in cocktail and candid cherries…"'

I'm guessing that's a typo for "candied cherries," but now I'm wondering what an evasive cherry would be like.
posted by adamrice at 1:04 PM on October 15, 2021 [44 favorites]

Without looking it up, my memory is saying the British for sprinkles is "bits o' millions."
posted by zardoz at 1:06 PM on October 15, 2021

Wow - that is truly some next-level Karening.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 1:08 PM on October 15, 2021

candid cherries is a great user name.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:09 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]

Yes, 'hundreds and thousands' also means sprinkles, but it's more old fashioned and less likely to be used by a commercial baker.
posted by plonkee at 1:13 PM on October 15, 2021

Wow - that is truly some next-level Karening.

It goes from Karening to reverse-meta Karening as the baker throws a hissy-fit about British sprinkles.

ESH.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:16 PM on October 15, 2021

I am most surprised that he calls them "cookies" and not "biscuits." (And he does so in a quote in a UK local new story; Today didn't translate the term for sheltered Americans.)
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:22 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also IDK man I support food regulation but I also feel like fuck yeah, damn the man, damn these pettifogging regulators who are enforcing sprinkle bans while the world burns and you're just trying to provide people with a treat as delicious as you can make it. By God if you can't make your baked goods with the correct sprinkles then everyone is going to know about it, you will not go gently into that good night, not while the Man is targeting you while corporations and the ultra-wealthy get away with (sometimes literal) murder. I really DO support food standards but also, like, this guy's just trying to make good desserts, you know? And he is being crushed like a bug under the heel of a REPRESSIVE GOVERNMENT with their BULLSHIT REGULATIONS. If they are going to try to grind you down then fuck them, no compromise, no sprinkles for anyone. Rage against the machine Mr. Myers, fight the power.

Perhaps relevant, I think food safety is super important and I am an anarchist, we exist. Also, like, how much of what I've just said do I agree with and how much is Friday Afternoon Energy? I couldn't honestly tell you but fuck the haters, let this man have his sprinkles.
posted by an octopus IRL at 1:23 PM on October 15, 2021 [18 favorites]

Yes, 'hundreds and thousands' also means sprinkles, but it's more old fashioned and less likely to be used by a commercial baker.

OK, but the only proper name for this stuff is Squirty Cream.
posted by The Bellman at 1:24 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

So now Americans have a reply to every British person who rolls their eyes at the US ban on Kinder Surprise?
posted by thecjm at 1:27 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]

I thought in the UK they were called "hundreds and thousands" instead of "sprinkles"?

That's how the bakers got nabbed, in the first place. Always use the shibboleth when customers come in.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:27 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

This may explain the rise of suspicious Sprinkles-related deaths in American dessert consumers....
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:28 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]

Also, the pictures in that article I linked seem to show the guy uses whole Oreo cookies as ingredients in cakes. He should consider just moving to the U.S.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:28 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]

So now Americans have a reply to every British person who rolls their eyes at the US ban on Kinder Surprise?

Brit: "So let me get this straight. Your children are too stupid to eat a chocolate egg AND we banned your sprinkles that cause cancer? Is that right?"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:29 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]

Smells like a stalking horse for diverging from EU standards.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:31 PM on October 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

erythosine is legal in the US because the US sugar industry lobbied for it and was a highly contentious issue:

But over 20 years later it’s still in our food supply. After all, the agency estimated that the lifetime risk of thyroid tumors in humans from Red No. 3 in food was at most one in a hundred thousand. Based on the current U.S. population that’s 3,000.

with the current US pop, that's 3290 individual cases (with the current US pop) of thyroid cancer that was easily preventable on an annual basis

you dig deep enough in any article about the evils of regulation and you'll eventually find the ugly mug of corporate interests that are literally prioritizing profits without care for the amount of human suffering inflicted into the world
posted by paimapi at 1:46 PM on October 15, 2021 [41 favorites]

Smells like a stalking horse for diverging from EU standards.

I smelled that too.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'll see you after stopping off at the pub for a couple of pints and a game of throwing pointy sharp things while buzzed.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:52 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

I am most surprised that he calls them "cookies" and not "biscuits."

A cookie is an American-style biscuit. Usually softer and larger than a regular biscuit.
posted by plonkee at 1:53 PM on October 15, 2021 [18 favorites]

Smells like a stalking horse for diverging from EU standards.

erythosine is legal in the US because the US sugar industry lobbied for it and was a highly contentious issue

Sigh, that all makes sense and isn't really surprising, it'd just be nice if we could have nice things, including nice sprinkles. It sucks that so much sucks.
posted by an octopus IRL at 1:54 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]

Does Leeds have a harbor they could dump them into?
posted by nickggully at 1:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]

with the current US pop, that's 3290 individual cases (with the current US pop) of thyroid cancer that was easily preventable on an annual basis

If the lifetime risk is 1/100,000 then wouldn't that mean that for the US population it would be 3290 cases over the population's lifetime and not each year? Avoiding 3290 cases of cancer by choosing a different food colouring is still a good idea as far as I'm concerned.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]

I think the baker's consternation is in part due to the fact that the UK allows this very same red dye in candied cherries, but not in sprinkles.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 2:02 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]

My sympathy for the baker depends entirely on the baker's opinion about Brexit. I don't even care if Brexit isn't germane to the sprinkles issue; that's my deciding factor.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:05 PM on October 15, 2021 [20 favorites]

it would be 3290 cases over the population's lifetime and not each year

ah yeah, I think that's true

in part due to the fact that the UK allows this very same red dye in candied cherries

they should ban cherries with carcinogens in it then. but I don't think the baker is someone who genuinely cares about the hypocrisy or judicial philosophy or whatever. I'm pretty sure they, like most businesses, just really hate regulation because they don't have to deal with the downstream consequences of their decisions
posted by paimapi at 2:07 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]

it'd just be nice if we could have nice things

as someone who leans into anarchist/collectivist politics myself, I don't know how you could ever expect this under capitalism but maybe that's just me
posted by paimapi at 2:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

The state of California has informed me that just about everything I eat or touch or breathe near has been found by them to cause cancer & reproductive harm so I don't really know what to make of these claims anymore.
posted by bleep at 2:18 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

The state of California has informed me that just about everything I eat or touch or breathe near has been found by them to cause cancer & reproductive harm so I don't really know what to make of these claims anymore.

California laws are written according to public health studies and they're one of the few states who make progressive, evidence-backed policy decisions based on research

if this is frustrating to you then I don't know what to tell you lol. I'm sure there are still some really beautiful, unused cans of lead paint out there that you could find at auction
posted by paimapi at 2:23 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]

I mean I just feel like we're completely surrounded by carcinogens. That's my only point.
posted by bleep at 2:26 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]

Probably trying to keep carcinogens away is better than just learning to accept being awash in them is my other point.
posted by bleep at 2:29 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Might be different here in Australia, but I believe 'Hundreds and Thousands' and sprinkles are different things.

Hundreds and Thousands are little balls, a tiny bit of sugar coated in colouring

Sprinkles are more like tiny cylinders, and I believe uniform colouring (and maybe not as sweet)

So if someone handed me a piece of Fairy Bread that had sprinkles instead of Hundreds and Thousands, I would be obliged to slip into another room and call the police because that person needs to be in prison
posted by plasmatron7 at 2:33 PM on October 15, 2021 [25 favorites]

From the US Northeast:
"What's all this? Oh! They're talking about jimmies. Carry on."

Plus a reminder that saliva has been proven 100 percent fatal in humans; but only when swallowed in very small amounts over a long period.
posted by bartleby at 2:34 PM on October 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

MetaFilter: Always use the shibboleth when customers come in.
posted by Splunge at 2:41 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

To be fair, we put a lot of crap in our food here in the US that isn’t allowed or just isn’t used in Europe.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:41 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

The state of California has informed me that just about everything I eat or touch or breathe near has been found by them to cause cancer & reproductive harm so I don't really know what to make of these claims anymore.

California laws are written according to public health studies and they're one of the few states who make progressive, evidence-backed policy decisions based on research

Er, well, yes and no. There are three things about Proposition 65 warnings. First, they cover a truly massive range of chemicals and environmental factors, including "alcoholic beverages", "salted fish", and "wood dust". Second, there's a pretty steep penalty (up to $2500 per day in violation) for not posting such a warning when you have Prop. 65-noncompliant materials on premises (regardless of the extent or the mode of human contact). Third, the Prop. 65 warning itself doesn't actually have to be specific in listing the materials in question.

The end result of this is that every single entity doing business in California duly posts the requisite warning and gets on with their business, and every consumer in California, seeing these warnings on literally everything they encounter, ignores it. Sometimes it's there as a warning on some really bad stuff! And sometimes it's there because a manufacturer or retailer figures they're probably in noncompliance somehow and better safe than sorry. Unfortunately, the warning itself doesn't help differentiate between these two cases.
posted by jackbishop at 2:42 PM on October 15, 2021 [47 favorites]

Research seems to suggest that you would need to ingest large amounts of this chemical to suffer any adverse effects. Cancer and other adverse health effects didn’t show up in animal models until it exceeded 0.5% of the diet by weight. I’m pretty sure that there isn’t even 0.5% on a red sprinkle.
posted by interogative mood at 2:42 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm just here for the candid cherries.
posted by erikred at 2:47 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

I want a followup article on taste testing safer sprinkles/jimmies/10^{2,3} to find a better option. I want the visionary UK sprinkle maker who has been waiting in the wings to hit the big time and become a star!
posted by clew at 2:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

The candid cherries are on the shelf between the tickled ginger and the gelid eels.
posted by bartleby at 2:53 PM on October 15, 2021 [20 favorites]

I'm sure there are still some really beautiful, unused cans of lead paint out there that you could find at auction
Conflating "we sell aspirin or alcohol" requiring the same warning as "wanting cans of lead paint" feels more than a bit reductive.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:54 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]

The Candide cherries are the best of all possible cherries.
posted by bleep at 2:54 PM on October 15, 2021 [27 favorites]

From the US Northeast:
"What's all this? Oh! They're talking about jimmies. Carry on."

Yes! In Massachusetts there used to be a local chain restaurant that featured ice cream called Brigham's (a few still around). In high school, my friends and I used to go there all the time and one day I ordered peppermint stick ice cream with jimmies.

There was a misinterpretation on the waitresses part, and she brought a peppermint stick milkshake with jimmies. Accidentally, this turned out to be the most amazing thing.

If you think about the physics of the situation, the jimmies (sprinkles, whatever) slowly settled to the bottom along with the peppermint stick candies, leading to this bizarre yet absolutely delicious sediment layer that required one of those wide bore straws to consume, or often, a spoon.

So of course, my friends and I turned this into a thing for the next few years and would always order "a peppermint stick milkshake with jimmies".

Based on the data recounted ☝️ I definitely shortened my life expectancy by a few years from all the jimmies I consumed.
posted by jeremias at 2:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]

Now I want a donut and there are none nearby.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:12 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

'Homer Simpson inspired donut and sprinkles rolling tray, multipurpose tray, vanity tray, donuts, sprinkles...'
posted by clavdivs at 3:40 PM on October 15, 2021

I want a donut and there are none nearby.
Read in the cadence of Emily Dickinson's 'I heard a Fly buzz - when I died'.
posted by bartleby at 3:41 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

The dose makes the poison, no?

"A 1990 study concluded that "chronic erythrosine ingestion may promote thyroid tumor formation in rats via chronic stimulation of the thyroid by TSH." with 4% of total daily dietary intake consisting of erythrosine B." per wikipedia.

4% (by weight?) seems like rather a lot. I bet pure sprinkles are not even close to 4% erythrosine by weight. Skittles have about 33.3 mg of dyes per 40g serving (source). That's about 0.000835% by weight, about 480 times lower concentration than the rats were fed.

Even someone who ate solely red candy dyed with erythrosine, and no other food at all would have 1/480th the exposure of these poor rats, perhaps. If they took no more than 1/4 of their daily calories from red candies, their potential exposure might be 1/1,920th of the rats.

We should probably worry about the poor sods who eat nothing but candid cherries.
posted by etherist at 3:52 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]

Oops too low by factor of 10, and I fudged the %. Disappointing. Should be 0.08325% by weight for skittles, 48x less than rat diet. It's been a long week.
posted by etherist at 4:02 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

who eat nothing but candid cherries
I'm avoiding a derail linking to the long story about that time some Brooklyn beehives discovered a maraschino cherry factory.
posted by bartleby at 4:05 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]

This European study has a lot to say about E127 safety. The 4% dose in rats was about 2500 mg/kg/day, where the acceptable daily intake is 0.1 mg/kg/day. They haven't found tumors in other animals even at the high dosages probably because rats lack TBG which could regulate TSH. They can detect increased TSH levels in humans at about 3 mg/kg/day, but not at 1 mg/kg/day. I'm pretty sure if you gave rats 25,000 times the acceptable amount of beet juice or turmeric some bad stuff would happen to them.
posted by netowl at 4:42 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Jimmies are chocolate sprinkles; yes, it matters. Chocolate sprinklesa re okay, multicolor sprinkles look festive but taste gross.

I am drinking bourbon; a candid cherry would be enlightening, perhaps.
posted by theora55 at 4:47 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Even someone who ate solely red candy dyed with erythrosine, and no other food at all would have [1/48th] the exposure of these poor rats, perhaps.

Anyone in that situation would need to fear diabetes far more than thyroid tumors.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:47 PM on October 15, 2021

If something is causing thyroid tumors in some people, you can be pretty sure it’s causing abnormalities of thyroid function in many more — probably orders of magnitude more.
posted by jamjam at 5:13 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Rats don’t live long and experiment finding is shorter yet. AIUI testing rats with high dosages flags up diseases that mammals get at tiny dosages but after a couple decades. Not always, I’m sure, but it’s why those experiments are meaningful.
posted by clew at 5:31 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

It bothers me that the internet is so full of nonsense when it comes to toxicity of chemicals, diet, nutrition, vitamins, etc that it’s impossible to know what the current consensus is. I even suspect that my earlier comment was probably not helpful — because it’s research from the 1980s.
posted by interogative mood at 6:24 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Doh!
posted by bendy at 6:33 PM on October 15, 2021

Oh great, let's re-prosecute the LNT controversy but for toxicology (already been done) and on the MeFi (also probably also done, but you never know).

It seems a big problem with risk-assessment is people's inherent denial of their own mortality - you can take a 10^-5 risk every day of your life and odds are you'll die of something else before it gets you. Do all those risks add up to eventually kill you? Of course - that's what having a finite lifespan is - but there are no lifestyle choices you can make that will result in your living forever. This doesn't constitute a reason to eschew the avoidance of significant risks, but it does mean that said significance needs to be seriously considered.
posted by memetoclast at 6:43 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]

Kind of seems like this guy is pretending he didn't know he was using sprinkles that he was prohibited from using and then he got caught and had a little fit because he can't keep doing the thing he pretty clearly knew was illegal but did anyways. It's not like he accidentally started using imported sprinkles, which aren't sold in the UK. In other words, he seems like a jerk.
posted by ssg at 8:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Which other rules/laws is he ignoring?
posted by BinaryApe at 1:07 AM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

Re: EU vs US food-safety regulations, the excellent foodsciencebabe* has several good videos [SL Instagram, unfortunately] on the pitfalls of using "banned in Europe" as a standalone yardstick for assessing the safety of a given ingredient. (For those who prefer not to watch/listen to videos or who cannot, the text descriptions under each video give a thorough summary.)

The US food system is trash on a number of levels, but there is a loottt of squirrelly thinking on the Internet about the supposedly dire effects of common additives that IMO tends to obscure much more distressing problems of access and inequality that are actually what make the American food system so harmful.

(*NB: not to be confused with her nemesis, foodbabe)
posted by TinyChicken at 5:28 AM on October 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Presumably the rationale is that if you're consuming a candied cherry, you're probably doing so with an alcoholic beverage, which is already mildly carcinogenic in itself.
posted by acb at 5:47 AM on October 16, 2021

This is my local slice-of-dietary-abuse shop, and I had myself a couple slices from there last night (no sprinkles). The guy who runs it is a suitably sarcastic chap who has always done the social media well, but it's still been weird to watch a local business go viral. Also, now I want more cake...
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:20 AM on October 16, 2021 [7 favorites]

Erythosine is Red Dye #3. In the US, carcinogenic stuff gets approved because pretty colors, which is just stupidly fucked. Even if it's only a little bit toxic, I'd prefer to have blander cherries, or pay a fraction more. There's probably a good substitute.

I still eat (fewer) foods like sausage, salami, bacon, because there's no good substitute*, so I make a choice. But food coloring isn't as critical to my needs as an occasional BLT.

*Varieties that don't add nitrates add ingredients that form nitrates; they just get a pass on the labeling.
posted by theora55 at 9:50 AM on October 16, 2021

It sounds like the UK has a blanket ban on importing US sprinkles. Is that the case? Or is the ban just on the colorant, which might enable someone to use any of the shades of sprinkles that don’t involve erythrosine?

Endocrine imbalances are kind of wild. I had mildly elevated prolactin levels a few years ago, probably due to a combination of medications I was on, and it’s resulted in a whole constellation of weirdness. So I can kind of understand why someone might want to regulate an endocrine disruptor that’s both superfluous and likely to be consumed by kids, especially considering that it’s probably not the only TSH stimulating substance with which people are coming into contact. The impact of the dye alone might not be all that much, but it’s kind of disruption by a thousand cuts, and I’m guessing that a lot of those other cuts are harder to avoid, while this one particular food dye has alternatives and is an entirely unnecessary evil.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Even someone who ate solely red candy dyed with erythrosine, and no other food at all would have 1/480th the exposure of these poor rats, perhaps.

Worth noting, because people often get tripped up by this reading drug studies and the like, that it’s normal for equivalent doses to be proportionally higher in smaller animals. (But not 480 times higher, generally.)
posted by atoxyl at 10:31 AM on October 16, 2021

I am allergic af to erythrosine. If I'm lucky, it's a fifteen minute non-stop sneezing fit, so fuck that guy.
posted by scruss at 10:41 AM on October 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh, and the proximate example of something that’s legal in the UK and Europe but not legal for consumption in the US (and illegal in California) probably isn’t Kinder eggs but silver dragées.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:41 AM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was just thinking about those weird silver balls. Who wants those? Blech!
posted by freecellwizard at 3:18 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

The end result of this is that every single entity doing business in California duly posts the requisite warning and gets on with their business, and every consumer in California, seeing these warnings on literally everything they encounter, ignores it.

Just like everything else in the United States, their attorneys make them post that so that when the other attorneys come looking to see if it's posted, it's there.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 3:55 PM on October 16, 2021

As a Californian, I think of Prop. 65 as the Joe Jackson proposition: Everything... everything gives you cancer. There's no cure, there's no answer. Everything gives you cancer.
posted by Lexica at 4:46 PM on October 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Erythosine is Red Dye #3. In the US, carcinogenic stuff gets approved because pretty colors, which is just stupidly fucked.

As far as I can tell Red Dye #3 was part of the list of things in common use and considered safe prior to modern FDA food safety regs established in 1958. So it was grandfathered in. It wasn’t until the 1980s some research was done that suggested that it might not be safe. Further research was done and concluded that there were no harmful effects below a certain threshold of daily consumption. When used as a food coloring you are far below that threshold. Further studies have been done and seem to confirm these findings.

In the EU and UK Red Dye #3 is a approved for use in coloring processed cherries and some medicines eg Bennedryl.

Red Dye #3 isn’t the most common red coloring agent — that belongs to Red #40. Red #40 is suspected of a lot of possible harms but so far remains approved for use in the US, EU and UK.
posted by interogative mood at 5:56 PM on October 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

100s&1000s are round not little rods
posted by goinWhereTheClimateSuitsMyClothes at 7:16 PM on October 16, 2021

Now that I know there’s a difference between British and American sprinkles, I think we should change the name of ours to “Yankles.”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:04 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

this bizarre yet absolutely delicious sediment layer

I tried to explain to my kid about breakfast cereals in the 70's and how even then we used to keep a bowl of sugar on the table next to the salt and pepper, and they just looked at me pityingly -- again.
posted by mikelieman at 10:44 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

It's not like he accidentally started using imported sprinkles, which aren't sold in the UK.

Myers says he didn't import the "illegal" sprinkles himself, but bought them from a British supplier. In fact, he says they're quite commonly sold in the U.K. and used by many bakeries, several of which are much larger than his.

I see a lot of talk of how dangerous this food dye is, but please keep in mind that it's not actually banned from use in food in the UK. It's somehow too risky to put in sprinkles, but perfectly fine to put in cherries. Totally normal in fruitcake, but apparently not in donuts.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:22 AM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think it’s because those foods aren’t for children. Still, it’s not as if you can prevent kids from eating them.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:33 PM on October 17, 2021

> we used to keep a bowl of sugar on the table next to the salt and pepper

Oh my goodness. I remembered the layer of grainy goodness under my Cheerios (no sugar cereal in this house!) but I'd forgotten that it came from the sugar bowl.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:34 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

We were a no sugar cereal house too. No frosted flakes or mini wheats. But 1/4 cup of sugar on my corn flakes or shredded wheat? No problem.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:00 PM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]

I found the EU food safety evaluation on Red #3 It is notable that the US doesn’t allow it to be used in makeup and cosmetics but the EU allows it. It seems like the primary reason that it isn’t approved for use in foods in the EU other than cherries is that no one has requested that approval. For now the UK follows the EU guidelines; so this is their thinking.

The report seems to suggest that there isn’t string evidence for any carcinogenic or toxic effects as the established ADI and cites a lot of follow up studies to explain their thinking.

The approval issue seems to be largely a matter of administrative differences and not the underlying scientific conclusions.

It seems to me what we have is another moral panic created by people who have cherry picked a handful of studies that suit their beliefs while ignoring the scientific consensus.

And after a 18 months of pandemic I feel like I’ve seen enough of this.
posted by interogative mood at 4:55 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

All this talk of sugar bowls led me to seek out a good picture of the turquoise Tupperware sugar bowl that sat on my Grandma’s kitchen table as far back as I could remember. Under one flip-up lid was a small hole for pouring, while under the other was a hole big enough to spoon sugar out.

Instead of the matching creamer, she kept a can of evaporated milk with one of those lids that punches two holes.

And for pouring milk over your cereal, a two-quart carton went into this type of plastic holder that turned it into a pitcher. Hers was turquoise like the one in the picture, but had the Sealtest Dairy logo instead of the words “HANDI HOLDER.”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:30 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

We had that Tupperware sugar bowl in yellow! I think my parents still use it
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:09 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]