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Welcome to Call to Decision
Silicone Based Chemical in Pizza Huts
Cheese is Polymethylsiloxane
Pizza Hut cheese is not just cheese, its
silicone!
John Bunting details how Pizza Huts cheese supplier Leprino Foods uses
a silicone-based industrial chemical in the patented manufacturing of
Pizza Cheese
That chemical Polymethylsiloxane has no FDA approval for use as a food
ingredient.
Polymethylsiloxane is sold by Dow-Corning as Antifoam FG 10 .
THIS MATERIAL IS APPROVED BY FDA FOR USE IN FOOD PLANTS ONLY AS AN
ANTI-FOAMING AGENT FOR BOILER WATER.
In its patented manufacturing process, Leprino Foods liberally sprays
Polydimethylsiloxane on cheese granules . Leprinos Pizza Cheese
supplied to Pizza Huts contains about 900 parts per million of
Polymethylsiloxane: 90 times higher residue concentration than FDA
allows when Polymethylsiloxane is used as a boiler water anti- foaming
agent.
Repeat: Polydimethylsiloxane has no FDA approval as a safe food
ingredient. It is a violation of FDA rules to use an unapproved
ingredient in human foods. Silicone is amazing stuff.
In its various forms, silicone may enhance the female anatomy (Ala
amply-endowed actress Pamela Anderson). Silicone products can caulk
seams around the bathtub to seal out water. Silicone compounds are
used for lubricants. However, using silicone products in human foods
is a novel, if extra-legal, application.
Leprino Foods, the worlds largest Italian cheese manufacturer, is the
nearly exclusive supplier of Pizza Cheese to the 6000+ Pizza Hut
restaurants in the U.S. Leprino is based in Denver, Colorado. To
control costs (and boost profits), Leprino Foods uses patented
manufacturing processes that add large volumes of water, salt and food
starch to so-called granules of Pizza Cheese prior to flash-freezing.
Food starch is a particularly profitable addition to processed foods,
since food starch holds ten times its own weight in water.
All that food starch, water and salt in the Leprinos Pizza Cheese
creates problems for both cooking and refrigerated shelf-life. To
solve these cooking problems, Leprinos patented process for making
cheese granules sprays 1.75 parts of a water-based spray containing
0.05% Dow-Corning Antifoam FG 10 for each 100 parts cheese.
Yield: 900 parts per million of Antifoam FG 10 (generically known as
Polydimethylsiloxane) in the Pizza Cheese that Leprino sells to Pizza
Hut. Polydimethylsiloxane is approved by FDA in food industry use only
as an anti-foaming agent for boiler water in plants processing
non-standardized foods. FDApermits no use of Dow-Corning Antifoam FG
10 directly in or on foods. FDA does allow up to 10 parts per million
of Polydimethylsiloxane residues in food products, as residue from the
products use as a boiler water anti-foaming agent. The 900 ppm of
Polydimethylsiloxane in Leprinos Pizza Cheese that Pizza Hut puts on
its pizzas is 90 times FDAs legal limit for indirect residues of that
chemical in food products.
Follow the trail of evidence … Trace the evidence … from Pizza Hut
back to Leprino Foods patents. Start with an empty box of Pizza Cheese
liberated from a dumpster behind a Pizza Hut. The contents were Pizza
Huts Pizza Cheese Weight (when full): 15 lbs.
The box contains a statement noting the product is packaged
exclusively for use by Pizza Hut Inc., its franchises and licensees
Leprino Foods is obviously the supplier. The USDA plant number
(identifying the cheese plant at which the product was made) is Plant
No. 26-930
That's Leprinos plant at Allendale, Michigan. The box also notes U.S.
Patent No. 4894245 and other patents pending Leprino Foods received
U.S. Patent #4894245 for coated cheese granules in 1990 (among many
other cheesy patents that Leprino holds). That patents abstract
states: Coated frozen cheese granules are prepared by freezing the
granules and applying an aqueous coating containing one or more
modifying additives.
On baking the cheese the additives in the frozen coatings distribute
throughout the cheese to obtain modifications of flavor and other
properties The abstract from Leprino patent #4894245 clearly states
that the aqueous coating (Polymethylsiloxane) is contained in the
cheese of the finished, cooked pizza silicone-based substance in the
cheese atop Pizza Hut pizzas. Leprino patent #494245 reveals detailed
information about the role of the cheese emulsifiers:
When the coated frozen cheese is applied to pizzas and baked thereon,
the coatings will liquify first. This permits the flavor additive
and/or emulsi- fier to spread over and into the cheese particles as
their outer surfaces become thawed . . . Cheese emulsifiers applied in
this way can function to soften the outer portions of the cheese
granules. This will improve melting and fusing of the granules
Leprino patent #494245 targets the emulsifier: A silicone emulsifier
(Dow Corning FG-10) is mixed with water to form a 0.05% emulsifier
solution. This solution is sprayed on the frozen cheese granules at a
rate of 1.75 parts of solution per 100 parts by weight of cheese. This
should achieve a final content of around 0.09% emulsifier on the
cheese No compliance with mandatory GRAS rules The federal Food and
Drug Administration re- quires ingredients used in human foods to
comply with the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) rules, which
specify that each food ingredient developed after 1958 must meet
exacting safety tests. Polydimethylsiloxane does not appear on FDAs
Web site as a GRAS-approved food ingredient.
A call to Dow-Corning headquarters in Midland, Michigan yielded the
statement that no Dow products complied with GRAS. However,
information faxed by a Dow-Corning representative stated: Dow-Corning
Antifoam FG 10 complies with FDA regulation 21 CFR.173.310, which
covers secondary direct food additives used as defoaming agents and
allows concentration of up to 10 parts per mil- lion active silicone (Polydimethylsiloxane)
in non standardized foods
Section 173.310 is limited to boiler water additives in food
processing plants and has nothing to do with cheese or cheese-type
products that a consumer might ingest.
Clearly, Leprino Foods use of Dow-Corning Antifoam FG 10 as an agent
contained in an aqueous solution sprayed directly on cheese granules
does not conform with FDAs rules governing ingredients used in human
foods.
More on the link
http://www.themilkweed.com/...
and
http://www.google.com/searc...
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