Beware of ‘clean labels’
Restaurant Brands International, apparently happy with the reaction to its Burger King “banned ingredient” list of 2021, is now tapping another one of its brands, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, in promising “all-clean ingredients.”
While Burger King announced it was planning to ban 120 “non-essential artificial ingredients” from its food, Popeye’s seems to be focused on one in particular: monosodium glutamate (MSG).
“We are currently testing all-clean ingredients in our batter, breading and sandwiches in a few U.S. markets and we expect to be on track to an all-clean menu nationwide by 2025,” the company told Bloomberg.
Sounds healthy, doesn’t it? But will they actually get rid of the ingredients that contain the component in MSG that causes brain damage and adverse reactions, such as asthma and migraine headache? It’s deceptive and misleading to replace MSG with other toxic ingredients. But worse yet to refer to excitotoxic amino acids as “clean” ingredients. Today, there is a whole clean-label industry centered around toxic manufactured free glutamate (MfG). An industry that promotes the use of ingredients that contain the same toxin that MSG contains, but will give no clue to its presence.
