Ice cream manufacturers are not by law required to list the additives in the making of ice cream. Chemical additives are much less expensive than the real thing so that the manufacturers usually take the path of least resistance to higher profits. Consequently, the majority cheaper, pre-packed (especially half gallon and gallon) ice creams are synthetic from start to finish.
Laboratory analysis have shown the following:
Diethyl Glucol – a cheap chemical that is used as an emulsifier to substitute for eggs. It is identically the same chemical used in anti-freeze and paint remover.
Piperahol – extensively used as a substitute for vanilla. This widely used by exterminators as a chemical to kill lice.
Aldehyde C17 – used to flavor cherry ice cream. This is an inflammable liquid which is used in aniline dyes, plastic and rubber.
Ethyl Acetate – used to give ice cream a pineapple flavor. It is used a cleaner for leather and textiles. Its vapors are a cause of chronic lung, heart and, especially, liver damage to those two industries.
Butyraldehyde – used to give ice cream various nut-like flavors. It is one of the common ingredients of rubber cement.
Amyl Acetate – used to give ice cream a banana flavor. It is used commercially as an oil paint solvent.
Benzyl Acetate – used to give a strawberry flavor. It is used as a nitrate solvent.
This is just a small list of whats used in ice cream.
What are they using in other foods? We have decided not to buy anything that says artificially flavored or colored. Yes, it has cut down on what we can safely
buy. Better that than feed our bodies something that could cause cancer or other health problems.
A couple of books that you can read to get more information on this are: CONSUMER BEWARE by Beatrice Hunter, and THE POISONS IN YOUR FOOD by William Longgood.
O.W.C. Newman
N.B. While the above may hold true and be the case as to artificial flavors and such in the USA, in the countries of the EU, including Great Britain, each and every ingredient has to be listed and if E-numbers are used there is a list available that shows what what product is and does. There was once a great scare as to the E-numbers and people rejected or attempted to reject anything with E-numbers. However, every ingredient, even natural flavors, etc. have an E-number, simply because that's how the EU works and sometimes only the number is listed. In the UK, however, the entire name of the ingredient must be in the list.
In the main, in Europe, the ingredients for ice cream have to be natural, and vanilla flavor means flavored with vanilla essence. However, ice cream does not have to use milk fats in the UK and still can be called ice cream while in some other countries this is not the case. Ed.