Polydimethylsiloxane, sounds tasty doesn’t it? Domino’s Pizza, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s certainly seem to think so. The chemical has been stirring up some controversy recently due to its appearance in fast-food menu items. It belongs to a group of polymeric compounds commonly referred to as silicones, and applications of the chemical range from contact lenses and medical devices to shampoo and conditioners (making the hair shiny and slippery), caulking, heat resistant tiles, polishes, cosmetics, silly putty, and plenty more.
The FDA approved chemical is classified as “non-toxic” even though it is non-biodegradable and its commercial use in breast implants has decreased due to “safety concerns.” Under section 176.200, polydimethylsiloxane is listed as a defoaming agent which is an acceptable additive to food:
Sec. 176.200 Defoaming agents used in coatings. |
The defoaming agents described in this section may be safely used as components of articles intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food, subject to the provisions of this section.(a) The defoaming agents are prepared as mixtures of substances described in paragraph (d) of this section.(b) The quantity of any substance employed in the formulation of defoaming agents does not exceed the amount reasonably required to accomplish the intended physical or technical effect in the defoaming agents or any limitation further provided.(c) Any substance employed in the production of defoaming agents and which is the subject of a regulation in parts 174, 175, 176, 177, 178 and 179.45 of this chapter conforms with any specification in such regulation.
(d) Substances employed in the formulation of defoaming agents include: (1) Substances generally recognized as safe in food. (2) Substances subject to prior sanction or approval for |
Surprisingly, the FDA also approved formaldehyde as a preservative for anti-foaming agents. Formaldehyde is recognized as a carcinogen by the CDC.
Domino’s Pizza lists the ingredient in their breadsticks, cheese bread, as well as in their “garlic butter oil,” commonly used on most of their pizzas. McDonald’s lists polydimethylsiloxane as an additive in their cooking oils, meaning that their infamous McNuggets and french fries are saturated in the chemical. Wendy’s also uses the ingredient in their cooking oils. The FDA states that anti-foaming agents are “generally recognized as safe in food,” but the term “generally” is an elusive one at best. The question begs, why is the FDA approving food additives such as polydimethylsiloxane and formaldehyde when the substances frequently find industrial uses?
Material Data Safety sheets state that polydimethylsiloxane (or dimethicone for short) degrades to formaldehyde under higher temperatures, a concern due to the chemical’s use in fast-food cooking oils. Another MSDS revealed dangers associated with fires/explosions and polydimethylsiloxane, which can generate formaldehyde as a by-product of oxidative thermal decomposition at temperatures greater than 150 degrees C.
In 2006, The Milkweed released a report in their monthly magazine which singled out Leprino Foods, the main manufacturer and supplier of cheese for Pizza Hut, as using polydimethylsiloxane as an anti-foaming agent for their cheese. Leprino sent a letter in response stating that they received the patent for using the chemical but that “many practices are often claimed in patents, but are not utilized commercially.”
The use of polydimethylsiloxane provides yet another example of a “trusted” governing body letting the public down by the unethical regulation of our food. As time goes on I trust we will see more of the corruption behind the FDA being exposed. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and avoid the aforementioned fast food choices. It is clear there is a war being enacted on our health, and ultimately the only person who can save you is you.
Guess I am done eating this crap
PDMS is also present in shampoos (as dimethicone makes hair shiny and slippery) and in heat-resistant tiles. Folks, who wish to avoid heart attacks make your arteries slippery by consuming PDMS and those who wish to suntan a lot, use a lot of it as well. Viva McDonalds!
if you fed this stuff to your dog, couldn’t you be charged with animal cruelty?
Dang and I though Wendys was the healthier choice!! ugh!!!!
Is dimethicone the same chemical? Isn’t that what the active ingredient in anti colic medicine for babies? Ugh. I hate this world.
1. I’m not a fan of fast food. It’s generally unhealthy and not very enjoyable.
2. formaldehyde occurs naturally in the human body. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’ll kill you. Jeff Roberts is trying to use bad science to scare everybody. I hate being manipulated. Don’t you? The important factor is the concentrations of the chemicals! Ten thousand water molecules in your lungs is welcome BUT ten cups would kill you. So, is water a poison? Water is also used to cut metal. Would you ingest something that’s used to cut metal? (You’ll see the same “logic” EVERYWHERE in this website).
John, I totally agree, thank you for articulating it so well.
Really good comments John 🙂
Either way, we shouldn’t eat FAST FOOD! …EVER! YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, LITERALLY 😉
Hmm, I don’t think think the important think is concentrations of the chemicals John! If there is any toxic, harmful chemical (that has been proven to be harmful to human health) it should not be used, even if they are trace amounts!
Jeff is far from using bad science to scare everybody, he’s simply bringing more awareness to facts not many people know about. Polymeric compounds in our “food” isn’t right, wouldn’t you agree? At the end of the day, there is a lot of info out there. I know it’s been approved as safe for consumption, but at the same time there is evidence to suggest the counter!
http://davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/chemicals-in-your-cosmetics—siloxanes/ here’s one example of many.
Water is toxic. Seriously. You try and drink 10 gallons of it an see how you fair. (Read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication)
By your argument, we should not use water.
Hence, your argument is invalid.
Would it be “legal” for me to take toxic chemicals and insert them into sandwiches served to police officers? Politicians? Homosexuals? African Americans?
What would happen to me if I intentionally poisoned people?
Exactly.
But PMDS isn’t toxic. Seriously, it’s not just the FDA thats concluded that; there are hundreds of tests done by various agencies regarding the other uses of PMDS and none of them have found any link to it and any disease. Not only in humans but in wildlife as well. Just because a chemical has a big scary name and is used in non-organic products doesn’t make it somehow deadly to you.
Shouldn’t you not be eating fast food for the simple fact that it’s not only unhealthy but also fairly expensive and not very good?
Don’t eat at these places anymore, they obviously don’t care about our health, only their profits! Switch to Chipotle and other places that care about what they serve you!
Just be sure to stock up on Chipotl-Away™, so you won’t have to keep buying new underwear.
First pink slime, now gray silly putty chemicals…it is criminal what is being done to our food.
Thank you for this article. it was this proof that i needed to convince my friends not to eat fast food.
When will activists learn the difference between correlation and causality? Just because a substance is used in something you wouldn’t eat…that doesn’t make that specific substance dangerous. There’s WATER in silly putty too…should we not consume water now?
Depends what else is in the water, eh? W.Va residents might have an opinion.
It is getting more difficult to eat ANYTHING that doesn’t have something harmful in it, on it, or used to grow it anymore. Trying to find totally healthy food is like trying to find totally healthy air to breathe.
I thought silly putty was an ingreident of computronium.Thats used in advertizing and warfare.Your not supposed to eat it.
None of that garbage is considered real food. That trash is what is killing people. If you want real food, grow it.
Yummy, I want some of those Wendy’s fries in my tummy.
Sounds like you just want to target fast food. You could have made people aware that it’s also used in chocolate, gum, soft drinks, energy drinks. I also find interesting you chose the word “saturated” when describing chicken nuggets and fries at Mcdonalds do you have facts that these foods are saturated with this chemical.
Don’t forget DHMO is in all foods. People ingest DHMO every day and nobody says a word about it. Thousands of people have died from inhaling it, world wide. It’s dumped into rivers and oceans every day. Not one single government entity will do a thing to stop it and nobody’s got the guts to take on the DHMO industrial complex.
Is there any known actual ill effect of this substance? Just because a chemical has industrial uses doesn’t mean it’s automatically harmful to health. After all, water is also used industrially, but try living without it.
(Remember the DHMO thing from some years ago?)
water is also used in nuclear reactors, and we let people use that in food?!?!
That’s awesome
Did you completely miss the part about it having formaldehyde in it?? Just one of the most toxic substances on earth that’s been linked to cancer, brain damage, auto-immune disorders, etc…
it’s also produced by the body and is an essential chemical used by the body. “one of the most toxic substances” is actually made and used by the body, because, you know….. science.
Thank you. Something I bring up over and over: part of normal metabolism, but you don’t want too much. Like say, water, or salt.
People need to stop with this Food Babe style food terrorism.
your science sound like religious dogma, but you’ll say cancers are”normal”
Reading all comments denying reality about U.S carcinogenic food and way of life make me understand why and how… Happy & lucky to live elsewhere 🙂
Old U.S movie then to study : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdINcDXcPso
pears have formaldehyde in them, apples have cyanide :/
both occuring naturally.
“organic” and “all natural” arnt totally true either. you wont really find one thing in your kitchen that is free of any type of chemical or additive. and these are micro-grams. a sneeze is more deadly than eating at a fast food place
better eating apples without the 37 chemicals treatments 🙂
Dimethicone (Polydimethylsiloxane) can generate formaldehyde as a bi-product of oxidative thermal decomposition at temps greater than 150 degrees C. It’s not necessarily IN dimethicone, but dimethicone can create such if there’s even to be so much as a simple screw up with the temp in these fast food places. I’m there with you on that. Definitely the most important piece to take note of. Staying away from fast food for sure.
Yeah, and? You seem to lack the basic chemistry knowledge that just because something contains something dangerous, it doesn’t mean that the thing itself is dangerous. I mean think about this:
Na, Sodium, is a gray metal that is so reactive that it will burn in oxygen and explode in water.
Cl, chlorine, is a corrosive gas that was used as a weapon in WWI
Combine them into an ionic compound, NaCl, Sodium Chloride, and you get table salt.
Similarly, Phosphorous is an element so reactive that it glows in oxygen and is used as an incendiary weapon, but it is VITALLY important in your body. So much so that if I were to magically remove all the phosphorous from you right now, you would drop dead within seconds.
Just because something can form formaldyhe or contains the molecule somewhere inside it, that doesn’t make it inherently dangerous.
This is no different that that stupid ass panic that people got into when they found out that vaccines contained a molecule that had mercury in it. A molecule that did not release the mercury and had no effect on the body, but OH NO MERCURY! MY BABY SUDDENLY GOT AUTISM DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT’S IMPOSSIBLE FOR THAT TO HAPPEN!
It is amazing what the body can do continuity healing it self, filtering out the majority of the harmful things in the food. to a point. but for how long. which chemical will have an defect and witch will not. well i dint know nether do you, so if it dos not kill quickly this dose not make it safe. there were no old roman solders the wine flasks were lined with lead. so wen you end up in the hospital the doctor will find something wrong and he will do what he knows to help you. what caused it well he only knows what went wrong not with particulate compound weakened you. for those of you whom believe all the stuff in the food is safe because a rich man said so, good luck with that. I would like to meet my grandchildren,
Murray
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure don’t want to eat Silly Putty. It’s a good thing I stopped eating the garbage from those places years ago.
I ate lots of silly putty as a kid and I truned out alritite.
So what’s the problem with using a food additive in Silly Putty?
This is the best comment sir, thank you.
Polydimethylsiloxane is only used industrially. it isn’t found in nature (to my knowledge), so it has no business in our bodies, nor will they know what to do with it. they might confuse Polydimethylsiloxane with another chemical found in nature, this commonly happens with estrogen, and it can mess your system up. companies like wendy’s, dominos, and mcdonalds will use anything they can slip past the FDA to make their food cheaper and faster, in a sense… you can’t rely on somebody else to care about your health, not when profit is involved
Kinda scary that you can also apply that theory to the field of medicine and/or healthcare. and you can…
And I think what they are saying is that these corporations paid the FDA to approve these ingredients, rather than slipping it past them which is ever scarier..
My question is why would cheese have to be “de-foamed” in the first place???
It’s for the oil to reduce splattering.
Putting any kind of chemical in your body that ain,t food could affect you in the long run on a molecular level. Those guys never study things long enough. if you don’t get sick or drop dead in a week then they market it as safe.
Yes, but why they approve? M O N E Y
The term generally means way more often than not. As in, way more people regard it as safe than don’t. Not that it’s “eh, safe enough we guess”
Polydimethylsiloxane, also known as simethicone, also known as Gas-X.
Yes sir, thank you. It’s also used in countless cosmetic products. I also have yet to find research on the claim that it “degrades to formaldehyde under higher temperatures” Besides the one MDSS supplied, and the wording of that makes me think more like… the burning of the compound, rather than the “heating” of it. In which case when MANY things burn they create equally as damaging byproducts. Meh, I need more on that to decide.
Spinach has nitrogen.
Bombs have nitrogen.
Your spinach could explode in your stomach.
#pseudoscience
nitrogen is commonly found in nature, it makes up 70% of our air and it’s vital for life on earth. Polydimethylsiloxane isn’t found anywhere in nature, i briefly googled it.. this article is saying that Polydimethylsiloxane is only used industrially, so our bodies won’t know what to do with it and it will throw off some system, or cause cancer
This is not how cancer works
Polydimethylsiloxane is compund made of Silica and Oxygen (both found in nature). So that makes it NATURAL. Now I would like to see the “sources” of this “article” Possibly food babe, dr oz or natural news. Nobody here seems to know basic chemistry.
Chemical compounds are made by man every day, things you can’t find “naturally”, things like silicon, as certain pre forms of it can be found, man treats it to become silicon; silicon is man made. Much like plastic, and certain metallic alloys. Simply being a compound does not make it natural. and, for the record, It’s silica, oxygen, hydrogen 6, and carbon 2., as C2H6OSi
I just got off work and am going to go by McD’s on my way home and get a super size order of frys. Why, because they are yummy.
somebody said the same thing when i shared this. of course they are yummy, open your eyes and do some research
that shit will cause you to die young. there are much healthier alternatives to McD’s!
You will also find formaldehyde in decaffeinated coffee, if the coffee does not specifically state “naturally decaffeinated”. It’s how they take the caffeine out. Most restaurants serve decaf coffee that uses the formaldehyde process.
Still loving it?
What’s with everyone going after McDonald’s!?! Like ALL THE TIME!
Did you not read the article? People go after McDonalds because the food is bad and unhealthy.
When you eat, you die and if you don’t eat, you’ll also die… so which is which? Just eat and be happy 🙂
i’ll eat ,MacDonalds, but i never did like the others. Wendy’s i tasteless, and i prefer papa johns. dominoes just doesn’t do it for me.
U.S.A Best country for Fat and Cancers 🙂
Guess Why…. ?
and either of the ingredients in salt is deadly in the smallest amounts too, so what is your point??
don’t waste our time
Why does everybody gets scared about a chemical name? Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide is also on silly putty (lets see who gets it)? Also, polydimethylsiloxane is an organic compound, don’t people like organic things?
dihydrogen monoxide is water.
Scare campaign! Dimethicone is very safe and will not turn to formaldehyde in cooking oil! Present the facts!
The safest food is real food. I dare you to argue with my point
And where did you get your degree in organic chemistry Mr truth? Dimethicone could very well produce formaldehyde and a whole host of toxic substances when subjected to high temperatures while cooking.
why would anyone in their right mind want to consume ANYTHING called… DIMETHICONE?????? I don’t care who calls it safe or anything else!!it is not grown in a garden!! Sad .. very sad.. you are defending chemicals for your natural body.
There are even bigger words in your tap water.
Probably for the same reason you ingest dihydrogen monoxide on a regular basis, despite the fact that it kills thousands of people every year. https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmo.htm
If these people only knew how many “natural” foods contained dihydrogen monoxide – another chemical approved by the FDA and farmers spray it on crops!!
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmo.htm
as far as I’m concerned, the FDA are just another American company. but why trust an American company to regulate food and drugs for the entire world. kinda sounds funny really. why is this not U.N. run. just leaving it to a American company might open the chance for them to have a monopoly on all food and drugs across the world. 😛
Oh so let’s feed it to people.
It seems to me that every time we turn around, there is another fast food restaurant or 2 or 3 in the news with ingredients that are not meant for human consumption. So you have 4 children and you go to one of these places for 10 years. Then little Johnny gets sick and the doctor diagnosis is cancer. You had put your trust in the FDA and all of these fast food establishments not to poison your family. Now what? A child is suffering and his family as well. As I said, “Now what?”
I think if you were serious about your journalism, you’d spend a little more time on the chemistry/science behind the claims you’re making here. For example, formaldehyde is formed naturally in your body when you ingest tomatoes and certain citrus fruits/juices. Your body, in turn, is quite good at removing the very small amounts created. Using this as a scare tactic on an uninformed public does your blog a disservice.
This reeks of Food Babe-type “activism”. You know, the blogger who falsely links aluminum-containing deodorants to disease yet sells a deodorant containing aluminum… the blogger who says compounds such as cyclopentasiloxane (sound familiar?) are dangerous–yet sells mascara containing cyclopentasiloxane?
It’s easy to Google an ingredient followed by some dangerous word and write an article on the results. It’s much harder to UNDERSTAND the search results and present balanced information. That certainly was not done here.
Mark – I think if you were serious about your health, you’d spend a little more time avoiding any and all chemical additives in your food. People have survived on unadulterated food for millennia. Since the food industry began “enhancing” their food with chemicals, the incidence of cancers and other life threatening ailments has skyrocketed. It would appear that you are the “uninformed public” that you speak of.
The fact that you talk about “chemical additives” doesn’t help for your credibility. Everytime you sprinkle homegrown rosemary over your homegrown potatoes you’re adding chemicals to more chemicals. The difference between a substance synthesized in a lab and a substance naturally occurring in nature exists only in your mind. An artificial chemical can be just as healthy for you as a natural chemical and a natural chemical just as toxic as an artificial one.
I eat whole foods beans, quinoa spinach, brown rice, goat milk, coconut oil, all fruits, whole grains, sweet potatoes organic,alkaline water, less meat or grass fed. my number one rule be4 u purchase a product if u cannot pronounce it don’t eat it.
The biggest mistake people make is in thinking the FDA is there to protect you. The FDA’s sole purpose is to ensure that no-one can make medical claims to their product. Period.
Does this apply to the UK as well or is it based on US research?
The use of this compound in these “butter” type liquids, is to keep them LIQUID. Naturally occurring fats such as butter and oil can be solids at room temperature. To ensure the “Speedy Service” everyone desires the fast food industry has to create products that are quick. Melting a pot of garlic butter is not ideal.
Polydimethylsiloxane is a NON-TOXIC, BIOCOMPATIBILE polymer. It’s currently being studied for medical implants like screws and rods for broken bones. Unless you know what a compound is, don’t get all flustered. McDonalds would loose billions of dollars for feeding people toxic compounds, trust me they’ve done their research!
lets not forget all the chemicals that are not listed. Glyphosate is present in most any commercial wheat product. it is not listed as it is residue from farming. So how many other chemicals sneak in the food we eat. Not only that what is their interaction with each other? These chemical soups may be harmless to one person yet give another cancer. Biology is different for everyone and we as a society do not understand enough about all these interactions to sit and say the science is settled, GRAS (the G stands for generally, meaning most of the time but not all the time). And to this article do we really need silicone in our cooking oil? Did these restaurants really need oil that did not foam? it is probably because soybean oil foams more than sunflower, canola or the like. So use the cheapest oils (not to mention the hormone bending properties of soy) and just put some caulking in it, that will make it seem perform like more expensive oil. If God meant us to eat this stuff he would have put it in fruits and vegetables. We are creatures of Nature after all and if we don’t follow the rules we see the results (obesity, cancer, diabetes…) Pretty simple.
Dimeticone is sold as a OTC (over the counter) medicine in europe. Its for stomach gasses. In the packaging it says the compound doesnt break down in the body and leaves the body unchanged. So i guess if you eat it through food it may have the same effect as in pill- form.
I personally think that, if dimeticone is safe, really isnt relevant when debating fast food. I just wanted to inform you all about this chemical.
im against all the big fastfood-chains and really every big food company.. They all want to make profit. Your health is low on their priority list.
I believe the three biggest problems in the products are sugar, fat and salt. Not that they are bad in themselves. But they become addictive in how fast foodchains blend them together in their products. They obviously know how to perfectly balance these three ingridients to evoke the biggest neurological chemical release.