By Josh Bloom — October 16, 2019 Whole Foods chemists, an incongruity if ever there were one, must have a helluva job. They somehow must explain to suckers customers how the same chemical can be both good and bad for you. And also how an inorganic salt can be “organic” depending on its source. This takes a degree of creativity, and Whole Foods is nothing if not creative, especially when it comes to science.
Let’s start with meat. The company is quite clear that preserving meat with nitrates is a big no-no.
Let’s nix the synthetic nitrites and nitrates. While they occur naturally in some foods in small amounts, nitrates and nitrites are often added to preserve bacon, ham, hotdogs, sausages and deli meats. Whole Foods Market does not sell products with synthetic nitrates or nitrites
Source: Whole Foods Website: Let’s Not Mess With Nature
I think they ought to change their motto a bit…
…because when it comes to science. especially chemistry, Whole Foods is totally out to lunch. Here’s why.
WHOLE FOODS’ CRAZY CHEMISTRY
- “While [nitrates] (1) occur naturally in some foods in small amounts”
Nonsense. Nitrates are found in vegetables –and not in small amounts. Vegetables are, by far, the primary source of nitrates in our diet, accounting for 80 percent of our nitrate intake. No, “some foods” do not contain “small amounts” of nitrate. Vegetables contain a whole lot of it.
.
Nitrate content of vegetables, Sources: European Food Safety Authority, USDA.
MORE MISUSE OF THE TERM “SYNTHETIC”
- “Whole Foods Market does not sell products with synthetic nitrates or nitrites”
This statement is technically correct, but misleading, perhaps intentionally so. Sodium nitrate is sodium nitrate, no matter its source. The chemical is made in factories, in plants (the green kind), and by your body (more on that later) and the three are indistinguishable – identical in every way. It is dishonest to imply that there is any difference. Here’s a demonstration.
IT DOESN’T MATTER ONE BIT WHERE NITRATE COMES FROM OR HOW MUCH IS IN A FOOD.
Something else that Whole Foods probably doesn’t want you to know is that none of what I’ve written makes a difference. It’s clever marketing to claim that nitrate-free beef is somehow superior (1) while minimizing the nitrate content of vegetables.
But this doesn’t matter either. Eating nitrate-free preserved meat, nitrate-laden spinach or nothing at all will make little difference because nitrate is produced by your body, and in far greater quantities than found in anything you eat. (See NPR Doesn’t Know Spit About Saliva, Nitrates Or Deli Meat)
“Although fruit and vegetables contribute 11-41% of exogenous nitrite dietary intake … this amount is overshadowed by the endogenous reduction of secreted salivary nitrate to nitrite”
“Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits.”
SHAMELESS
This last part borders on hilarious. You can buy the following online.
Whole Foods organic beet root dietary supplement.
So what? All kinds of companies sell all kinds of crappy supplements. Shouldn’t Whole Foods have the option to do so? Why, of course.
You may be asking why anyone would want to take such a product. WebMD tells us why.
Beet Juice Benefits
“In some studies, drinking about 2 cups of beet juice daily or taking nitrate capsules lowered blood pressure in healthy adults.”
Source: WebMD
Beet juice is a source of nitrate, which is supposed to lower your blood pressure (it doesn’t). Does anyone see the humor here? (3)
LET’S REVIEW
- Whole Foods want you to believe that the small amount of nitrate/nitrite in meat will harm you (2) so you should buy their nitrate-free meat.
- They neglect to tell you that the vegetables in the next aisle contain a bazillion times more nitrate than the preserved meat.
- They either don’t know (or won’t say) that neither the meat nor the vegetables will harm you because your body makes far more nitrate that you will ever eat.
- They sell a supplement packed with nitrate.
- I should have become a Whole Foods scientist. Or maybe a plumber. Not much difference.
NOTES:
(1) Some phony health sites will tell you that nitrates are OK; it is nitrites that are harmful. Nice try. Nitrates are converted to nitrites in your body, especially in the gut and in saliva. For the purposes of this discussion, they can be used interchangeably.
(2) I’m more concerned about listeriosis or botulism poisoning from meat that isn’t preserved. I’m funny that way.
(3) It’s hardly just Whole Foods that sells beet supplements. If you put the terms “beet” and “supplement” into Amazon’s search engine it returns more than 2,000 results.
By Josh Bloom
Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. The field of drug discovery involves chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology – skills that he has used to write on a wide variety of topics since he joined ACSH in 2010. One of the topics he has tackled is the so-called “opioid crisis.” He is now recognized as an expert in this area and was the first journalist to write a nationally published opinion piece about the unintended consequences of a governmental crackdown on prescription pain medications (New York Post, 2013). Since that time he has published more than 20 op-eds in regional and national newspapers on different aspects of the crisis. In that same year, he testified at an FDA hearing, where he noted that fentanyl was the real danger, something that would be proven years later. At that time almost no one had heard of the drug.
He was also the first writer (2016) to study, dissect and ultimately debunk the manipulated statistics used by the CDC to justify its recommendations for opioid prescribing, which have resulted in Draconian requirements for prescribing pain medications as well as government-mandated, involuntary tapering of patients receiving opioid treatment, both of which have caused great harm and needless suffering to chronic pain patients. His 2016 article, “Six Charts Designed to Confuse You,” is the seminal work on CDC deception and has been adopted by patient advocacy groups and individuals and has been sent to governors and state legislatures.
Dr. Bloom earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Virginia, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. His career in drug discovery research began at Lederle Laboratories, which was acquired by Wyeth in 1994, which itself was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. During this time he participated in research in a number of therapeutic areas, including diabetes and obesity, antibiotics, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and oncology. His group discovered the novel antibiotic Tygacil®, which was approved by the FDA for use against resistant bacterial infections in 2005. He is the author of 25 patents, and 35 academic papers, including a chapter on new therapies for hepatitis C in Burger’s Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery and Development, 7th Edition (Wiley, 2010), and has given numerous invited lectures about how the pharmaceutical industry really works.
Dr. Bloom joined the American Council on Science and Health in 2010 as ACSH’s Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and has since published more than 60 op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New Scientist, The New York Post, National Review Online, The Boston Herald, and The Chicago Tribune, and given numerous radio and television interview on topics related to drugs and chemicals. In 2014, Dr. Bloom was invited to become a featured writer for the site Science 2.0, where he wrote more 75 pieces on a broad range of topics.