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Are You Consuming This Very Controversial Organic Ingredient?

There is an incredibly controversial ingredient in the organic industry called carrageenan.

If you’re not familiar with it, carrageenan is a common food additive extracted from red seaweed that is often used as a thickening agent (chocolate milk, soy milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream), a substitute for fat, and a stabilizer for beverages that separate and must be stirred or shaken (the carrageenan makes stirring or shaking no longer necessary). It can also be found in deli meats and prepared poultry items.

Carrageenan adds no nutritional value or flavor to foods or beverages  but carries very, very serious health risks. What are they?

Animal studies have repeatedly shown that food-grade carrageenan causes gastrointestinal inflammation and higher rates of intestinal lesions, ulcerations, and even malignant tumors.

And for the past four decades, scientists have repeatedly warned that carrageenan is not safe.

It is bad enough that the FDA allows carrageenan in our food supply, but the fact that it is approved for organics is even worse.

When we buy organic, we expect a much higher degree of quality and safety compared to conventionally-grown food.

However, this quality can be compromised when many of the “Big Organic” companies successfully lobby the National Organic Standards Board to approve controversial ingredients, such as carrageenan.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1) Sign and Share the Petition  The Cornucopia Institute, an amazing organization and one of the organic industry’s most important watchdogs, has put together a petition demanding that the FDA remove carrageenan from the food supply.

Click HERE to sign the petition, and please share this with your network.

2) Stay Educated  Read Cornucopia’s excellent and comprehensive report on carrageenan.

After reading this research, you won’t want to touch carrageenan ever again and will be looking at labels much, more closely from here on out.

3) Vote with Your Dollars and Shop Wisely  One of the very first interviews I ever did on Living Maxwell was with Joel Salatin, the most famous organic farmer in the U.S. and star of the movie Food, Inc.

What he told me three years ago still holds very true today – every single day we get to vote with our dollars.

If you’re not happy with the kind of ingredients that a company is using, don’t purchase their products and call these companies to let them know your displeasure. The dollar is a very powerful tool to create change.

One great way to protect yourself and your family is by looking at Cornucopia’s Carrageenan Shopping Guide.

Not only does it list all of the products and brands that are using carrageenan, but it provides comparable alternatives.

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The only thing that I can say about carrageenan is that I won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Please share this post with your friends and family, so they too can make informed decisions about what they are putting into their bodies.

A message from Tradin Organic

Why Tradin Organic is Prioritizing Regenerative Organic Farming

At Tradin Organic, we believe that regenerative organic farming is key to growing healthy and nutritious food ingredients — for now and for future generations.

And in Sierra Leone, we have grown the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified cacao.

Learn more.

livingmaxwell: a guide to organic food & drink