Panera CEO on Push to Banish Artificial Ingredients

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: ABC News

Panera Bread is the latest company to tout the removal of artificial ingredients, adding fuel to the debate over whether that improves food quality or is just a marketing tool.

By the end of the next year, the chain says the dozens of ingredients on its "No No List" will be banished from its menu. Some of the ingredients are already gone, while others are in the process of being expunged.

Panera isn't alone. A range of food companies have announced they would remove various ingredients in response to customer feedback. Some high-profile examples from just last month: PepsiCo said it was dropping the artificial sweetener aspartame from Diet Pepsi, and Kraft said it would remove artificial dyes from its mac and cheese. Chipotle also declared its menu to be free of genetically modified ingredients.

The trend has also sparked a backlash. Some say food activists such as Vani Hari, known as the Food Babe, ignore science and stoke fears about ingredients that pose no harm.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/panera-ceo-push-banish-artificial-ingredients-30813624

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https://www.panerabread.com/panerabread/documents/panera-no-no-list-05-2015.pdf

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Welcome to free market capitalism.

The people tell you they want something, the companies that fulfill that need get greater market share and more profits.

Doesn't really matter WHY people want what they want. If they want it, you sell it and make more profits than if you choose not to sell what they want.

[merrily]

2. Good. The fewer chemicals in my food, the better I like it.

It should not be a matter of whether eliminating chemicals, some of which are carcinogenic, improves food quality. It should be a matter of whether adding chemicals to food is absolutely necessary.

[Jesus Malverde]

3. In some ways I think retailers and restaurateurs themselves...

are victims of chemical companies marketing. There seems a movement to reconnect with the basics of food, good tastes that are good for you.

[jberryhill]

8. Can you define "chemical"?

Is sodium chloride, in your opinion, a "chemical"?

[harun]

11. I will let the OP speak to their definition but Panera's main offenders are

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/04/panera-panera-bread-fast-food-restaurants-dining-artificial-additives/26696823/

I think it's an excellent start.

[merrily]

17. I have no problem with lower sodium foods, either. My mom died way too young

from myocardial infarction, probably related to her chronic high blood pressure.

Did you have a point?

[ag_dude]

22. Water is a chemical

Saying you want fewer "chemicals" in your food just displays a lack of understanding of what chemicals are.

It's a symptom of the current poor state of scientific education in this nation, especially when it comes to food.

[merrily]

24. You understood what I meant. So did everyone else.

[ag_dude]

27. Yeah, I understood what you THINK You meant.

But what you said was something different.

You're following the same trends as others who shun actual science in favor of scare mongering.

[merrily]

28. I said "The FEWER chemicals in my food the better." If it was not obvious to you that I meant

added chemicals, it should have been. Panera is obviously not talking about removing water from bread, the best of home made breads consisting of water, flour, yeast and salt.

You're following the same trends as others who shun actual science in favor of scare mongering.

Thanks for the broad brush, but I am not responsible for anyone's posts but my own.

I find it laughable, and not a little suspicious, that an eight-word sentence about what food I prefer to consume attracted so much attention and so many insults, express and implied, about how dumb I am.

[ag_dude]

29. Again, it's obvious what you THINK you meant.

I pointed out that water is a chemical. You're the one that is worked up.

I'm not saying you're dumb, I'm saying your defense of the incorrect use of the word "chemical" is a sign of the poor state of our education system.

[merrily]

30. Worked up? LMAO.

[ag_dude]

31. Use snark all you want.

I'm just suggesting that you use the proper terminology for what you are speaking of.

When you resort to misusing words such as "chemical" to make a point it may appeal to those who are scientifically illiterate but it shows that you don't have a firm grasp of very basic terminology.

Everything you eat is chemicals.

[merrily]

32. Your assumption that I am "worked up" more than merited snark.

Ditto, if you fail to understand that FEWER refers to the number or proliferation of chemicals, not zero chemicals. Ditto if you don't get the difference between the number of chemicals a head of cabbage versus the number of chemicals listed on, say, a box of CheezIts.

Enjoy your illusion of superiority. Bye now.

[ag_dude]

34. lol "bye now"

Predictable.

You're grasping at straws to support your scientific ignorance.

[arikara]

38. It was obvious to everyone what you meant

I agree with you.

There are those on this board who try to make you feel stupid for caring about what you eat. You don't have to engage with that nonsense.

[merrily]

39. Thank you.

With that one, it probably won't happen again for a good while.

[wordpix]

35. here's one: glyphosate, used in Roundup applied to soy, corn, wheat

It's a systemic chemical meaning it is taken into all parts of the plant. You ingest it when you eat that crop, or when you eat animals-for-food that eat the crop. It's a known teratogen, causing major birth defects. Read up.

This is just one chemical that ends up in your food if you're not eating 100% organic. There are 11,000 agrotoxins that are either not tested or undertested thanks to Congress' "conditional registration loophole." Read up on that, too.

But Panera is not even talking about an agrotoxin ban. They're talking about food additives.

[Humanist_Activist]

19. So you want food that is made of nothing...

do you realize how stupid you sound? Life is just chemistry under homeostasis, without chemicals, you would be dead.

Did you graduate high school? How do adults function under this much ignorance? Seriously.

If you are talking about removing substances and chemicals that are unhealthy, provide no nutritional value, or are tested as dangerous, that's fine, just don't describe them using such a generic term such as "chemicals". Everything you eat, breathe, shit and piss is reliant on chemical reactions.

[merrily]

20. Posters not being deliberately obtuse understood my point. Do you realize how gratuitously nasty

your post reads (not sounds, as long as we're being overly picky about word choice)?

So you want food that's made of nothing.

do you realize how stupid you sound? Life is just chemistry under homeostasis, without chemicals, you would be dead.

Did you graduate high school? How do adults function under this much ignorance? Seriously.

If you are talking about removing substances and chemicals that are unhealthy, provide no nutritional value, or are tested as dangerous, that's fine, just don't describe them using such a generic term such as "chemicals". Everything you eat, breathe, shit and piss is reliant on chemical reactions.

[Humanist_Activist]

21. I might have taken it too far, or I might not of, I've encountered people who actually think...

"Chemicals bad!" and they mean it quite literally, how was I supposed to know you are more nuanced if you sound exactly the same?

Not to mention I find it funny as hell that people are lauding a bread company for getting rid of artificial ingredients. Considering that making bread is actually a pretty cool chemical process, as is cooking in general.

Not to mention, without specifying what chemicals you have a problem with, you post is meaningless. You might as well complain that you don't want atoms in your food or something equally ridiculous.

[GreatGazoo]

26. Just keeping telling yourself that you are smarter than everyone else while you write "...not of"

for "not have."

Of - preposition, 1. expressing the relationship between a part and a whole.

Reasonable people know which ingredients in the following list of controversial additives for commercial bread baked in the USA the word "chemicals" refers to:

Benzoyl peroxide (banned in the EU and China)
Calcium peroxide (banned in the EU and China)
Chlorine (banned in the EU)
Chlorine dioxide gas (banned in the EU and Australia)
Azodicarbonamide (banned in Singapore, the EU and Australia)
Potassium bromate (banned in the EU, Canada, China, Nigeria, Brazil, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Peru and more)
Calcium bromate (banned in the EU and Canada)
Nitrogen dioxide (banned in the EU and Australia)

Hint: all of those

[Humanist_Activist]

36. OK, time to separate the wheat from the chaff...

Always best to do you own research, but generally, here, I'm going with the easily googled stuff.

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Peroxide & Calcium Peroxide[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Benzoyl

Benzoyl peroxide has a long history of use in the food industry as a bleaching agent added to flour, whey (specifically whey that has been colored using annatto), and milk for cheese making (mostly cheddar and Italian cheese). A premix of 32 percent benzoyl peroxide and 68 percent cornstarch (genetically modified cornstarch) is used in bleaching flour5.

In the U.S., benzoyl peroxide is considered GRAS (generally regarded as safe) when it’s used as a bleaching agent6, but both benzoyl and calcium peroxide have been banned in China and the E.U. In the E.U., benzoyl peroxide is banned for cosmetic use as well (the same stuff that’s used in acne creams and teeth-whitening kits).

If your motivation for buying whole grain bread is higher nutritional value, you might be surprised to learn that benzoyl peroxide is a powerful oxidant that destroys nutrients in flour, especially vitamin A and the B vitamins (which include folic acid). This is ironic, because those ‘in the know’ buy whole grain bread for B vitamins!


Read more about B vitamins and how to find out if you get enough

Benzoyl peroxide has been linked with liver problems7, and according to INCHEM’S (Chemical Safety from Intergovernmental Organizations) research, “the chemical possesses properties indicating hazards to human health (sensitization, effect on testes weight, fetal body weight and skin tumor promotion activity)” that should be further researched8.

We found calcium peroxide listed on the ingredients label of Nature’s Own Honey 7 Grain Bread. This bread also includes mono- and diglycerides, azodicarbonamide, DATEM, and the soy (soybean oil, soy lecithin, soy grits) and corn grits it contains are most likely genetically modified (GMOs).

This part of the article contains at least 2 lies. The first being the claim that Benzoyl Peroxide causes liver problems. The only thing I can find is that chemical factory workers were tested and found to have some deviancy in liver function compared to unexposed individuals, however, the fact is the factories produce more than benzoyl peroxide, several chemicals they were exposed to, benzoyl peroxide being just one, and I must emphasize, the source did not say permanent liver damage occured. Please bear in mind that alcohol, a completely natural substance, is more dangerous.

The second is a lie of omission, the side effects listed were in rats, not humans, and it was a huge overdose 1,000 mg/kg of body weight a day. To get an equivalent, a 120 pound human would have to consume 54,4231 mg of benzoyl peroxide, about 2 ounces. Another paper I found said that this may have to do with benzoyl peroxide reducing the amount of α-tocopherol in the bread, but the amount is already so small as to be irrelevant in affecting human nutrition to begin with.

Doesn't seem like a lot except these are bleaching agents, the amount left in bread is miniscule, the chemical reactions that release the oxygen and bleach the bread breaks down into benzoic acid, which is commonly found in large amounts already in fruits and vegetables.

Also, notice they lumped both Calcium peroxide and Benzoyl Peroxide together, yet listed nothing about Calcium peroxide. That's interesting.

The Next one is on Chlorine and, I'm assuming, Chlorine Dioxide, oddly enough, I can't find many references to them being food additives, only additives in water and for aerosol disinfectants. They are well known to be toxic, hence the amounts of them in water is tightly regulated. Oddly enough, an alternative medicine supplement, Miracle Mineral Supplement, used it quite a bit, that stuff will kill you, a good reason to make sure you investigate the mostly unregulated supplement and "alternative medicine" industry.

Potassium Bromate, its possibly carcigenic, and should be banned, I see no problem with that.

Azodicarbonamide, it seems to me that the objection to this chemical isn't food safety, but workplace safety, both in the article and its sources, its linked to possible reactions when inhaled. This is a concern for workplace safety during the making of bread, not a concern for customer safety in particular when consuming products containing its byproducts. Also, may I just mention that the inhaling of any foreign substances into our lungs is a bad idea, and can lead to all sorts of horrendous conditions? This includes pretty much everything except the mostly nitrogen/oxygen mix we are supposed to breath, hell, even too much oxygen will damage the lungs over time.

Nitrogen Dioxide, I see no references to it being a food additive, or bread bleaching agent, except in a single Wikipedia article with poor references.

On the Glicyerides, they are fats, reduce intake of them as much as you wish, the forms of them aren't anymore toxic than saturated fats.


Calcium Propionate, uhm, look at the references in the article you linked to, the second one, about the "dangers" of this chemical, first off, the referenced article is talking about two different chemicals entirely, and second, they contradict the claims of the main article you linked to. Another lie.

Natamycin, ok, this one is funny, its naturally occurring, during the fermentation process. Its a food additive, yes, but has not been shown to harm either our intestinal flora nor increase instances of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, probably because its mostly anti-fungal, not antibiotic. In fact, its produced by a bacterium.

Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate, perfectly safe, even by the article, but best avoided because of reasons.

My takeaway from this is its scaremongering based on ignorance at its very worst, because it actually does mention ONE problematic additive, but you have to sift through a whole pile of shit to get to it. Also, I only made ONE outside reference in my post, because everything I wrote debunking the article comes from the references the article itself made, some of them twice, with different reference numbers.

[niyad]

4. from the interview:

. . . .

Here's what Panera CEO Ron Shaich had to say in a conversation with The Associated Press, edited for brevity and clarity:

Q: What's prompting this?

A: People are continuing to be much more conscious of what they put in their bodies.

******I want to serve everyone the food I want my daughter to eat. And if I feel uncomfortable about serving her some of this stuff, I don't want anyone else to eat it.****
(so what in the HELL was that crap doing in the food you serve in the first place????)

Q: What is the definition of healthy? Some executives (executives of what? what is their expertise?) say it's changing.

A: The scientific community and consumers get that food that is less processed and closer to a more natural state, made from the kind of ingredients that you can understand, are better for you.

Part of where we're trying to go, we want them to be able to trust that the food they get at Panera is clean, and not even have to think about it. (again, why was the stuff in your food in the first place?????)

. . .

[katsy]

5. My family and I visited Panera

one night before closing. Food was great. I saw the staff neatly packing up the pastries and bagels in boxes and breads in bags. I jokingly said "for tmrw?". They told me that everything leftover was delivered to a local soup kitchen.

I just thought it was so respectful not to throw everything in a trash bag.

We eat there often. I love our local Panera.

[darkangel218]

9. That is correct.

They donate the left over bread and pastry to the local charity. Not sure how many times per week, but I saw the church vans pick up the bread just after 9 pm.

[lark]

6. Panera is a good company in many ways.

My daughter has worked there for almost 9 years, 6 of them while in high school/college. They are very good with allowing flexible schedules for high school and college kids, they allowed her a 6 wk. leave of absence to study in France, and then a few years later to teach in Brazil for 6 months. They pay their young women the same as the men and promote people with good customer attitudes and brains, not just the next up. Their chicken, turkey, eggs and milk are organic now and they are quickly adding more to the list. They will also give kids with less than sterling records a chance. I really like this company, they've been great for Amanda to work for and she's on the fast track to run her own store within the year. This is excellent, because she's only been an assistant manager for a year. Oh yeah, their food is really good too.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Panera -- that bastion of wholesome food cooked just like mom used to do it:

Cut open a 2 gallon bag of prepared food, and dump it into a heating pot.

Panera is okay and better than McDogfood, but let's not get excited by the empty gesture.

[hamsterjill]

23. Are they not franchises, too?

We have two near my vicinity, and I've been to both. Apparently, the same person either owns or manages both because I've seen him at both locations.

Their food is adequate but way over priced for what it is IMHO. And I, personally, simply do not understand someone getting a "baguette" with a sandwich. Isn't that like "bread with bread"???!!! LOL

[valerief]

10. But...but...*artificial* has ART right in its name. Does Panera hate Art?

No, really, good on Panera.

[MattSh]

12. But...but...*artificial* has CIA right in its name. Just saying! nt

[valerief]

18. Bwahahaha! You win!

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. I heard that new and improved Twinkies

has a shelf life of 65 days instead of the previous 30 days. I was never a Twinkie fan, but the thought of baked goods being n the shelf for 2 months freaks me out. Frankenfood!

[darkangel218]

14. If you have $1 to waste, go and buy a bread from Walmart ( the brand one )

A week later its still "soft" lmao!! I never eat the thing, I just buy it at times to feed the birds when we go to the lake.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. I did that already

I worked at Whole Foods for a few years. I bought a loaf of bread from the store and was dissapointed when it got moldy before I cpuld finish it. Just for grins, I bought a loaf of Wonder Bread and set it on top of the fridge to see how quickly it got moldy. IT NEVER DID! It was up there over a year!

[darkangel218]

16. Hehe yup. :)

[Kablooie]

25. Oh no! Propylene glycol alginate is my favorite. I'll miss it so much.

[Jesus Malverde]

37. DUZY...nt

[sendero]

33. Pepsi...

.. is dropping aspartame and adding sucralose. It rather eat money shit than sucralose. So, no real improvement.


I like Panera, they serve decent food. And I am happy that these vendors are paying attention, we'd rather pay a few more cents for our food than eat some of the crap ingredients they contain.