re barbecued foods and health risk i don t understand the assumption that because something is found to be carcinogenic that it would not be legal in the u s i think that naturally occuring substances excluding controlled substances are pretty much unregulated in terms of their use as food food additives or other consumption it s only when the chemists concoct sp an ingredient that it falls under fda regulations otherwise if they really looked closely they would find a reason to ban almost everything how in the world do you suppose it s legal to consume tobacco products which probably should be banned no there is something called the delany amendment which makes carcinogenic food additives illegal in any amount this was passed by congress in the s before stuff like mass spectrometry became available which increased detectable levels of substances by a couple orders of magnitude this is why things like cyclamates and red were banned they are very weakly carcinogenic in huge quantities in rats so under the act they are banned this also applies to natural carcinogens some of you might remember a time back in the s when root beer suddenly stopped tasting so good and never tasted so good again that was the time when safrole was banned this is the active flavoring ingredient in sassafras leaves if it were possible to market a root beer good like the old days someone would do it in order to make money the fact that no one does it indicates that enforcement is still in effect an odd exception to the rule seems to be the product known as gumbo file this is nothing more than coarsely ground dried sassafras leaves this is not only a natural product but a natural product still in its natural form so maybe that s how they evade delany or maybe a special exemption was made to appease powerful louisiana democrats
