Anyhow, I was thinking of my latest, failed attempt of medicine, which I bought over the counter from a pharmacy, and I decided to give it a second attempt. It sat near my laptop while I sipped some more tea and read some more of the endless entaglement of political debate; WHEN, the contents of the medicine caught my eye. Now, very few people probably ever bother to look through a medicine's list of ingredients because, well, medicine is supposedly invented to make you better, not worse right? This time round, however, some Es in the list caught my eye and since I am aware of the danger of a good number of them, I typed the first one into my search engine. It was Benzoate E211. Basically it is what I expected. There is a danger if certain conditions happen to occur to the medicine, it is used in famous soft drinks and is being phased out, it does a minimal damage but if not taken regularly, it should be ok. Nothing so tragic in that.
The next one was the big bombshell. Amaranth E123. Apparently this chemical is used in many jellies, cake mixes, soups, shrimps etc.
"It appears to cause allergic and/or intolerance reactions, similar to nettle rash, particularly amongst those with an aspirin intolerance or asthmatics. can provoke asthma, eczema and hyperactivity; it caused birth defects and foetal deaths in some animal tests, possibly also cancer
.Not recommended for consumption by children.
It is banned in Norway, United States, Russia and Austria (see E129) with a very restricted use in France and Italy (caviar only)."
(http://www.ukfoodguide.net/e123.htm)
WOW.. it is banned in the sensible part of Europe, it can cause birth defects, possibly also cancer.
And then I went into the information leaflet to look for THIS information, well, there's a paper missing... a paper which probably hasn't even been printed yet.
The argument against me would be that you only take very little traces of this E123 for it to be harmful. But how the hell do they know how much I love jelly and prawns. And apparently there are no concrete results as to the dangers of this substance.
The medicine is already in the bin, obviously.
