BHT for Breakfast

Bloody Heck I’m Tired of foods designed to get children high!

We all remember when we were young, and have a favourite snack that our parents or grandparents made.  For me it was oatmeal cookies, fresh for every special occasion, made by my mother.  The wholesome richness of butter and sugar and that baked oat crunchiness that melts in a cup of chocolate or tea makes me wish for an early cup today…

But what if our childhood memories were tarnished by an unachievable state?  What if our breakfasts contained some of the same addictive chemicals as cigarettes? This morning I found that in Canada, some of them are.

Waking up to a bowl of heavily discounted brand name cereal, I browsed the ingredient list – all good, rice, sugar (well, good for one day a week) …. And what is this last ingredient?  BHT, which the manufacturer claims is added to packaging to maintain freshness.  “Oh well” I say to myself, “can’t be too bad – it’s a food for children”.  A few seconds later upon opening the package I was hit by a nail-polish like smell of chemicals.  I decided that I wouldn’t eat that cereal until I researched the suspect chemical, BHT.

BHT wasn’t as difficult to find information on as I had thought it would be.  It turns out that BHT is on a watch-list of chemicals that green-living Canadians have identified as dangerous, along with eleven other chemicals in a ‘dirty dozen’(1).

This makes me angry, that in times when Canada has identified BHT and other chemicals as dangerous, when a peer reviewed journal article title is called ‘The Lung Tumor Promoter’(2) (in reference to BHT) that we continue on a governmental level to allow these chemicals in our communities.

Please, read your ingredient labels and say ‘NO’ to BHT, a dangerous chemical that can affect children’s behaviour and may cause cancer.

(1)   http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/dirty-dozen-cosmetic-chemicals/

(2)   http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/chemicals-in-your-cosmetics---bha-and-bhti/