Banned because of their dangerousness, these foreign food products are found in our supermarkets

In the aisles of French supermarkets, American products are at ; sale while they are banned in Europe, due to the danger they represent for health.

Confectionery, sodas, sauces, many American products are present in French supermarkets. They have found a large place there and are a real success. However, they are not all authorized for sale. Requested by the French, who spot them on social networks or in American television programs, they are offered to illegal purchase also in supermarkets and grocery stores. In recent years, customs have increased their checks in an attempt to limit their imports.

The products in question are considered dangerous to health, as jointly revealed byFrance Inter and Marianne. These products are full of additives that are very harmful to health, whether it is titanium dioxide, aluminum sulfate, erythrosine (E127) or other industrial colorings, often in overdoses.

For example, titanium dioxide was banned in France in 2020 and is dangerous to health, as Eric Houdeau, a researcher at the National Institute for Agricultural, Food and Environmental Research, explains: “What was discovered was that it had the ability to to cause the appearance of precancerous colonic lesions in animals after 100 days of exposure. Aluminum sulfate, for its part, is restricted to use only for candied cherries and egg whites. This agent can reach the brain as well as the placenta.

A manager of a Parisian boutique told France Inter how he gets such products: “When you get to find some at one of our importers, we tap into a few boxes, to please our customers. They can only find them on site: we hide from the internet and networks, because we know that it is forbidden. “One of the ways around customs would be to have the goods pass through the port of Rotterdam, which is less monitored than Le Havre or Marseille.

Around sixty references are currently concerned. These include peanut butter M&M's, Heinz tomato sauce with pickle, “Legacy” pink Sprite, strawberry or peach-flavored Fanta, and Lucky Charm cereal. These are therefore products with uncommon flavors that young people love.

However, in peanut butter-flavored M&Ms, for example, the concentration of industrial coloring exceeds eight times the maximum dose authorized in Europe. As the weekly Marianne explains, this can in particular “cause attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity disorder” in children.