Just two years ago, nanotechnology was estimated to be a $10 billion business. Now, financial forecasters predict that within three more years, the nano industry will grow to $1 trillion.

One of the most heavily used nanoparticles in this burgeoning business is titanium dioxide. It is also is one of the most extensively tested manmade creations because its use is rampant as a whitening agent and filler in a rapidly increasing number of foods, paints, coatings, cosmetic, personal care, and other consumer products.

It’s everywhere and most consumers don’t have a clue that they’re buying it.

For example, researchers at Arizona State University found TiO2 in hundreds of products including Twinkies and other Hostess baked goods, in various flavors of Kool-Aid, in M&Ms, in Trident and Dentyne gum, and in Mentos Mints, Hershey’s dark chocolate, Cadbury candy and Betty Crocker frostings.

A study released this week in ACS’s journal of Environmental Science & Technology broke down the amount of nano TiO2 found in commonly used products

Food led the list, the study said, with the highest content of TiO2 in candies, sweets and chewing gums.

Some personal care products such as toothpastes and several sunscreens – even some marketed for babies – contained 1 percent to more than 10 percent of TiO2. The study reported that most shampoos, deodorants, and shaving creams contained the lowest levels of titanium.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which can only recommend worker safeguards to OSHA, has strongly suggested that workers use care when they are exposed to nano TiO2.

The Food and Drug Administration has offered little guidance to consumers or the food industry on the presence of the substance in food.

This angers many public health experts because animal studies have show that inhalation, ingestion or absorption of nano TiO2 can cause cell damage, induce emphysema-like lung injury, penetrate the blood-brain barrier, damage the liver and kidney and cause cancer.

There also is growing proof that this man-made nanoparticle of heavy metal presents a threat to the environment. Researchers have found TiO2 is in sunscreen washing off bathers in pools, lakes or other waterways. The weathering of paint can free it into the soil, and passage though the body can release it into sewage treatment systems.

Testing has found that levels of the TiO2 exist even after being treated in sewage systems and as it moves elsewhere in the environment as treated waste discharged to water supplies or applied as biosolids to farmland.

Research into the use of nanoparticles in food is quietly increasing in laboratories of companies that supply ingredients for some of the nation’s biggest food manufacturers.

Environmental and public health experts worry that food processors and manufacturers may not know they’re buying subatomic, manmade nanoparticles when they purchases the latest offerings in flavorings, coloring and coatings for use in the food they produce.

At various conferences for food scientists that I attended this year, nanoparticles were being discussed with great excitement in applications like anti-bacterial sprays and coatings for packaging that emit visible color changes if the shipping life or temperature restrictions of food have been exceeded.

Nano titanium dioxice is used in many food and personal care products. Photo by HR BRAMAZ, ISM:SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

But what concerns many health authorities is that untested, nano-containing material are likely to find their way into food ingredients themselves.

A report was issued Tuesday by As You Sow saying as “food and food packaging companies explore the use of nanomaterials to enhance products, they need also attend to potential risks introduced.”

As You Sow is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing environmental and corporate responsibility in publicly held companies.

“The real problem is that companies should be required by federal regulation to do these tests before they put products on the market,” says Jaydee Hanson, policy director of The International Center for Technology Assessment.

“As You Sow is pushing these corporations because the government—USDA, FDA, and EPA is not doing its job.”

Competition in the food industry is enormous and bringing out a new flavor of something or a product that stays crunchy, or appealing or no longer need refrigeration can bring in millions in profits.

Presentations at poster sessions at the scientific conferences show that at least preliminary research is being done with nanoparticles that offer useful applications like these and others.

Within this world of structures a billionth of a meter or less in size, industrial and consumer applications using nanoparticles border on the magical.

But the enthusiasm for nano-product is, or at least should be, tempered by the growing number of peer reviewed studies that have shown that many nanoparticles are small enough to penetrate the skin, lungs and pass through the protective blood-brain barrier. Many public health experts say these findings should justify caution by anyone using nanomaterial.

The report said that because of their small size, the “intentionally engineered” nanomaterials are able to go places in the body that larger particles cannot, and it warned:

•  New “nanofood” products should only be used if safety testing ensures that there are no negative impacts on human health or the environment.
•  Current regulatory controls are inadequate to assess or ensure safety.
• The scientific consensus is that there is a lack of knowledge regarding how nanomaterials interact at the molecular or physiological levels and their potential impacts on health and the environment.

The report, with its almost incomprehensible title – “The Sourcing Framework for Food and Food Packaging Products Containing Nanomaterials,” was created with food companies including Kraft, McDonald’s, Whole Foods, Yum! Brands, and Pepsi.  It said the safety concerns raised by the rapidly evolving nanotechnology have yet to be fully understood.

The organization said the study can help food companies develop safeguards on how to identify the presence of nanomaterials in products.

Evaluating nano safety

“Consumers should be concerned that these tiny chemicals may already be in foods and food contact materials, without being publicly disclosed,” says Jennifer Sass, senior scientist and nano authority for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Consumers can’t even make informed choices when they don’t know where these chemicals are, what they are, or how toxic they are. It’s an outrageous violation of the public trust that companies are refusing to identify on the label the ingredients or food contact materials that are nano-sized, and FDA is letting them get away with it,” Sass said.

Michael Passoff, senior strategist and co-author of the study, said the uncertainty and lack of transparency on the application of nanomaterial poses unnecessary risks for consumers, workers, companies, and investors.

“The FDA is not doing nearly enough,” Passoff said, and added that federal regulators have so far ignored nano-food despite calls for reform by the  Government Accountability Office.

The FDA allows too much control over the use of nanomaterial to remain with the food manufacturers, the he said.

The agency permits food producers using nanoparticles “to determine what safety testing they should be conducting and how transparent they should be in disclosing the results of safety tests, and if they should inform consumers that they are eating these products,” Passoff said.

He pointed out the stark differences between how the U.S. and other countries handle the issue.

“In contrast to FDA’s approach, all food ingredients that incorporate engineered nanomaterials must be submitted to regulators in Canada and the European Union before they can be marketed,” Passoff said.

Not all the activist furor is about Wall Street. The prospect of genetically engineered corn is fueling protests from food-watch groups and regular ol’ citizen-eaters alike.

As of last week, more than 260,000 people had signed a new petition protesting Monsanto’s first genetically engineered corn for general consumption. (Meaning that such produce is already in processed food, and this new stuff would go right from field to your plate. And it would come from the company with the biggest share of the country’s corn market.)

Like the Occupy movement, this issue is bringing groups together to make noise and get recognition. A Reuters story says those pushing major retailers to boycott Monsanto’s GE sweet corn include the Center for Environmental Health, the Center for Food Safety, and Food & Water Watch. General Mills and Trader Joe’s have reportedly climbed on board.

Corn on the cob becomes corn from the lab.

Again, like the Occupy crowd, opponents to genetically modified food come at the issue from all angles. Some worry that the foods will cause a surge in allergies or other health issues. Others point out that the long-term effects of GMO food are simply not known yet. One of the arguments for the GMO corn is that the engineering can create resistance to drought, or to insects that typically damage or destroy crops. But some of those very bugs are back in the Monsanto cornfields, and experts worry that the process inevitably creates “super bugs” that will require ever stronger pesticides. Still others have ethical and religious concerns about gene splicing, period.

The issue is not as black and white as some of us would like. Andrew Schneider (of the Food Watchdog) pointed out more than two years ago: “The scientists at Japan’s National Institute for Agrobiological Sciences have developed a transgenic rice plant that has been genetically engineered to fight allergies to Japanese cedar pollen.” Schneider has also noted the difficulty in determining which foods are genetically altered. Labels don’t help as a rule.

One more thing is common to Occupy Wall Street and the anti-Monsanto movements. More people will learn about the issues, and demand yet more information. That’s good.

–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett

Nanoparticles can only be seen with the most powerful microscopes but they seemed even more difficult to detect last week on the sprawling display floor of the New Orleans convention center.

About 15,000 of the world’s top food scientists gathered for the Institute of Food Technologists annual conference.  Also prowling the thousands of displays in the gigantic exhibition hall were a few big-name chefs and a bunch of hard-working cooks, recipe developers and purveyors of spices, flavorings and additives.

Hundreds of vendors display latest in food flavors and additives at IFT food science conference. © photo by The Food Watchdog

All were looking for the newest exciting ingredient, technique or spice that could spawn a new signature dish for their restaurant or a hot and sexy addition to what they put on the grocery shelves.

There were more than 50 booths under bright red banners offering food additives from China.

Tabasco, the Louisiana company from nearby Avery Island, Louisiana, was touting not only the seven flavors of their venerable sauce but the company’s lead chef was handing out samples of iced coffee and whipping cream spiked with the stuff, to see if it was popular enough to market. “Interesting” was the general verdict.

In a large booth in the center of the hall the international supplier Ajinomoto was demonstrating its new MSG-like flavor enhancer and Transglutaminase, an enzyme also called meat glue.  A company sales rep said the enzyme’s use “is spreading wildly into all type of new applications.”

There was a continuous line of people waiting to get samples of glued-together beef, salmon and scallops as quickly as Chef Jill Houk could pull them off the grill and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

The Food Watchdog questioned a dozen or so people who had grabbed the samples and none said that they bothered at all by how the samples they were eating were formed as long as they smelled and tasted good.

But what was not being offered by the hundreds of corporate chefs that were cooking and serving their company’s newest innovations was anything containing nanoparticles.

Yet, elsewhere in the convention center scientists, food developers and safety regulators were leading discussions or presenting scientific papers on the newest uses of nanomaterial in the food and beverage industry.

The speakers said some laboratories are already testing engineered nanoparticles to reduce bacterial growth, maintain the freshness and longevity of baked goods, keep meat juicer, eliminate disagreeable, but harmless odors and reduce the amount of sugar and salt in recipes. Also, the sub-atomic manmade nano structures have been shown to create new flavors and enhance existing ones.

There is a simmering controversy among safety regulators in North America and abroad over the need to thoroughly test the safety of nanomaterial before they’re used in food. Because of this, most companies just don’t want to talk publicly about what they’re doing with this novel yet often untested technology.

For more on nano and food, check out what I wrote at Food Safety News.