Sure, there are differences between food products sold in the US and in other countries, even those produced by the same companies. We've all heard about the superiority of Mexican Coca-Cola, which was made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup until the last ten years or so. And Brits love to tell us how awful American chocolate candy bars are. But there are food ingredients in the US that you've never heard of that are banned by other nations. That's due to the explosion of processed food products coming onto the American market, and authorities streamlining the process of ingredient approval because there are just so many of them. The most important is a 1997 rule that allows companies to bypass the FDA to get certain ingredients into your food. In this video, the Hustle explains those convoluted regulations and how they came about.
If you want to avoid certain food ingredients that haven't been government tested, the best idea is to just reduce the amount of processed foods in your diet. Make your meals and snacks at home, or else look at ingredient lists at the grocery store and go for products with fewer ingredients, or at least fewer ingredients that you don't recognize as food. -via Digg