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Maine Environmental Group Wants Chemicals Removed from mac-and-cheese Products

A Portland based environmental non profit company Maine Defend Our Health,is lobbying leading macaroni and cheese manufacturers to remove a potentially harmful Chemical from its products. Annie’s Homegrown organic brand pledged to eliminate known as phthalates from its packaging process.The Chemicals used in food processing equipment have been linked to hormone problems and brain development. America’s comfort food is Macaroni and cheese. It is beloved by consumers and especially children. The Health says customers are being exposed to toxic in a number of mac-and-cheese products.

The non-profit advocacy group helped fund a study by the Center for Food Safety that found traces of phthalates in mass-market cheese packets.Brandon Moore is the national campaign director for Defend Our Health.Brandon Moore said that they tested macaroni and cheese powder from the 10 leading brands in the country, and they found phthalates in all 10 of the samples. The Chemicals make plastic more flexible and are commonly in food processing equipment.

Pediatrician Dr. Leo Trasande is the chief of the Division of Environmental Pediatrics at the NYU School of Medicine. The like phthalates can disrupt hormones like testosterone and pose a potential risk to children, especially in pregnancy. They can disrupt metabolic functions contributing to obesity and diabetes and kids are unusually vulnerable because of developing organ systems.

General Mills, the corporate parent of Annie’s Homegrown, announced it was taking steps towards purging the phthalates from its products. The environmental groups have spent the several years lobbying the manufacturers of the mac-and-cheese brands tested in the study to remove the Chemicals.General Mills said that the researchers are continuing to work with our trusted suppliers to eliminate ortho-phthalates that may be present in the packaging materials and food processing equipment that produces the cheese and cheese powder in our macaroni and cheese.

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