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Comment by gellerb | Hacker News Reader

It unfortunately includes carrageenan.

I don't pretend to be a chemist, doctor, or nutritionist so I assume they have a good reason for adding it. They also seem to know about the bad publicity carrageenan has by calling out that it isn't poligeenan. I do wonder what the benefit of adding it is.

It seems like they still haven't gotten over the negative press and that this might not help them get more traction if it gets sensationalized.

Would you mind explaining why that's unfortunate?

poligeenan, also known as degraded carrageenan, was shown in some studies to be carcinogenic. Some high profile foods had carrageenan and there was some bad publicity due to it.

I am not a doctor, but I do believe that carrageenan has been classified as perfectly safe by the FDA.

EDIT: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRS...

So that is probably why they specifically call out that the type of carrageenan in 1.5 is not the same type people have been complaining about.

> I am not a doctor, but I do believe that carrageenan has been classified as perfectly safe by the FDA.

I am not a doctor (nor, more to the point, a food & drug regulation expert), but I do not believe that FDA has a classification of "perfectly safe" that it applies to ingredients.

True. They do have a classification of Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). Not the same thing as "perfectly safe", but I'm guessing that's what they probably meant.

Could you elaborate on why that's a problem?

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