From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhtsa!alice!rabbit!wolit Newsgroups: net.cooks Title: Re: chemicals on salad bars? Article-I.D.: rabbit.1235 Posted: Wed Mar 16 13:24:10 1983 Received: Wed Mar 23 01:21:54 1983 Someone told me that restuarants often put some sort of chemicals on their salad bars to keep the vegetables in better shape. Has any one heard of this, if so what chemical is it? I've heard some grocery stores spray their produce with some sort of sulfide derivative to keep the vegetables looking fresher. Any info would be appreciated. A few weeks ago, "60 Minutes" (I think it was) ran a story on this. It seems that the food service and retailing industries use an anti-oxidant (sodium sulfite, if memory serves) to keep food attractive. The FDA classifies this stuff as safe, but some people are hypersensitive to it, and develop allergic-type reactions that are potentially very dangerous. Some groups are trying to get the FDA to force users of these chemicals to inform their patrons and customers that they are doing so. Naturally, the industry is fighting this. My personal feeling is that the customers do have a right to know if their health is being threatened (even if this only affects a very small fraction of the population). My guess is that the industry's insurers will probably force them either to give up the practice or post warnings, since they are otherwise open to liability claims by anyone who eats there and has a bad reaction. Jan Wolitzky