I can’t believe it’s not butter! Well, it’s not. It’s flame retardant, and food researchers found it inside butter they bought from the supermarket.
The polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, are found in gadgets and insulation, and have been shown to be harmful to humans.
The chemical appears to have entered the butter through the wrapper.
“Flame retardants were not made to be eaten. They’re made to slow down the smoke in fires. They’re not a food component. They don’t belong there,” said researcher Schecter. “Either the paper was contaminated before it reached the butter factory, or somehow it managed to get contaminated at the factory itself.”
Only one stick of butter out of the 10 purchased during the test was found to have the extremely high levels of the chemical.
The study’s authors said the butter came from a large, well-known Midwestern company, but wouldn’t identify which one. Both the researchers and the National Milk Producers Federation noted the limited scope of the test and recommended further investigation before drawing overarching conclusions.
Contamination of U.S. Butter with PBDEs from Wrapping Paper (Abstract) (PDF)
Study: Flame retardant found in small butter sample [CNN] (Thanks to Shawna!)
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It’s a safety feature. Keeps people from starting grease fires while they brown butter.
Only the people who are dumb enough to try that while it’s still in the wrapp…. oh, wait.
Of course, it could also be getting into the butter through contamination of the cows’ environment. Considering that they’ve found these chemicals in human breast milk, that seems pretty likely. And why should butter wrappers be flame retardant anyway? I thought they were wax paper.
They could rub this butter on the tent from yesterdays article…
hahahaha
That really was funny!
Most likely the paper was recycled and was treated for its previous use
I can’t think of a better way to fight….wait for it….wait for it….HEARTBURN!
*Buh dum tish*
I’m in favor of any chemical that reduces my chances of spontaneously combusting.
The amount of flame retardants in our environment is a big part of why I general dismiss stories of spontaneous human combustion as bogus.
Where have you guys been? My boy Dr. Robert Hale at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences has been on this problem for over 10 years. http://www.vims.edu/people/hale_rc/index.php
Goto the bottom of the page and read the section on the research groups activities. Not only is this stuff in butter but it’s in fish, sewage sludges (that are often applied to farm land as fertilizer) and even human breast milk.
Well now. That puts me off sewage from now on.
I guess this means no more breastmilk for me
Talk about making a mountain out of nothing! They say they found this in 1 stick of butter just one and they were only testing 10 sticks so this is not a scientific study and there is no way of knowing what happened to that one stick or eeven what the testing methods were. If they had gone on and tested thousands of samples and found 1 in 10 contaminated it would be news, this not so much.
Dude.. I was involved in this research a few years back. It’s a problem.. a big problem and if you think a single instance of 10% contamination is of no concern then you’re a moron. Perhaps it would be better if you looked in the research literature where you will find that, depending on where you get your butter from, the contamination levels can vary between slight to toxic. So yes.. you’re quite right. A line of any slope can be drawn through a single data point. Maybe you should open your eyes and look at the other data points instead of implying that there aren’t any(which is demonstrably wrong if you spend 15 whole seconds looking on google). Since you feel that the scientific standard you criticize is unacceptably vague perhaps it would be a good idea if the first thing you didn’t do was exactly what it is you’re complaining about.
Not only that, but why report it at all if you aren’t going to name the brand? Personally, if something like this is happening with a brand I use, I’d like to know about it so I can stop using it until I hear it is fixed. It is alarmist articles like this which do way more damage than good. You can’t even say it is raising awareness. Unless I have a chemistry lab in my kitchen and want to test every food I consume for something nasty, then I would rather not even know that some random food in my fridge may be waiting to make me sick.
Unless you were the one who bought that stick.
They probably want to cause a stir in order receive funding to do research
Right. And the article states that.
It’s is why the article states that more subsantive tests need to be done.
It’s why the article doesn’t name the company yet, since this preliminary test doesn’t prove anything.
Well that’ll surely slow down the cooking of pancakes(buttering the pan)…
Don’t care. Still eating it. Nom.
Make your own butter at home. Seriously, you should. Find cream that’s on sale and whip it. Whip it good.
I should. We learned how to do that way back when I was in Brownies.
Yay! I got thanked by Consumerist! My life is justified!
But seriously, I go through a point of butter a week and *really* want to know what brand it is. Should we be sending butter wrappers to labs?
I make my own butter at home, using a mason jar and a class of first graders.
Thanks for not telling me the brand. I’ll switch to margarine.
That’s just pure retardent there. Or was it plastic. I forget which.
Right, because there’s nothing artificial or bad for you in margerine. ::eyeroll::
Bottled water found to contain nearly 100% of a certain flame retardant chemical! Details on News at 11!
Damn that Dihydrogen Monoxide, it’s a silent killer, I tell ya!
Every week I read something like this and feel good knowing all of my food comes from a local farm.
What makes you think your local farm is safe? As I said, sewage sludges are often applied to farm land as fertilizer and sewage sludges are eat up with this stuff. Find out what “NutriGreen” is and what “Milorganite” is.
“Flame retardants were not made to be eaten. They’re made to slow down the smoke in fires.”
By far, the most informative statement in the article.
[quote]The study’s authors said the butter came from a large, well-known Midwestern company, but wouldn’t identify which one.[/quote]
In that case you might want to remove the catchy line (ICn’tBINB) just so you won’t get a phone call from their lawyers due to the negative association with that article by using that line. You know, it’s insane times we live in, you may really get a phone call, seriously.
If it’s the stick Marlon Brando used, they could have found worse.
Hmmm… large midwesterm dairy… maybe Land O Lakes?
For some reason, this makes me want to LOL . . .
Di-hydrogen monoxide is a flame retardant as well and is found in almost every single thing. Lakes, streams, etc. It’s a major component of acid rain, accelerates corrosion in metals, etc. We should ban it
You neglected to mention Di-HydrogenMonoxide is directly responsible for thousands of deaths due to inhalation (in large enough quantities).
The worst thing is the addictive qualities of the substance. Once you take it, you have to keep doing it regularly–you’re so hooked you’ll die if you don’t stop!
This is why I buy my butter-oil in big plastic tubs.
This must be why Paula Dean’s hair don’t burn
Salt is a flame retardant…
I
“The study’s authors said the butter came from a large, well-known Midwestern company, but wouldn’t identify which one.”
I’m glad we still put potential loss of profit before potential loss of life while we verify that the chemicals are not in EVERY stick of butter…