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Description |
Potassium sorbate is a potassium salt version of sorbic acid, a polyunsaturated fat used to inhibit mold growth. The French first discovered it in the 1850s, having been derived from the mountain ash tree. It is widely used in the food industry and few substances have had the kind of extensive, rigorous, long-term testing that sorbic acid and its salts have had. It has been found to be non-toxic even when taken in large quantities and breaks down in the body into water and carbon dioxide in the Krebs cycle.
It is hard to imagine a naturally occurring nutrient that has been more maligned or more mischaracterized than potassium sorbate. This is a big issue for us because a number of health food stores to this very day exclude our product from their shelves because they claim that potassium sorbate is an unhealthy preservative, despite the fact that they have no valid scientific basis for their claim. The truth is the facts weigh heavily against their bias.
The issue is one of considerable hypocrisy because virtually all health food stores carry aloe vera juice and gels, along with other beverages, which use sorbic acid and/or its salts (which includes potassium sorbate). I have never been to a store in my life, whether it be a health food store or supermarket, where there has not been a plentiful amount of products that contain potassium sorbate. I know of several which contain sorbic acid and do not list it on the label. You see this frequently in the health food industry.
We are frequently asked why we add potassium sorbate to our products. We add potassium sorbate for two reasons: (1) to inhibit microbes, particularly mold and (2) increase the potassium level in our product. We, like many conscientious food producers in the natural foods market, wish to use natural ingredients to not only provide the freshest, most convenient products on the market, but insure their safety. There is no greater threat to the modern system of food distribution than undesired, even pathogenic, microorganisms. This fantasyland thinking has no basis whatsoever in know food science, and in fact just the opposite is true.
The all-time critic of food additives, Dr. Michael Jacobsen, has given sorbic acid and its salts his highest rating, SAFE. He has indicated that, ?the body metabolizes potassium sorbate like any other polyunsaturated fat.? Many of the most common food additives which health-conscious Americans take for granted have not received this rating: hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, common food colorings, BHA, BHT, TBHQ, nitrates, etc.
***information from the Lumen Foods website @ www.soybean.com***
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Minerals |
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