Article Image

News Link • Drugs and Medications

Today's special sandwich ingredient: A chemical foaming agent

• EWG.org

You could also unwittingly be eating ADA in bread and other baked goods.

The unwelcome sandwich ingredient ADA is the plastics industry's "chemical foaming agent

" of choice. It is mixed into polymer plastic gel to generate tiny gas bubbles. The result is a strong, light, spongy and malleable material. 

ADA is also used in baked goods, because it helps make large quantities of dough easier to handle and puffs up the finished product. The chemical appears dozens of times in EWG's Food Scores database, which rates 80,000 mostly packaged foods.