Kellogg’s Cereal Recall: Prize Inside May Be Poisonous Chemicals

Your breakfast cereal might be deadly. Or it might just smell bad. But really, if you needed a reason to stop eating chocolate coated frosty bombs as a “breakfast cereal”, incidents like this should help persuade you.

Here’s the skinny: Kellogg’s recalled 28 million boxes of its cereals due to high levels of 2-methylnaphthalene contamination. People noticed the cereal smelled funny, and the alerts went into high gear. The temptation here is to tear into Kellogg’s for allowing contaminated cereal out of their factories to kill its customers eating its Froot Loops, Honey Smacks, Apple Jacks and Corn Pops – but it didn’t, really.

2-methylnaphthalene is “a constituent of petroleum, automobile exhaust, … waste water from coal gasification, coke and shale oil production…” and so on. Anyone recognize the “naphthalene” part?  A.k.a naptha, that’s the same stuff used to fuel camping stoves and lanterns.

“In 1994 the EPA asked the chemical industry to submit health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene,” said Mary F. Dominiak of the EPA, “because it was being produced in large quantities”. 16 years later and they haven’t done so,  she said.

Erik Olson, an expert at Pew Charitable Trusts which is advocating an overhaul of U.S. chemical laws, had a thing or two to say about that. “It is really troubling that you’ve got this form of naphthalene that’s produced in millions of pounds a year and we don’t have some of the basic information about how toxic it is. In so many cases, government agencies are missing data they need on even widely used chemicals about whether they pose a health risk.”

And this stuff is in cereal… why? Obviously, 2-methylnapthalene “is not supposed to be in food,” according to Mitchell Cheeseman of the FDA’s office of food safety.

So what happened? It turns out the 2-methylnaphthalene was likely released from those wax paper bags that hold the cereal – the ones that rip and spill cereal all over your kitchen, but only when your new girlfriend is watching and you already botched the omelette you were making in an effort to impress her, and…

Where was I? Right; the 2-methylnaphthalene.I wish someone could tell me how this stuff ended up in what is most often kids’ cereal, and how no one at the factories noticed.

Here to tell me how this stuff ended up in what is most often kids’ cereal, and how no one at the factories noticed is Kay Cooksey, a food packaging expert at Clemson University.

To paraphrase her explanation, something went screwy when the cereal was being sealed into the wax paper liners that go into the boxes. Kay points out that if too much heat is applied or if the composition of the adhesive is incorrect, 2-methylnaphthalene could form. As the cereal is in shipping to the store the wax paper off-gasses the chemical, which is then absorbed by the cereal itself.

Sugary cereals like Froot Loops aren’t exactly high on my list of must-have foods, so this doesn’t really affect me. And to give credit where credit is due, Kellogg’s was proactive and yanked the  cereal from the shelves once consumers brought it to their attention. More or less.

You see, the 2-methylnaphthalene was in a high enough concentration that people could smell and taste the difference – and not in a good way, or they’d think they were getting bonus HFCS or something. These consumers alerted the FDA, the FDA hit Kellogg’s with the WTF stick, and Kellogg’s took action.

According to Roberta Wagner of the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs, Kellogg’s investigated the problem, discovered the cause, then recalled the cereal.

So besides the nasty smell and the occasional case of nausea and/or diarrhea, what other effects does 2-methylnaphthalene cause? Ah, here is where it gets interesting…

No one knows.

Not Kellogg’s, not the FDA. 2-methylnaphthalene is one of the 65,000 or so chemicals that was grandfathered in as “assumed to be safe” under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Assumed? Yep. As in never tested one way or the other.That could be why the FDA doesn’t even mention2-methylnaphthalene  in its report about the recall.

As an untested substance, 2-methylnaphthalene might cause you to grow an extra leg. Or eat that jogger that always runs by your house. Or – it might just make your Froot Loops taste and smell funny.

Let’s face it; these cerals are basically candy anyhow, so cutting them out of your diet isn’t a huge loss.