FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
BUTYLATED HYDROXYTOLUENE, BHT
Ruth Winter.1978. A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.
An antioxidant employed in many foods. Used as a chewing gum base, added to potato and sweet potato flakes, and dry breakfast cereals, an emulsion stabilizer for shortenings, used in enriched rice, animal fats, and shortenings containing animal fats. White, crystalline, solid, with a faint characteristic odor. Insoluble in water. Total content of antioxidants in fat or oils not to exceed 0.02 percent. Allowed up to 200 ppm in emulsion stabilizers for shortenings, 50 ppm in dry breakfast cereals and potato flakes. Used also as an antioxidant to retard rancidity in frozen fresh pork sausage and freeze-dried meats up to 0.01 percent based on fat content. Can cause allergic reactions. Loyola University scientists reported on April 14, 1972, the pregnant mice fed a diet consisting of one half of one percent of BHT (or BHA, butylated hydroxyanisole) gave birth to offspring that frequently had chemical changes in the brain and subsequent abnormal behavior pattern. BHT and BHA are chemically similar but BHT may be more toxic to the kidney than BHA, according to researchers at Michigan State University. The Select Committee of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, which advises the FDA on additives, recommended further studies to determine "the effects of BHT at levels now present in foods under conditions where steroid hormones or oral contraceptives are being ingested." They said the possibility that BHT may convert other ingested substances into toxic or cancer-causing agents should be investigated. BHT is prohibited as food additive in England. The FDA is pursuing further study of BHT. GRAS ACCEPTABLE.
Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.
