Sunday, December 16, 2012

Kirkland's Organic Rice Milk

UNCLEAN!
 
Oh, Kirkland's, we wanted to love you.  You're organic.  You have no carrageean.  You come in cases at Costco.  But, alas, you have BHT! 



Company Response


We have received an answer back from our Kirkland Signature team regarding your inquiry about BHT. BHT is used as an antioxidant in the Vitamin A at very low levels. This is very common and the use of BHT as an antioxidant in Vitamin A is not a food preservative. Since the Vitamin A is added to the Ricemilk at a very low percentage, the BHT would be at even lower levels (parts per billion or undetectable levels in the ricemilk). Please note we are currently continuing to pursue further information on eliminating BHT with the vitamin supplier.

Thank you,


Costco Wholesale


I like how Costco tries to downplay the BHT used here and then they follow it up with saying they are trying to eliminate it.  If it's not bad, why are you trying to eliminate it?  And, yes it is common to hide BHT in vitamin A palmitate, but that doesn't mean BHT is still not a harmful chemical. It doesn't matter if they use a small amount or not.  If it's in there, it's not a product I will be feeding my kids. 

Great example of  how some companies can mislead consumers by labeling their products organic and containing no preservatives.  Not all organic products will be clean.

Kirkland's is one company that Feingold is still trying to work with.  They are still waiting to hear back from them on their products.  I like that I now know that this rice milk is not acceptable.

We use Pacific Original rice milk.  Woodman's is the only place I can find it.  It is $2.19 there.  You can also order it online from www.amazon.com

We also use So Delicious Original coconut milk from Woodman's.  It's $1.99 at Woodman's and $2.99 at Whole Foods.



5 comments:

  1. hey supposedly lots of companies use what's called shared equipment, so your pacific rice milk could be contaminated with soy or any other allergens you have... just wanted to give you heads-up! do your research!!!! 

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  2. Get over it dude.

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  3. I don't like it! :( But, unfortunately I have not found a suitable milk sub yet. It's in So Delicious too and a lot of other products we use - Hormel deli meats, lots of non-dairy items, etc. I'm hoping with the attention it's getting recently that companies will start to remove it. We try to limit it. When my one son was little, he got an upset stomach from rice milk. I stopped nursing at 18 months and he started drinking more rice milk. Every time he had rice milk, he would wake up at night and toss and turn and then lay on his stomach with his legs hanging off the bed. He only did this when he had rice milk, not any other rice products. Now I think it was from the carrageenan. From what I've read, it causes gastrointestinal issues. My kids don't drink rice or coconut milk straight. We mostly use it for baking and cereal.

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  4. Yes, I'm aware of cc (cross contamination) issues. There are no cc issues with Pacific or So Delicious that I know of. When they use shared equipment with a top allergen, they often list that on the packaging.

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    1. So far this is the only one that is 100% USA grown/processed rice. Call all the other ones and ask if they are processed in China. Three that I called said yes.

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