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proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts) Sat Jun 14, 2014, 08:01 PM Jun 2014

Anheuser-Busch reveals ingredients for first time

http://www.missourinet.com/2014/06/13/anheuser-busch-reveals-ingredients-for-first-time-to-the-food-babe-video/

Anheuser-Busch reveals ingredients for first time

June 13, 2014 By Mike Lear

Anheuser-Busch has for the first time revealed the ingredients of two of its beers. The brewing giant has posted the list of what goes into Budweiser and Bud Light on its website in response to an online petition from food blogger Vani Hari, also known as “The Food Babe.”

Hari encourages people to know what is in the food they eat and to make healthy choices, and teaches them how to lives an organic lifestyle. During her effort to get beer makers to inform the public about what they put in their products, she started the petition at FoodBabe.com/beer.

“Within 24 hours we received over 50-thousand signatures, but around the 40-thousand mark I received an e-mail, a tweet and a phone call from the head of communications at Anheuser-Busch,” says Hari. The company invited her to tour its St. Louis brewery and indicated that, “they are going to now release all ingredients on the website.”

Anheuser-Busch has posted the ingredients of Budweiser and Bud Light on its website, tapintoyourbeer.com, with a promise that other brands’ ingredient lists will follow.

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“Anheuser-Busch was not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes,” says Hari, who appreciates the company’s professionalism and quick response, but she wants to see more of those product ingredient lists, and quickly.

“I’m not sure why they’re not up right now. It would be a quick website change,” says Hari. "I’m a computer scientist. I know how to do this information. They’re a multi-billion-dollar company. I’d like to see them work pretty quick.”

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More: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017196632

9 replies

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Highlight:

Anheuser-Busch reveals ingredients for first time (Original Post) proverbialwisdom Jun 2014 OP

wait d_r Jun 2014 #1

If so, then logically there would be no story here. Check out some of the comments at Vani's site. proverbialwisdom Jun 2014 #2

Ohhhhhhhhh d_r Jun 2014 #3

Glad to hear it - many food additives lack adequate safety testing so the concerns are not trivial. proverbialwisdom Jun 2014 #4

MarketWatch: 5 surprising ingredients in your favorite beer/Care for a tall, cold glass of fish guts proverbialwisdom Jun 2014 #5

its not that surprising d_r Jun 2014 #6

Comparing "craft beer" to Budweiser is ludicrous jmowreader Jun 2014 #8

K&R. Learned many things I didn't know about permissible ingredients in beer. Overseas Jun 2014 #7

Sounds like Robyn O'Brien to me. proverbialwisdom Jun 2014 #9

d_r

(6,907 posts)

1. wait

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Original post)

Sat Jun 14, 2014, 10:31 PM

Jun 2014

is there anybody who doesn't know what's in budwieser? Water. Rice. Malted Barley. Hops. Yeast. Sugar.
I mean that is how you make beer. You malt a grain and add yeast and water and sugar and hops.
The rice is a difference between the big macro-brews and the microbrews.

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)

2. If so, then logically there would be no story here. Check out some of the comments at Vani's site.

Reply to d_r (Reply #1)

Sun Jun 15, 2014, 03:22 AM

Jun 2014

SOURCE: http://foodbabe.com/2014/06/12/breaking-news-anheuser-busch-agrees-to-post-ingredients-online/#more-16983

Vani,
Thanks for your work on this. I went through a similar process recently when I demanded to know why there was GMO corn syrup in these big name beers. I was literally sick to my stomach when I found out there were GMOs in my then favorite Miller Lite... hank God for social media spreading the knowledge these companies want to hide.

I got ZERO responses on Twitter and Miller Coors was the only one to respond to my question on Facebook. They told me to call in and I ended up getting a canned response regarding the GMO corn syrup in their beer and that it was “safe and its use in the food industry was widespread”. Yeah, that makes me feel better…show me a dedicated craft brewery that believes corn syrup is necessary in beer! What a joke.

Hi Vani.. You do great work.

I have known for years that the major brewers, almost all owned by one of two conglomerates, have for decades been making a product that simply cannot be called beer. I learned long ago how to brew my own fantastic beers using the only 4 ingredients that should be allowed in beer; water, malt, hops and yeast. This way you can source all the best possible organic ingredients too. All over North America there is a rapidly growing community of microbrewers making a huge variety of fantastic and unique beers. People are discovering what real beer tastes like again and are abandoning the dinosaurs and choosing a REAL product.

I opened my brewery last year after 8 years of professionally brewing for other Craft Brewers, and I can assure you that this story goes much deeper. The chemical salesman came knocking at my door the week before I opened to sell me the accelerants, antifoam agents, yeast-washing chemicals and other goodies promising me an increase in yield and quicker production time. “No thanks,” I said. The industry differentiates between “ingredients” and “processing agents,” often justifying that the extra chemicals are not actually ingredients. Some go so far as to only list on their cans/bottles the ingredients but not the process agents.

We call it “Lance Armstronging” the beer, and my company does not use these process agents. We list ALL ingredients on the bottle, and we have been talking about this subject since we opened. It has made us many friends (and a few enemies), but the time has come to Know Your Beer. The consumer has the right to make informed decisions.

I know you will be successful in getting these corporations to disclose all the stuff from the list of almost 250 ingredients used to make their far inferior products. But I think the real solution is to show people what real beer is like and urge them to support these new brewers and to simply abandon these huge companies whose time has passed. They can disclose all the ingredients they want, they still make a crappy product.

Many beers use corn syrup in their ingredients, but Budweiser also use genetically engineered rice in their beer. While I laud Food Babe for her diligent, proactive efforts, I am sincerely curious, does this mean that Budweiser will finally openly avow their use of GMOs in their beer? Budweiser needs to do more than say they use “rice” in their beer, they need to admit it is GE rice! See this article from Greenpeace.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/anheuser-busch-using-experimen/

You should take a craft brewer with you. From what I was told by a craft beer brewmaster in a very large brewery in the southeast Busch uses rice as a filler in their mash in order to keep costs down and the beer cheap.

The rice releases an enzyme in the fermentation process that is the root cause of headaches in so many people. I never get a headache from craft beer, always when I drink Busch beer. Now I understand why.

I do not think a tour will tell you anything behind the scenes, it is just a feel good PR stunt to get you off their back. Do not be swayed. I love what you are doing my wife turned me on to your blog and I think it is excellent.

Feel free to email me for details regarding my tour of a brewery, I will be happy to let you know which one, I highly suggest you visit one before you tour the one in St. Louis.

d_r

(6,907 posts)

3. Ohhhhhhhhh

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Reply #2)

Sun Jun 15, 2014, 09:08 AM

Jun 2014

I get it. I'm sorry. They are worried about chemicals and GMO. My brain was in a different place. I'm sure it is full of it.

Sorry, to me it was enough to know they use rice which is where my brain went. And that isn't really a "secret" because it tastes like it. It is a mass-produced LCD product I am sure it is full of chemical junk.

Sorry, I get it.

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)

4. Glad to hear it - many food additives lack adequate safety testing so the concerns are not trivial.

Reply to d_r (Reply #3)

Sun Jun 15, 2014, 12:23 PM

Jun 2014

http://www.pewhealth.org/other-resource/pew-examines-gaps-in-toxicity-data-for-chemicals-allowed-in-food-85899493633

Aug 14, 2013
PEW EXAMINES GAPS IN TOXICITY DATA FOR CHEMICALS ALLOWED IN FOOD
Project: Food Additives Project

The peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology published a paper from The Pew Charitable Trusts' food additives project examining the data used to make safety recommendations for chemicals added to food sold in the United States. The analysis of three major sources of toxicology information found significant gaps in the data for chemicals that are added to food and food packaging.

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Only one in five chemicals has been evaluated using the simplest lab animal test recommended by FDA to evaluate safety.

Only one in eight chemicals that FDA recommended be evaluated for reproductive or development problems had evidence it was tested for these effects.

The lack of data means that often we don’t know whether these chemicals pose a health risk to the hundreds of millions of Americans who eat food with untested chemical additives.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/nrdc-food-ingredient-approvals-96570.html
http://www.asrm.org/Environmental_Chemicals_Harm_Reproductive_Health/

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)

5. MarketWatch: 5 surprising ingredients in your favorite beer/Care for a tall, cold glass of fish guts

Reply to d_r (Reply #3)

Fri Jun 20, 2014, 06:24 PM

Jun 2014

This expose debunks the soothing claims of the earlier Market Watch article using industry emails and more. Check it out carefully if the subject matters to you.

http://foodbabe.com/2014/06/17/not-so-fast-beer-companies-why-arent-you-disclosing-these-additives/

Big Update: The Truth That Beer Companies Have Not Made Public Yet
By Food Babe
June 17, 2014

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-really-in-your-beer-2014-06-14

June 16, 2014, 9:28 a.m. EDT

5 surprising ingredients in your favorite beer
Care for a tall, cold glass of fish guts?

How about a tall, cold glass of fish guts? It hardly sounds appetizing, but it may be what some of us are sipping when we reach for a beer.

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d_r

(6,907 posts)

6. its not that surprising

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Reply #5)

Fri Jun 20, 2014, 09:13 PM

Jun 2014

I didn't click on your link but I expect if it is "fish guts" it is talking about Guinness.

Look at how smooth the head is on a guinness.

jmowreader

(50,557 posts)

8. Comparing "craft beer" to Budweiser is ludicrous

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Reply #2)

Sat Jun 21, 2014, 05:58 PM

Jun 2014

According to Anheuser-Busch, their St. Louis brewery, in 2007 (the date reported on their website), had an annual capacity of 15.8 million barrels of beer. That's 304,000 barrels per week.

The most famous craft brewery in my area is Laughing Dog. They proudly create their beer in a 15-barrel brewhouse. Assuming they do two boils per day six days per week, they are capable of creating 90 barrels per week.

Does anyone really think you can create 300,000 barrels of stable wort a week using the same techniques you use to create 90 barrels, and not go broke in the process? A six pack of Laughing Dog is almost ten dollars. A six of Bud is three.

Overseas

(12,121 posts)

7. K&R. Learned many things I didn't know about permissible ingredients in beer.

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Original post)

Sat Jun 21, 2014, 04:53 PM

Jun 2014

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)

9. Sounds like Robyn O'Brien to me.

Reply to proverbialwisdom (Original post)

Mon Jun 30, 2014, 01:09 AM

Jun 2014

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/06/23/the-food-babe-is-to-food-as-jenny-mccarthy-is-to-vaccines/

Comment 25:

reader
June 23, 2014

Never forget that unlettered concern over quiet changes in beer and food ingredients is not entirely paranoia.

http://www.beerconnoisseur.com/the-fall-of-schlitz

Sometimes even Harvard grads disasterously muck with their and our food chemistry.

Robyn O'Brien | The New Food Economy | TEDxFrontRange2014
Published on Jun 19, 2014

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