Is formaldehyde a stabilizer in DQ ice cream?

Answer 1

Formaldehyde was once used as a stabilizing ingredient in all ice creams. It may still be used in some food items today. In small amounts its no big deal as your own body produces minute amounts of formaldehyde every day.

The estimated dietary exposure to residual formaldehyde in alginates and carrageenan, based on data from the USA on the consumption of ice cream and ready to eat dairy dessert cream, examined by the Panel, is between 400 and 70 times lower than the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) value of 150 µg/kg body weight set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for drinking water.

No information was available to the Panel on residual formaldehyde in other gelling additives or on their actual use levels. However, the Panel considered an extreme worst case exposure scenario which assumes that an adult could eat 1 kg of food per day containing 2 % of any gelling agent containing 50 mg formaldehyde/kg. This exposure scenario would also include the uses of alginate and carrageenan outlined above. Under these conditions formaldehyde exposure levels would be 1 mg per person per day or for a 60 kg individual approximately 17 µg/kg bw/day, assuming an exposure to 1 kg of food per day containing gelling additives.