I wrote to Hershey’s to ask for some idea of how much is in a typical Reeses cup… they wrote back with the same stuff they have on their website, which boils down to: hey, it’s safe. We don’t disclose our formulas.
Well, if you use this stuff to replace cocoa butter, the amounts could be rather large. Since the FDA sets the safety limit at 7.5mg per kg of body weight, it seems entirely possible that a person could ingest a huge amount if they like their candy!
So are there any sources for what amounts might be found in a typical candy bar?
Well, Hershey’s has removed PGPR from their chocolate bars, according to their site and this article, and is going to remove it from their other brands next.
Even at that it’s always the last ingredient listed in the chocolate, and the ingredients are listed in order of amount, it’s almost certainly being used as an emulsifier/viscosity reducer much like soy lecithin is.
just because it has “ricin” in the chemical name doesn’t mean it’s a dangerous nerve agent. Castor oil ( ricinoleate) is still considered “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) as a laxative and as an adjunct/additive to various medications.
That Wikipedia article is a fascinating exercise in hinting at Bad Evil Horrible Things without ever saying anything overt. If you read it carefully, there’s nothing there.
Is PGPR used as anything but an emulsifier? A sentence or two claims it could be, but one has no footnote and the other is footnoted to a page that doesn’t contain the quote.
The first sentence is flat-out wrong, as far as I can see. The quote is misleading out of context as a look at the actual content shows. (As close as I can get. PALSGAARD 4150 is not found in a search of Palsgaard.com.) Every other mention of PGPR on the site indicates that its function is to allow a reduction of the use of cocoa butter by a percent or two, NOT that it replaces cocoa butter in any way. Instead it replaces the emulsifier soy lethicin, and both are used in “tiny amounts” just as said on the Hershey website.
Is there anything more there than conspiracy theories about the Big Chemical cover-up? Nope. Is PGPR anything other than the GRAS emulsifier that the FDA says it is? Not with the evidence shown. Could it be a Bad Evil Horrible Thing? Sure. Anything could be. But a speck of evidence would be nice to have first.
It says explicitly that the reduction in cocoa butter isn’t necessarily by replacement, but rather because the PGPR allows it to be processed with lower percentages of cocoa butter than otherwise, letting the manufacturers use less cocoa butter for the same result.
I just grabbed Wiki for convenience, I read things elsewhere that made it seem less than delightful, and my point was the fact that the FDA does place a limit, saying that more than that might trigger liver issues. OK… so am I hitting the scary point if I eat four extra large candy bars in a single day? (Haven’t done that lately but it’s certainly something lots of people are entirely capable of doing) Just some idea would be nice.
Skipping the boilerplate, the good parts are pages 43-45 on toxicity and page 55 on dosage.
To summarize, the 0.0 - 7.5 mg/km acceptability standard were developed in the 1970s after studies on rats. One group was fed a diet consisting of 18% PGPR and developed a hepatomegaly that was reversible. The other group of rats had no effects even on a diet of 1.5%, 750 mg/kg, a 10,000% safety factor. Doses of 5-10% daily did result in some liver and kidney damage.
So that’s where the 7.5 mg/kg limit comes from. It does not mean that any problems occur at that level. It means that it remains safe in rats even in dosages 100 times that high.
Rat studies are not indicators of problems in humans. Human volunteers were used in two separate studies, eating up to 10 g/day for 2 weeks. No adverse effects were found. As far as science is concerned, no harmful effects of PGPR have ever been demonstrated in humans, even at ridiculous dosages. 10 grams is 200 mg/kg for a 50 kg person.
What is the amount that an actual consumer might encounter? On p55 they make a rough calculation based on standard use, which is 0.3% in chocolate. (That’s the number Hershey wouldn’t tell you.) They estimated that “The average consumption of chocolate-type confectionery can be calculated to 5.58 kg per year
(12.3 lbs).” That’s all possible consumption, including all the chocolate that doesn’t use PGPR in the first place. A chart shows what would happen if a 25 kg child or 60 kg adult were to eat four times the daily average. That still would come in under the 7.5 mg/kg limit.
PGPR is used in tiny quantities in some chocolate products. An adult would have to eat ten times the U.S. average of chocolate just to have more than 7.5 mg/kg of PGPR on any given day. At that quantity no known effects are shown in humans. In fact, no known effects have been shown at dosages 25 times that high in test groups. PGPR is GRAS because no harmful effects on humans have ever been demonstrated at any dosage. The FDA does not at any time say that “more than that might trigger liver issues.” No liver issues have ever been shown in humans, and the limit is given solely to provide a safety factor of 100 times so that slight overages should have no effect at all.