Pizza Hut cheese is not just cheese, its silicone!
In this issue, writer John Bunting details how Pizza Huts cheese supplier Leprino Foods uses a silicone-based industrial chemical in the patented manufacturing of Pizza Cheese
That chemical Polymethylsiloxane has no FDA approval for use as a food ingredient.
Polymethylsiloxane is sold by Dow-Corning as Antifoam FG 10 .
THIS MATERIAL IS APPROVED BY FDA FOR USE IN FOOD PLANTS ONLY AS AN ANTI-FOAMING AGENT FOR BOILER WATER.
In its patented manufacturing process, Leprino Foods liberally sprays Polydimethylsiloxane on cheese granules . Leprinos Pizza Cheese supplied to Pizza Huts contains about 900 parts per million of Polymethylsiloxane: 90 times higher residue concentration than FDA allows when Polymethylsiloxane is used as a boiler water anti- foaming agent.
Repeat: Polydimethylsiloxane has no FDA approval as a safe food ingredient. It is a violation of FDA rules to use an unapproved ingredient in human foods. Silicone is amazing stuff.
In its various forms, silicone may enhance the female anatomy (ala amply-endowed actress Pamela Anderson). Silicone products can caulk seams around the bathtub to seal out water. Silicone compounds are used for lubricants. However, using silicone products in human foods is a novel, if extra-legal, application.
Leprino Foods, the worlds largest Italian cheese manufacturer, is the nearly exclusive supplier of Pizza Cheese to the 6000+ Pizza Hut restaurants in the U.S. Leprino is based in Denver, Colorado. To control costs (and boost profits), Leprino Foods uses patented manufacturing processes that add large volumes of water, salt and food starch to so-called granules of Pizza Cheese prior to flash-freezing.
Clearly, Leprino Foods use of Dow-Corning Antifoam FG 10 as an agent contained in an aqueous solution sprayed directly on cheese granules does not conform with FDAs rules governing ingredients used in human foods.