i am on day 24

[nana]

haven't felt great today and am sorta freakin out about my balsalmic vinegar it says:ingredients white vinegar concentrated grape must caramel color. then underneath that it says contains sulphites.....i assumed they were naturally occuring and not a problem.....is this compliant?

[Tom Denham]

I don't think that is real balsamic vinegar. I read somewhere recently that caramel color is another name for added sugar, so that alone would make it non-compliant. And given the context, I would be concerned about added sulphites.

[nana]

i looked it up on line and it says that no sulphites were added just those naturally occuring but what about caramel coloring....that was never mentioned as a sugar problem .....so where do i stand on day24

[Kirsteen]

Yes, as Tom said it doesn't sound like real balsamic at all. I'm afraid caramel colour is made from some kind of sweetener, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, molasses etc. There are also 4 types of caramel colour. The one most commonly used in vinegars is called E150b over here and is caustic sulfite caramel, so the sulfites give you a double whammy.

Obviously I'd stop using it immediately. Again, obviously, I've no idea how much or how regularly you've been taking it, so I've no idea how much of an impact it may have had on your W30, although I'm sure you'll still have derived major benefit from it. All I can say is me, personally, I'd carry on and see how I felt at the end of 30 days and if I hadn't accomplished all I wanted to, I'd carry on and add the days on but then I've always been pernickity about wanting my W30s to be as squeaky clean as possible.

[nana]

thanks you guys i am gonna keep going and see how i feel i really only had it 2or3 times but i did feel weird yesterday.....so maybe there is somewhere you can let whole30's know about caramel coloring bc i had never heard it mentioned. and i am probably not the only one who has used this

[MattD]

Just to add more information to the discussion, I got this from a paleo blog: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-guide-to-food-additives/

Caramel Color

Found in: Balsamic vinegar

What does it do? Caramel color is nothing but dye – it doesn't change the taste of the vinegar at all.

Is it safe? Probably. Caramel color is produced by an extreme form of the same browning reaction that gives you the crispy golden skin on a roasted chicken or grill marks on a steak (the same process that creates AGEs). As well as heat, the process usually also uses various forms of ammonia and sulfites. One study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that the resulting coloring agents were carcinogenic in mice, but this study used extremely high amounts that no normal human would ever ingest. Another study also using enormous amounts found that the worst problem the treated rats studied was diarrhea.

On a Paleo diet, caramel color just isn't a big concern, because the dose is far too small. You'd have to drink a thousand cans of soda a day to get the level of caramel color fed to the mice. In a splash of balsamic vinegar, there's really nothing to worry about.

[MattD]

Also from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel_color

Food allergies

Caramel coloring may be derived from a variety of source products that are themselves common allergens, such as glucose (sometimes derived from wheat), starch hydrolysates (from wheat), malt syrup (in general derived from barley), or lactose (from milk). As such, persons with known sensitivities or allergies to food products are advised to avoid foods including generic caramel coloring or first determine the source for the caramel coloring before consuming the food. North American and European manufacturers mostly use glucose derived from corn or wheat to produce caramel color, which is highly processed and is generally considered gluten free.^[17]