Ethoxyquin Risk?

[COM]

For some reason today I decided to read the ingredients list on my staple fish foods, Omega One Super Color and Ocean Nutrition Formula One.

I noticed that both foods use the preservative Ethoxquin. I work in the consumer products business and I'm fairly familiar with food additives and preservatives, but I can't recall having seen this one listed on people food. I did some research and found out that it is quinoline based antioxidant used as a preservative and as a pesticide under the names Stop-Scald and Santoquin.

The product label apparently bares the skull and bones symbol.

It is know to cause fish death and problems with many other animals, yet is a very common additive to pet foods because of its high miscibility with fats. It is a very effective preventer of fat rancidity. It's needed because pet foods are generally made with low-grade meats, too low grade for human consumption.

Does anybody know anything about this or the risk that it may or may not pose to aquarium fish? Or, does anybody know of flake foods that don't contain this particular preservative?

[redpaulhus]

There was a big ethoxyquin scare back in the early 90's -- it was blamed for everything from small liter size (usually in overbred dogs) to the decline of the Boston Celtics.
ok, almost everything

I remember researching it at the time (I sold dog food as well as fish back then) - and the thing that the "all natural" companies conveniently forgot to mention was the fact that when they said "no added ethoxyquin" that wasn't the same as " no ethoxyquin" -- the rep for a local dog food company pointed out to me that the meats they used were preserved long before they got to the dog food factory and were turned into kibble.

I suspect its the same way for most dry fish foods - if the food is made with fish meal or shrimp meal, its made with a pre-processed meal that's treated long before the flake food factory.
(Foods like Omega One that use "fresh" seafood may not be pre-preserved - but if they were NOT preserved they'd soon go rancid, especially if they had nice high levels of the good HUFA fats we all like in our fish foods).

If you eat fresh fruit, you may be eating ethoxyquin - it is Epa registered and used to prevent premature browning in pears and is applied to many chili powders, paprika, etc.
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/fac...s/0003fact.pdf

Ethoxyquin is registered for use as an antioxidant to control scald (browning) in pears. It is applied post-harvest by spraying/drenching, paper wrapping, or a combination thereof. Currently only two formulation types are registered for this chemical, which includes an emulsifiable concentrate (1 product) and an impregnated wrap (3 products). Production of ethoxyquin is estimated to be less than 25,000 lbs. active ingredient over the past five years (averaging less than 5,000 lbs. active ingredient per year); hence, ethoxyquin is being considered a minor use chemical. Ethoxyquin is also regulated by the Food and Drug Administration for its use as a preservative in animal feed, dehydrated crops and sorghum, and as a antioxidant for the preservation of color in the production of chili powder, paprika, and ground chili.

Pablo Taproot (from New Life Spectrum ) discussed this on his site, when a customer asked about ethoxyquin in fish foods.

http://www.newlife.ipbhost.com/forum...?showtopic=337

He also points out that the fish meal has ethoxyquin long before he gets it.
He's got alot of good points, but there is one section that I think bears repeating:

There is not a single documented case where ethoxyquin used at approved levels has been found to cause any type of long term negative health condition in a dog, cat, fish, or otherwise. One would think that with all of the hysterical anti-ethoxyquin crusades that have taken place over the past 20 yrs or so that at least one non biased study would be able to prove that this substance can cause serious long term health issues in pets, even when used at appropriate or approved levels. Yet to date, there is not a single shred of scientific evidence that supports such a view.
The fact is that this single preservative has probably saved countless lives of pets from suffering from serious health issues caused by rancid fat.
Without preservatives the oil found in fish food would become rancid in very short order. What many hobbyists do not understand is that all fish meal based products will contain ethoxyquin. There is simply no getting around that. The manufacturer may have ethoxyquin listed on their label as a preservative, yet may, or may not even be adding this ingredient at their end. This is precisely the case with New Life Spectrum products.

And he points out something that makes it very very hard to find any flake or pellet foods with zero ethoxyquin:

The United States Coast Guard regulations (Subpart 148.04 -9) requires any vessel entering US waters that contains fish meal, to have the fish meal preserved with ethoxyquin. This is required by law for the safety and health issues that can arise if fish meal is not preserved properly. I personally know of no manufacturer that makes their own in-house fish meal on site, which means that if fish meal is being used in a food, any type of pet food, there will be at least a small amount of ethoxyquin in the final formula.

(bold highlight added by me).

Of course, the simple solution is to feed your fish a home-made diet.
I feed alot of frozen and live foods (mostly worms or daphnia that I raise myself) and have also dabbled with making my own frozen foods using shrimp, fish, veggies, vitamins, and gelatin. By making the food yourself, you can make sure you know exactly what goes in and what doesn't.
Just use it quickly, even frozen foods can lose their value over time.
It is pretty cool to watch your fish go nuts for food you made yourself

(disclaimer - even though I defend ethoxyquin usage, my dog is on a raw food - no kibble - diet and is the healthiest she has ever been. but preservatives had no part in our decision to move her off of kibble onto raw foods )

[COM]

Red- thanks.

I don't currently have a dog but if I did it would be on the BARF diet (Bones and raw food). My parents have a dog that has serious skin problems that I believe are caused by food allergies and reactions to preservatives in commercial dog food. It's a long story but I've done a lot of research and even took her to a very specialized vet that I found through my alumni network...

Despite what the official "studies" have shown, there are countless websites on the negative effect of Ethoxyquin on dogs, cats, birds, and fish. As usual, the major studies find 'inconclusive' or only 'correlative' and not causal links. I'm familiar with this type of study; I work for a company that finds the links between smoking and cancer also only 'correlative.'

I will be calling the Coast Guard tomorrow morning to try and find out why they require Ethoxyquin specifically. I know of several other preservatives that prevent rancidity. One of the most common and benign ones is Tocopherol, which is a vitamin-E compound. That is also listed as an ingredient on most flak fish foods.

I smell a conspiracy here...

[lohachata]

think of all of the tens of hundreds of millions of fish and dogs and cats that are eating food with this preservative in it.you would think that if there was any kind of real risk or issue with Ethoxyquin that some group somewhere would have brought out a serious study that would provide that information..
i have been feeding fish all kinds of foods for a long time..never noticed any possible food related problems..
but then i am no scientist either..could have hit me in the eye and i wouldn't have seen it...lol

[redpaulhus]

US federal regs:
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title46...1.4.4.6.2.html

[COM]

Wow - that's flagrantly corrupt. At least they don't specify a brand name! Monsanto's lobbyists are clearly very good at their jobs.