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Beef Sausages and Diarrhea
For the past 4 days I have experienced diarrhea and milk stomach cramps eating sausages. I had purchased some sausages that I was planning to eat for just 8 days to save some money until I could afford to buy more minced meat.
I have never experienced diarrhea eating beef sausages before and the sausages are a new brand of sausages in Kenya. The brand has never existed before. In addition to diarrhea, I'm also experiencing a lot of edema. My legs are swollen like balloons and my belly looks bloated. My thin frame looks like it has been pumped full of air.
I checked the expiry date twice and the sausage packages had been in the supermarket for 4-10 days (only 1 packet was in the supermarket's freezer for 10 days). I think might be sensitive to a food colorant in this package or I have am developing food sensitivities on a low vitamin A diet. My edema is a fairly constant response to carbohydrates (including edema). My candidiasis also worsens when I eat this food. The back of my tongue turns greener compared to when I eat pure meat like minced meat or chicken soup.
As a side note, my tongue has been white and green for the past 10 years of my life and no amount of tongue brushing has resolved the problem.
Like all the other beef sausage packages, it says that the meat content is at least 60%. It also says "halal meat", but I'm sure its contents are sinful. Here is the list of ingredients as listed on the package of KenMeat Sausages (I think it is in the order of the quantity of ingredients):
1. Beef
2. Wheat Rusk
3. Corn Starch
4. Soy Protein
5. Salt
6. Spices (it doesn't specific which spices, but I see specs of black pepper and I know I have never experienced diarrhea from eating black pepper)
7. Dextrose
8. Sodium nitrite
9. Ascorbic acid
10. Sodium ascorbate
11. Food Grade color 45430 (according to this site this is color additive is Erythrosine and it even has trace amounts of arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals: https://www.dyescolours.com/erythrosine.html)
12. Food Grade color 1971 (I can't find the name of this chemical)
I will compare the ingredients of other beef sausages in Kenya. Please note that I have never before experienced diarrhea from eating beef sausages.
Hi!
I am allergic to red bellpepper and paprika spice, even trace amounts.
I was at a sausage making farm when the owner said that almost all sausages have some form of paprika in it. It was because it makes sausages look less pale and supposedly this makes them easier to sell.
So whenever you read spices on a packet of sausage you should assume it is paprika in them and have to call the manufacturer to check what spices is in the sausage. For me it is just easier to avoid sausages and meat products in general.
Capsanthin, one of the carotenoids in red bellpeppers might cleave and with some form of enzymatic action, might turn into 2 molecules of all-trans retinoic acid.
The chemical formula for all-trans retinoic acid, according to wikipedia:
C20_H28_O2
A red bellpepper extract in oil is called paprika oleoresin which is commonly used to color foods (even french fries) and its color is mainly composed of:
Capsanthin (C40_H56_O3)
Capsorubin (C40_H56_O4)
Capsorubin is twice the atoms of retinoic acid and perhaps it could be transformed in the body to something that atleast mimicks retinoic acid. But its initial structure looks quite a bit different from that of all-trans retinoic acid.
For capsanthin, one end of its molecule looks very similar to retinoic acid and capsanthin might get cleaved in the middle by the enzyme BC01 (same enzyme that that can turn one beta-carotene into two retinaldehyde molecules). That one half of capsanthin might then be further transformed to something more similar to retinoic acid. The only difference I see between one end of a middle cleaved capsanthin and all-trans retinoic acid is the placement of capsanthin's -OH group and the addition of a double bonded oxygen, =O, close to where it was cleave by BC01.
I haven't heard someone else talk about how capsanthin might turn into all-trans retinoic acid so please chip in if you have any thoughts on it.
- All-trans retinoic acid (from wikipedia):
Capsanthin (from drugfuture.com): 
Lucky that you got that much information on your nutrition label in the US they maybe wouldn't need to list any of the food colorings as this older (2002) page from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Paprika olerosin as I mentioned earlier was then exempt from any labelling when it is used for food coloring.
Searching for "food grade color 1971" I don't find anything definitely either. I do find this food chemical called "Canthaxanthine" in this official 1971 Indian report:
https://archive.org/download/gov.in.is.6405.1971/is.6405.1971.pdf
I attached a screenshot from that report, and if it is what they mean on your label with "Food grade color 1971" then that is yet another carotenoid, with trans-canthaxanthine also being quite similar in its main structure to that of all-trans retinoic acid. A middle cleave of trans-canthaxanthine and then some oxidation might just turn it into all-trans retinoic acid.
Uploaded files:
@david and @jude Thank you for this interesting point.
I notice that on French Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canthaxanthine it says that canthaxanthine is not a good idea as it brings night vision problems, crystals in the retina, hepatic injury, aplasic anaemia etc...
On English/US wiki all this is not mentioned.
The good news is: on the French Wikipedia they say that the problems are not permanent and disappear when the use of canthaxanthine is discontinued. Just a few years to go before we are rid of this problem!
On the English wiki I do find the mention of problems with canthaxanthine but they try to say that is no problem in smaller amounts. Even though the page starts off by mentioning how canthaxanthine bioaccumulates in fish.
The wikipedia page on canthaxanthine, try to say that it is totally fine unless overconsumed but seems to ignore the possibility of bioaccumulation:
"In the late 1980s, the safety of canthaxanthin as a feed and a food additive was drawn into question as a result of a completely un-related use of the same carotenoid. A reversible deposition of canthaxanthin crystals was discovered in the retina of a limited number of people who had consumed very high amounts of canthaxanthin via sun-tanning pills – after stopping the pills, the deposits disappeared and the health of those people affected was fully recovered. However, the level of canthaxanthin intake in the affected individuals was many times greater than that which could ever be consumed via poultry products - to reach a similar intake, an individual would have to consume more than 50 eggs per day, produced by hens fed practical levels of canthaxanthin in their diets. Moreover, it was demonstrated by Hueber et al. that ingestions of canthaxanthin cause no long-term adverse effects, and that the phenomenon of crystal deposition on the retina is reversible and does not result in morphological changes.[20][21] ".
All of this is very interesting! Just wanted to ask if the sausages are very fatty and are you eating the fat? My husband reacts to some fatty sausages, and not lean ones.