Pumpkin Spice Lattes Aren’t Going to Kill Us

Many Foods We Eat Contain Chemicals with Unpronounceable Names, But That Doesn’t Mean We Have to Fear Them

We have a love-hate relationship with mass-produced food. It is convenient, consistent, and inhospitable to the bacteria and mold that for most of human existence limited how long we could store and eat certain foods. But every few months, a revelation about the modern food we take for granted emerges to stoke our anxieties.

You may have heard at the end of August about Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte which contains, with every autumnal sip, Class IV Caramel Color and a tiny bit of 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI), a chemical produced when the …