Titanium dioxide remains in many food products in this country because of regulatory folly by the Food and Drug Administration, which allows problematic food ingredients to remain undetected and unreviewed.

Customer sues Mars:Skittles are 'unsafe' for consumers, lawsuit charges, because they contain 'a known toxin' 

One of the most widely used food pigments is titanium dioxide, an odorless powder that enhances the white color or opacity of foods and over-the-counter products, including coffee creamers, candies, sunscreen, and toothpaste (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source).

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Various titanium-rich minerals, including ilmenite and rutile, can serve as starting materials for the production of highly purified Titanium Dioxide. The predominant method employed in Titanium Dioxide production is the chloride process. In this process, the mineral, along with coke and chlorine, undergoes a reaction within a fluidized bed, resulting in the formation of primarily titanium tetrachloride and carbon dioxide. Subsequently, the titanium tetrachloride undergoes purification and conversion to Titanium Dioxide. Another method involves treating ilmenite with sulfuric acid to manufacture the chemical.

So, what does it all mean for you, the consumer? Should you stop eating Skittles or begin checking foods for the presence of titanium dioxide? Here's a closer look.

In vitro, in the hemocytes of the marine mussel Mytilus hemocytes, suspension of TiO₂ NPs (Degussa P25, 10 μg/ml) stimulated immune and inflammatory responses, such as lysozyme release, oxidative burst and nitric oxide production. Vevers and Jha demonstrated the intrinsic genotoxic and cytotoxic potential of TiO₂ NPs on a fish-cell line derived from rainbow-trout gonadal tissue (RTG-2 cells) after 24 h of exposure to 50 μg/ml. Reeves et al. demonstrated a significant increase in the level of oxidative DNA damage in goldfish cells, and suggested that damage could not repaired by DNA repair mechanisms. Another suggestion from the mentioned study was that hydroxyl radicals are generated also in the absence of UV light. It has been shown that fish cells are generally more susceptible to toxic/oxidative injury than mammalian cells.

The disadvantage of Titanium Dioxide is that it's not cosmetically elegant, meaning it's a white, unspreadable mess. Sunscreens containing Titanium Dioxide are often hard to spread on the skin and they leave a disturbing whitish tint. The cosmetic industry is, of course, really trying to solve this problem and the best solution so far is using nanoparticles. The itsy-bitsy Nano-sized particles improve both spreadability and reduce the whitish tint a lot, but unfortunately, it also introduces new health concerns.