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Dr. C @OG_DrC - The food additive you don't know about that is killing us all:
Natural citric acid comes from citrus fruits like lemons and limes. It gives them their tart flavor.
Manufactured citric acid (MCA) is the version found in nearly all processed foods, drinks, and many household products. Chemically identical (C₆H₈O₇), it is produced industrially rather than extracted from fruit.
What Is Manufactured Citric Acid?
MCA is a food additive used as a flavor enhancer (sour taste), preservative, acidulant (to lower pH), and chelating agent. It appears on labels simply as “citric acid,” with no distinction from the natural form. Approximately 99% of the world’s citric acid supply is manufactured this way.
What Creates It and Who Makes It? The Pfizer Connection
MCA is created by Pfizer through microbial fermentation using radioactive mutant strains of the black mold Aspergillus niger. Pfizer pioneered the entire modern industrial process in 1919.
Chemists James Currie and Jasper Kane at Pfizer developed the large-scale fermentation method that converts sugar into citric acid using A. niger, freeing production from scarce citrus fruit imports (disrupted by World War I). By 1929, Pfizer had become the world’s largest producer of citric acid, making millions of pounds annually and dominating the market.
This breakthrough also built Pfizer’s expertise in fermentation technology, which later helped them mass-produce penicillin during World War II.
Pfizer sold its citric acid business to Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) in 1990. Today the method Pfizer invented is used globally, with ~70% of production in China and other major producers including Cargill, Jungbunzlauer, and ADM. Global output exceeds 2.3 million tons annually; most of the 70% used in food and beverages comes from these large industrial facilities.
The process remains essentially unchanged since Pfizer’s 1919 innovation.
From What Is It Made? The GMO Components
Raw materials are typically highly processed glucose from corn syrup (often GMO corn in the U.S. and elsewhere). The A. niger strains themselves are heavily modified: Gamma radiation-induced mutagenesis exposes the mold to radiation to create high-yielding mutants (a technique refined after Pfizer’s original strains). Laboratory genetic engineering tweaks metabolic pathways to boost citric acid output and reduce unwanted byproducts.
These “mutant strains” are not labeled as GMO because the final purified acid contains no detectable modified DNA — only the chemical end product. Pure white manufactured citric acid crystals look identical to food-grade versions sold for home use.
The Toxins Within MCA
Because MCA is fermented with A. niger, trace impurities or protein fragments from the mold can remain even after purification. Key concerns include:
> Ochratoxin A (OTA) — a potent mycotoxin produced by some Aspergillus species.
> Malformin C and other fungal metabolites.
> Residual mold proteins or cell wall fragments.
Industry sources claim rigorous purification removes these, but the 2018 paper in Toxicology Reports notes that heat-killed A. niger fragments can still trigger immune responses in sensitive people. The paper specifically credits Pfizer’s 1919 process as the origin of today’s widespread MCA production.
What Those Toxins Do to the Body
OTA is classified as a human carcinogen. In animal studies it forms DNA adducts (chemical attachments to DNA) that interfere with DNA repair mechanisms and cell-cycle control, potentially initiating cancer. It is also nephrotoxic (kidney-damaging) and immunotoxic (immune-damaging).
In humans, even tiny residual amounts may provoke allergic or inflammatory cascades in mold-sensitive individuals, raising pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α).
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