Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror and the season of overeating is upon us. Next stop, Christmas then New Years, and I am sure the food choice will be a broad scope of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Let’s take another look at more specifically the bad and ugly aspects of toxic food additives we love to eat. The United States has been a leader in world food production and cutting-edge food science for many years, but when it comes to what we eat, we are not very wise with our chemically enhanced food ingredients.
You may all remember a few years ago the sandwich franchise that announced it would remove azodicarbonamide from its bread recipes. This chemical is also known as ADA and is used to enhance elasticity in yoga mats among other things. So how have we come to the point where our food production and supply has become so chemically dependent?
With metabolic syndrome, obesity, and digestive disorders on the rise and cancer risks that are linked to food additives and obesity, you would think we would be making this a health priority to correct or minimize these factors.
Let’s take a look at the following 10 most notorious food additives we should try to avoid.
• Sodium nitrate: This additive can cause the formation of nitrosamines in your body which have known links to cancer.
• MSG: An amino acid widely used in many processed foods as a flavor enhancer. MSG is a known excitotoxin, a substance that can cause cell damage in the human body. Many people have adverse reactions to MSG and studies have shown that consumption of MSG can lead to anaphylaxis, fatigue, headaches and weight gain.
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS): This sweetener is used in the vast majority of processed foods. New studies have shown a clear connection between consuming HFCS and the development of diabetes and tissue damage.
• Trans fats: These were developed to help extend the shelf-life of processed food. Trans fats are heavily used in the process of cooking fast foods and in the manufacturing of processed foods. The process called hydrogenation, where corn, vegetable, and seed oils are chemically altered from a liquid state into solid shortening state forms trans fats.
• Potassium bromate: an additive used to increase volume in some heavily processed refined flour, breads, and rolls. Potassium bromate has been linked to cancer and even small amounts have been shown to cause health issues for humans.
• Artificial food dyes and colorings: Some have been linked to toxicity concerns and may cause behavioral changes in some children. A double-blind study done in Britain and supported by a similar Harvard study showed that removing foods and beverages that contain artificial food coloring helped relieve the symptoms of children diagnosed with ADHD.
Many of these dyes and colors are found in soda, fruit juices, candy, and boxed pasta products. In the United States, the FDA’s approved list of these food dyes includes Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Green No. 3, Red No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6. A number of these dyes that are approved in the U.S. are banned in many European countries.
• Aspartame and Acesulfame-K: Relatively new artificial sweeteners found in many food products. They are considered neuro-toxic chemicals that can lead to nerve damage, dizziness, and headaches. It is well understood that aspartame works like a pesticide, as the aspartic acid contained in it is an excitotoxin and can stop an ant problem in its path.
• Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT): These are widely used as preservatives and are found in cereals, meal packs, chips, candy products, and vegetable oils. These chemical preservatives have been shown to affect the human neurological system. Both chemicals are considered oxidants, which have been linked to the development of cancer in the human body.
• Sulfur Dioxide: This additive is toxic and the FDA prohibits its use on raw fruit and vegetables. Sulfur dioxide is still found in many products like dried fruit, soft drinks, and wine.
• Bovine Somatotropin (BST): This protein hormone is naturally produced in the pituitary glands of cattle. In 1993, genetically engineered E. coli bacteria developed the recombinant version called rBGH/rBST. There have been many studies that have shown an association between dairy consumption and breast cancer in pre-menopausal women. Many products are now marked with “no rBGH” on their packaging.
I have stated that there is a lot of truth to the statement we are what we eat. Food and nutrition is the one thing we really need to pay the most attention ensuring a healthy life. Diet and exercise can make the difference between feeling great or illness, so read food labels, watch what your children are eating and avoid highly processed foods.
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Judd Jones is a certified primal health coach and fitness consultant. He can be reached at jjones@cdapress.com www.jhanawellness.com.
Most of these are well known sorta toxic chemicals. However MSG is just the amino acid glutamate which is the most common amino acid. There’s nothing wrong with it at all. Hard to trust someone who makes such a basic mistake about biochemistry.
Then why are so many people allergic to it!
Di-Hydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) has been determined to be the primary cause of over 300 deaths in Hawaii over the last 10 years. Although it is also a common component of methamphetamine, MDMA, and numerous other dangerous drugs, DHMO still has not been banned for use in the production of organic fruits and vegetables. Recent investigations have estimated that nearly all of middle school children have easy access to it in the home, and can easily encounter it in local parks, beaches, and school yards.
Aloha Kakou, Aloha Uncle Aina,
Please allow me to expand on your MSG or glutamate info.
Your Glutamate is not your amino acid glutamine. Nor is Monosodium Glutamate.
You see glutamate is a salt and when you mix it with monosodium it becomes a much different acting chemical in your body, as you say it heavily impacts ones taste buds and causes the eater to come back for more, like sugar in most foods if not all.
As a chemical salt, your incorrect assumption that glutamate, much less MSG, is an amino acid building block of protein, is easy to misunderstand with the semantics of words in chemistry.
Another ubiquitous(it’s everywhere), that is seen in most breads and pastries is the use of the vitamin thiamine, or B6. However if you read the whole word it is really Thiamine Mononitrate, and the ending of “ate” lets You know it is a salt of thiamine and actually manufactured in a laboratory factory and then put into our food. The source of the thiamine mononitrate is from petrochemicals, that is oil, petroleum. Making this pseudo vitamin a carcinogenic Cancer causing chemical.
Why would they do this to us, these chemicals are only good to give us cancer and other diseases, it seems, but looking further we find out that these chemical additives are put in our foods as a filler, because it’s cheaper to put in these chemicals, the petrochemicals especially, than it is to put in real food. Multiply billions of packages of food with chemicals instead of 100% food and you can see the profits are tremendous as are the diseases from eating these petrochemicals.
The smart food people are reading the labels and choosing food not chemicals. This is one way to avoid some of the CAUSES of Diseases.
It is freely admitted now that not only chemicals but also any one of the 60 known manufactured sugars are put in food as it is cheaper to put in chemicals and sugars in food than it is to put in the food…multiply that by billions of packages of food and you can see the increase profit margin.
Read the labels and when in doubt it is probably a chemical and likely to be a petrochemical and carcinogenic Cancer causing. Take care of yourself, after all it is your job, daily, just learn how.
Mahalo
Charles