Did you know that we consume thousands of harmful food additives each day? And many of these food additives are very harmful to our health. You will find the required information from this useful article.
Some decades back, a ban was put on companies from adding known harmful chemicals inside the food we eat. In spite of this regulation, certain companies are still adding harmful chemicals to the food supplies. Hence it is very vital to gain thorough knowledge on what these chemicals are and which potential dangers they come with.
Facts on food additives:
As consumers, the only defense available at our disposal is that it is mandatory for each and every packaged food to list all the ingredients on the label. We do need to educate ourselves and understand the harmful food additives that are present in the food we buy. Hence we need to read every label of the food we consume.
Certain companies however discourage the discovery of harmful suspicious ingredients present in the food by making difficult to read the details on the package and making the print very small. Even if the names are present on the labels, their names could themselves make the matters more complex. The chemicals that are present have long and foreign names; hence people skip over them because they are tedious and difficult to read.
Food producers are very smart. They make use of healthy sounding phrases, so that it leads people to think that the food item is free from chemical food additives. So it is very important to read all the names of ingredients of the food item, to determine whether or not the food substance is free from food additives.
One basic helpful tip that will help in a great way is very simple. If you find the list long and loaded with long words that you are not familiar with, guess what? This is a product that has a loadful of chemical preservatives.
Types of food additives and their consequences:
We detail below a list of food additives that you must avoid for sure. Though not an exhaustive list, these food additives are often linked to health concerns and have very harmful side effects.
- Sodium Nitrate – Generally found in lunch meat as well as hotdogs, this is a preservative and colour as well as a flavour enhancer. It is directly linked to cancer.
- BHA and BHT – Butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydrozyttoluene are commonly used as preservatives. These are present in eatables such as chips, cereals or chewing gum. Their job is to oxidize the cells and oxidation of cells are a precursor to cancer.
- Propyl Gallate is also used as a preservative. Evidence has it that it is directly linked to cancer.
- Monosodium Glutamate is a well known food additive and used as a flavour enhance. This can cause common reactions such as headaches and nausea.
- Food colours – are just another form of paint. While they liven up the walls of your drawing room, it certainly should not be present in food substances. Blue colours seen in baked foods, beverages and pet food have links to cancer. Red colour causes thyroid tumours in rats. Green colour has links to bladder cancer and yellow has links to tumours of adrenal glands and kidney.
There are many food additives that pose a challenge to your health. These additives are specific substances that are added to foods to improve their appearance, taste and to preserve their flavour. Medical professionals recently have discovered that use of food additives can actually pose a challenge to your health.
