Why Food Additives?
We all understand that some food needs sugar to make it taste sweeter or salt to allow it to be kept longer but do we really need over 500 additives and 4,500 flavouring agents lurking in our food?
These additives are widely used in our food yet many have no nutritional value at all. Over 90% are used just to make food look and taste better and ensure they have as long a shelf life as possible. They are also cheaper than using the real ingredients. Worse still is that the majority of these are artificial chemicals used in food products for children, particularly sweets and cakes.
The resulting fake food is far removed from what you would expect to eat if you made it in your own kitchen.
Studies have shown that food additives can cause behavioural problems in children, particularly the colours Tartrazine (E102), Sunset Yellow (E110), Carmoisine (E122) and the preservative Sodium Benzoate (E211).
This is not to say that all behavioural problems in children arise from the consumption of additives, in fact some children may react to ‘natural’ foods. In addition, not all additives are artificial or have been proved to be bad for you but enough of them have been banned around the world for us to justifiably worry about what we are putting into our bodies under the name of ‘food’.
However, food continues to be manufactured using artificial additives as a cheap alternative to the more expensive ‘natural’ option with no real evidence of the effects they have on our bodies and whilst they may not all be proved to be toxic no article has yet been published proving the nutritional benefits of additives in food for children or adults alike.
If the manufacturers’ drive for profits dictate that more and more new food products are produced with more artificial additives, then the least we can do is choose not to buy them. This may be time consuming as we study labels and examine packets but when your family’s health is at stake it is worth it.
Alternatively, prepare food at home using well chosen ingredients. Look for ingredients that have been less processed such as unbleached flour and unrefined sugar. Try to find dried fruit that is stored in vegetable oil rather than treated with sulphites or sulphur dioxide. Choose chocolate that doesn’t contain added vegetable oil or artificial flavours like vanillin.
Organic food does contain some permitted additives, some of which are required to be added for legal reasons, but it does not contain those food additives which can cause health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity. Nor does it contain any genetically modified ingredients and is produced without the use of over 400 types of pesticides used on conventional farms.
In addition, organic foods are guaranteed not to contain any hydrogenated fats, Aspartame, monosodium glutamate or sulphur dioxide so you don’t even have to keep checking the label!
Our bodies have evolved to consume food which grows around us in our natural environment, not something produced in a chemicals laboratory. We don’t know what the long term effects on our bodies are from prolonged use of these chemicals in our food, so why take the risk?