Top Ten Food Additives To Avoid

www.foodmatters.tv - April 1st, 2013

Food additives have been used for centuries to enhance the appearance and flavor of food and prolong shelf life. But do these food additives really “add” any value to your food?

Food additives find their way into our foods to help ease processing, packaging and storage. But how do we know what food additives is in that box of macaroni and cheese and why does it have such a long shelf life?

A typical American household spends about 90 percent of their food budget on processed foods, and are in doing so exposed to a plethora of artificial food additives, many of which can cause dire consequences to your health.

Some food additives are worse than others. Here’s a list of the top food additives to avoid

1. Artificial Sweeteners:

Aspartame, (E951) more popularly known as Nutrasweet and Equal, is found in foods labeled "diet" or "sugar free". Aspartame is believed to be carcinogenic and accounts for more reports of adverse reactions than all other foods and food additives combined. Aspartame is not your friend. Aspartame is a neurotoxin and carcinogen. Known to erode intelligence and affect short-term memory, the components of this toxic sweetener may lead to a wide variety of ailments including brain tumor, diseases like lymphoma, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue, emotional disorders like depression and anxiety attacks, dizziness, headaches, nausea, mental confusion, migraines and seizures. Acesulfame-K, a relatively new artificial sweetener found in baking goods, gum and gelatin, has not been thoroughly tested and has been linked to kidney tumors. 

Found in: diet or sugar free sodas, diet coke, coke zero, jello (and over gelatins), desserts, sugar free gum, drink mixes, baking goods, table top sweeteners, cereal, breath mints, pudding, kool-aid, ice tea, chewable vitamins, toothpaste.

Read More

What's really behind the ingredient 'Natural Flavors?'

www.naturalnews.com -- March 5th, 2013

What does the term "natural flavors" really mean? Could it be that the term "natural flavors" includes genetically modified, pesticide-laden food? There are also plenty of "food products" on the shelves that read "all natural" on the label, but they still contain large amounts of synthetic, laboratory-concocted food agents, many of which cause diseases and disorders. So how much more confusing can it get to simply shop for food that doesn't kill you slowly?

Exactly who makes the rules about terms put on labels? You better hope it doesn't all fall in the hands of the FDA, the same organization responsible for allowing genetically modified food to exist and be sold completely undercover ever since its inception. And does natural flavoring include the migraine headache monster monosodium glutamate? Also, can "natural flavoring" include bugs that are ground up to turn your food into some "happy" colors that help you celebrate some birthday or big event? One final question: could "natural flavoring" mean the food contains meat, even though it's a vegetarian or vegan product?Maybe "natural flavoring" means it's not natural at all, instead, some food scientists were paid millions to create un-natural, immune system "crippling" foods, drinks, candies and medicine, just to make some extra money off of your sickness. There's a point where conspiracy theory bleeds over into the real world of unnatural food and medicine, where paranoia of cancer scams and epidemics spill over into actual statistics (United States), the ones which include every other man and every third women in the most "powerful country in the world."

MSG, Aspartame and bugs in your food are all considered "natural flavors" and "natural colors. 

Do you know what autolyzed yeast extract really is? It's MSG. Do you know what hydrolyzed soy protein (also MSG) does to your body? Have you thought about eating some beetles lately, or do you only do that when you have cupcakes, popsicles, birthday cake and cough medicine? Has your doctor discussed with you the fact that your ingestion of artificial sweeteners may be the main cause of your muscle aches, headaches, irritable bowels and even fibromyalgia? Do allopathic doctors, surgeons and oncologists in America have to take even one single class in college on nutrition? No, they don't. What about continuing education to keep up with the latest food toxins? Nope!

Read More

Food Processing – Why Do We Need It?

www.blog.fooducate.com - August 20th, 2012

The term “processed food” has gotten a bad rap in the last few years. We are told to buy unprocessed foods because they contain less chemicals, because they are natural and healthy for us. At worst a food product should be minimally processed.

But what exactly is processed food? And is a processed food bad for you by default?

What you need to know:

Food processing is a set of methods and techniques used to transform raw food ingredients into consumable food. Food processing can be as simple as cutting up some vegetables to prepare a salad, or as complex as manufacturing a Twinkie in multiple processing facility.

From the early days of food processing, the primary goal was to extend the life of a foodstuff, by acting as a preservative. This helped balance humans’ need to eat daily with nature’s trend to provide crops only during certain times of the year. To this day, extending shelf life is one of the most important reasons food manufacturers add so many weird sounding ingredients to products.

One of the first forms of food processing, dating back to BC, was the salting of meats as a means of preservation. Sugar was introduced much later as a preservative for fruit, and thus the jam was born. Keeping food cold, either underground, or by using ice, was an effective, if primitive method of preservation until the ascent of ice boxes and recently electrical refrigeration.

In the early 19th century, a new technology was introduced to vacuum bottles of food for French troops. It would lead to the use of tin cans a decade later and thus the canning industry was born.

Pasteurization, another French invention from the mid 19th century, greatly improved the safety of milk and milk products, as well as increasing their shelf life. (We won’t get into the raw milk debate in this post).

Read More