Food Additives The Consequences

Food additives, utilized by mankind for centuries, are chemicals applied to foods in the home or by the meals industry to boost the taste, color, texture, and longevity of food. Salt, sugar, and vinegar were among the first food additives discovered and were used both to enhance taste also to preserve foods. Although salt, smoke, spices, and sugars have been used moderately for millennia, in the past 30 years, with the advent of processed foods, there has been an enormous explosion in the chemical adulteration of foods with additives. Food additive technology through research and development has become big business.

Considerable controversy has been linked to the potential threats and possible benefits of food additives. Commercial food additives are regulated in the U.S.A. by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and food additives have a tendency to have the most detailed scientific attention due to regulatory scrutiny. There are literally a large number of chemical additives found in our food today, and scores of those are considered to be harmful elements. A short discussion of the more popular additives will serve to illustrate potential health problems, and hopefully will help you begin considering avoiding these harmful substances:

Sulfites (Sulphites) are employed as bleaching, antioxidant, and preserving additives in food. They are implicated as allergens due to the fact that a typical sulfite reaction involves flushing, dizziness, shortness of breath or wheezing. Asthmatic attacks could be provoked by sulfites and some deaths have been attributed to their consumption aswell. Unfortunately sulfite sprays have already been trusted on fresh produce in stores and restaurants to prevent browning because of air exposure. The huge American favorite, french-fried potatoes, are also treated in this manner. As preservatives, sulfites were at once found in processed food, alcoholic beverages (wines and beer), and drugs. Even aerosols used to treat asthmatics contained sulfites as preservatives before! The increased notoriety of sulfites in 1985 led to new regulations limiting their use, and the FDA has banned the use of six sulfite preservatives in fruit and vegetables. Nevertheless the ban still permits manufacturers of processed food items, dried fruits, wines and beer to utilize sulfites, although if these manufacturers are prudent on behalf of their customers, they will voluntarily restrain or curtail sulfite use.

Nitrates and Nitrites - Several chemicals used as food additives may also be found naturally in lots of foods. Nitrates and nitrites are ever-present in plants. They form section of the essential chemistry of soils and plants, so when every gardener knows nitrogen is essential for plant growth, thus nitrogen fertilizers containing nitrates will be the most abundant agricultural chemicals. Surprisingly, some very beneficial foods such as, beets, radishes, spinach, and lettuce contain the highest levels of nitrates. We realize that daily nitrate consumption is estimated to stay the number of 100 mg per day.

Although nitrites do occur in nature they are less common in the food supply, but are produced in the mouth and intestine by bacterial action on protein and nitrates. Their intake is in the range of 2-3 mg each day. check here , usually as sodium salts, have already been used widely as preservatives, especially in bacon and other processed meats. Saltpeter is the best known nitrite using its undeserved reputation because the sex-drive inhibitor. The chief concern may be the ability of nitrites to mix with amino acids in the gastro-intestinal tract (GIT) to form nitrosamines, potentially carcinogenic molecules. Vitamin C inhibits nitrosamine formation and is considered to protect against GIT cancer. Vitamin C being an antioxidant preservative, can replace less desirable preservatives in some foods. Tobacco smoke may be the major source of human contact with nitrosamines.

Salicylates are normal in vegetables and fruits. Medicinal salicylates (aspirin) came from plant sources such as for example willow-bark methylsalicylate. As oil of wintergreen, methylsalicylate has been rubbed on many cold-stricken chests and inhaled by coughing children for years. Acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), or aspirin, is probably the hottest and useful drugs of most times. ASA is an effective drug with diverse benefits, nonetheless it routinely causes GIT irritation and bleeding. It's a major allergen and causes many rashes and hives and may occasionally trigger asthma. Dr. Feingold postulated that salicylates and food dyes produced hyperactivity in children, popularizing low salicylate diets. Feingold recommended avoiding foods that contained natural salicylates or chemically similar substances. His lists excluded such foods as peaches and cucumber, for example, which are lower in our list of symptom-producing foods.

Food Colors and preservatives have already been suspected of producing allergies, and behavioral disturbance for several years, and their exclusion was part of Dr. Feingold's program for treating hyperactive children. Food colors are employed liberally in every commercial food manufacture and are very popular in home use aswell. We know that the yellow dye tartrazinea, and the preservative benzoate, can cause hives (urticaria). In the analysis of hyperactive children by Egger et al, tartrazine and benzoate were the most common substances to provoke abnormal behavior in children, although they were never the only reason behind behavioral problems. Tartrazine is really a yellow food color commonly within a multitude of manufactured foods. It produces a variety of symptoms, typically within 90 minutes of ingestion, including asthma, hives, generalized swelling, headache, and behavior change (usually hyperactivity). Colors derived from natural plant and animal sources are often exempt from FDA control in america and are generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Beet pigment, beta-carotene, grape skin extract, paprika, saffron, turmeric, and vegetable juices are types of GRAS colors. While these substances aren't known to be toxic or carcinogenic, there is no assurance that they're not allergenic or otherwise troublesome for some people. Certified colors are approved by the meals, Drug and Cosmetic act and bear the certification name FD&C Red No. 2 and so forth, tartrazine being FD&C Yellow No. 15. Of the nine colors currently certified, seven may be used in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.

Monosodium Glutamate, well-known as MSG, is perhaps the most vilified of additives. MSG is blamed for almost precisely what goes wrong in Chinese restaurants, and several people scan food product labels, rejecting any displaying MSG. Glutamate is really a respectable, normal amino acid however, that is continuously within all our cells and always obtainable in the blood. One possibility for MSG to do something in a poor fashion in your body would occur with the sudden absorption of lots. In this case, an individual may experience a rapid rise in blood glutamate, activating receptors which ring alarms, causing the headache and shooting pains that are associated with MSG. Various other symptoms are commonly reported, including flushing, numbness and tingling, chest pains, fast heart action, abdominal pains, and behavior changes such as irritability, hyperactivity, and angry outbursts. In pure form, we'd not be expectant of MSG to trigger allergic effects, however MSG products may contain allergenic contaminants from vegetable sources including corn, beets, and wheat. Often MSG is blended with a standard enzyme (Papain) in commercial food enhancers such as for example "Accent". Papain comes from Papaya and is a protein allergen, so it's possible that MSG is frequently blamed for the allergenicity of papain. Papain may also be injected into ruptured intervertebral discs instead of back surgery. The injection is potentially dangerous if the individual has been previously sensitized to papain by ingestion.

Aspartame, a well known popular artificial sweetener, contains two normal amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid and is well tolerated in reasonable doses. The point that combining them produced a sweet taste was a surprise (and lucrative) discovery. Problems with ingesting large amounts may occur in people who have known phenylalanine intolerance. In addition, excess phenylalanine could affect brain function adversely by increasing excitability of brain cells and, in the worse case, promoting seizures. Occasional reports of "allergic" reactions to aspartame are surprising since this molecule shouldn't act as an allergen.

As we all become informed and educated about how chemical additives in our foods affect our anatomies, we will be able to make better informed choices to insure our health and wellness and well being. It is this author's hope that increasingly more Americans will make healthy, organic, unprocessed foods a more substantial part of their daily diets.

Dr. Brett Saks is a Doctor of Chiropractic (DC), Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (NMD), Author, Lecturer and Health & Wellness Coach. Please visit him at his new website, [1] where you'll learn about great new Teleseminars scheduled for 2008, browse products that support your health and well being, and discover services geared toward health education and information exchanges just about everyone has been searching for. While you're there, check out his blog, "Ask the physician", and Well-U!