Is YOUR Body a Bad Science Experiment? Food Additives, Preservatives, and GMO's.

Do you know what's in your food?  
If the food you buy comes with a label, it's vitally important to read the ingredients!  If you're not sure what the ingredients are, it's time to question your food choices and perhaps try to buy more fresh wholesome foods.  Below are some of the additives and other things to watch out for when trying to buy the best for yourself and your family.  Nowadays, being healthy means being a smart consumer!

​Food Additives:

​The FDA has approved over 2800 different food additives, which are used to either prevent food from spoiling or to enhance flavors.  Although deemed safe, many are causing health problems such as asthma, allergies, mental illness, neurological diseases, hyperactivity, and migraine headaches.  The addition of synthetic colors to foods and drugs has provoked many allergic reactions.  One of the worst offenders is FD&C Yellow No. 5 (tartrazine), which induces a histamine reaction in the body.  Artificial sweeteners are additives used by many people who want to avoid the affect sugar has on body weight.  Unfortunately, the benefits to these sweeteners are debatable and they may pose much more harm to the body.  Saccharin is a known carcinogen and aspartame causes adverse neurological and behavioral conditions and headaches.   Another food additive type is antioxidants, which prevent rapid food spoilage.  Unfortunately, the most commonly used, BHA and BHT, are also carcinogens in rats.  Preservatives also quell spoilage by preventing the growth of microorganisms.  They have also been shown to cause cancer and allergies and even death.

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​What's ON your food?

Pesticides are sprayed on farm crops in order to kill insects.  Most are made of synthetic chemicals that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.  More than 600 are used in the US and found in both plant and animal products. The EPA establishes tolerance limits and the FDA enforces the limits. Unfortunately, less than 1% of our food supply is screened to ensure the safety guidelines.  Waxes are often applied to fruits and vegetables as a preservation method, which also shields any pesticides from being washed off the food.

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​Wanna be a lab rat?  I didn't think so!

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are plants or animals whose genes have been changed by scientists in a lab in order to improve its characteristics.  Desirable traits are sought after, such as fast growth rate, resistance to pests, and resistance to rot.  There is large debate over the efficacy and safety of GMO foods.  There could be many unintended unnatural consequences to manipulating genetic material, contamination of the genes of natural crops, and health consequences from changes in the proteins and antigens in foods.  Morally, many believe that God created these organisms purposefully, with just the proper proportions of vitamins and minerals, and changing the genetic structure is unnatural.

The most common GMOs are soy, cotton, canola, corn, sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, alfalfa, and squash (zucchini and yellow).  Many of these items appear as added ingredients in a large amount of the foods we eat.  Read more at www.nongmoproject.org.

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​How we can help:

We can choose foods that are environmentally and socially responsible by buying organic foods whenever possible.  Plants and animal products certified “organic” by the USDA are produced without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, ionizing radiation and bio-engineering (they cannot be GMO).  They are also not treated with antibiotics or growth hormones.  ​

The farmers who use organic practices emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance the environment for the future.  Organic foods are health supportive because the micronutrients (vitamins, plus minerals and flavonoids) found within are in natural proportions and in much greater number than non-organic foods.  Buying organic foods reduces ones exposure to health-robbing toxins; the effects of which are potentially dangerous to children, the ill, and the elderly, who are all especially susceptible.  I also believe that organic foods, such as strawberries, taste significantly better than their less healthy and GMO counterparts.
Read my article: Organic Foods: Really Worth the Cost?

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Source Book: Staying Healthy with Nutrition: The Complete Guide to Diet and Nutritional Medicine.  By Elson M. Haas, Buck Levin.

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