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What is the role of Food Additives?

Food additives serve five main roles:

Maintain product consistency. Emulsifiers provide a consistent texture and prevent products from separating. Stabilizers and thickeners provide a uniform texture. Anticaking agents enable substances to flow freely.

Improve or preserve the nutrient value. Fortification and enrichment of foods has made it possible to improve the nutritional status of population. For example, vitamins and minerals are added to many foods including flour, cereal, margarine, and milk. This helps to make up for vitamins or minerals that may be low or lacking in an individual’s diet.

Maintain the wholesomeness and the palatability of foods. Contamination from bacteria can allow food-borne illnesses to occur. Preservatives reduce the spoilage that air, fungi, bacteria, or yeast can cause. Preservatives such as antioxidants help baked goods preserve their flavor by preventing the fats and oils from becoming rancid. They also keep fresh fruits from turning brown when exposed to the air.

Control the acidity and alkalinity, and to provide leavening. Specific additives aid to adjustment of the acidity or alkalinity of foods to gain a wished taste, color, or flavor. Leavening agents that release acids when they are heated react with baking soda to help biscuits, cakes, and other baked goods rise.

Provide color and improve flavor. Certain colors improve appearance of foods. There are many spices and natural and synthetic flavors that bring out the best in the flavor of food.

Some food additives have more than one use. Food additives are listed according to their roles. Examples of the most common roles according to classes are:

Colorings add or restore color to foods. Color retention agents keep or intensify the color of food. Preservatives help protect against deteriorations caused by microorganisms. Artificial sweetening substances are substances which give a sweet taste for fewer kilojoules or calories than sugar. Flavor enhancers improve the flavor and/or aroma of food. Flavorings restore taste losses because of processing, maintain uniformity and make food more palatable. Anticaking agents keep powdered products such as salt, flowing freely when poured. Emulsifiers help to prevent oil and water mixtures from separating into layers. Food acids help maintain a constant sourness in food. Humectants prevent foods such as dried fruit from drying out. Mineral salts improve the texture of foods, such as processed meats. Thickeners and vegetable gums improve texture and maintain uniform consistency. Stabilizers maintain the uniform dispersion of substances in a food. Flour treatment agents are substances added to flour to improve baking quality and appearance. Glazing agents give a shiny appearance or provide a protective coating to a food. Propellants are gases which help propel food from a container.

ARTIFICIAL COLORINGS. Most artificial colorings are synthetic chemicals that do not occur in nature. Because colorings are used almost solely in foods of low nutritional value (candy, soda pop, gelatin desserts, etc.), you should simply avoid all artificially colored foods. In addition to problems mentioned below, colorings cause hyperactivity in some sensitive children. The use of coloring usually indicates that fruit or other natural ingredient has not been used.

BLUE 1 ... Artificial coloring: Beverages, candy, baked goods.

Inadequately tested; suggestions of a small cancer risk.

BLUE 2 ... Artificial coloring: Pet food, beverages, candy.

The largest study suggested, but did not prove, that this dye caused brain tumors in male mice. The FDA concluded that there is "reasonable certainty of no harm."

CITRUS RED 2 ... Artificial coloring: Skin of some Florida oranges only.

Studies indicated that this additive causes cancer. The dye does not seep through the orange skin into the pulp. No risk except when eating peel.

GREEN 3 ... Artificial colorings: Candy, beverages.

A 1981 industry-sponsored study gave hints of bladder cancer, but FDA re-analyzed the data using other statistical tests and concluded that the dye was safe. Fortunately, this possibly carcinogenic dye is rarely used.

RED 3 ... Artificial coloring: Cherries in fruit cocktail, candy, baked goods.

The evidence that this dye caused thyroid tumors in rats is "convincing," according to a 1983 review committee report requested by FDA. FDA’s recommendation that the dye be banned was overruled by pressure from elsewhere in the Reagan Administration.

RED 40 ... Artificial coloring: Soda pop, candy, gelatin desserts, pastry, pet food, sausage.

The most widely used food dye. While this is one of the most-tested food dyes, the key mouse tests were flawed and inconclusive. An FDA review committee acknowledged problems, but said evidence of harm was not "consistent" or "substantial." Like other dyes, Red 40 is used mainly in junk foods.

YELLOW 5 ... Artificial coloring: Gelatin dessert, candy, pet food, baked goods.

The second most widely used coloring causes mild allergic reactions, primarily in aspirin-sensitive persons.

YELLOW 6 ... Artificial coloring: Beverages, sausage, baked goods, candy, gelatin.

Industry-sponsored animal tests indicated that this dye, the third most widely used, causes tumors of the adrenal gland and kidney. In addition, small amounts of several carcinogens contaminate Yellow 6. However, the FDA reviewed those data and found reasons to conclude that Yellow 6 does not pose a significant cancer risk to humans. Yellow 6 may also cause occasional allergic reactions.

ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL FLAVORING ... Flavoring: Soda pop, candy, breakfast cereals, gelatin desserts, and many other foods. Hundreds of chemicals are used to mimic natural flavors; many may be used in a single flavoring, such as for cherry soda pop. Most flavoring chemicals also occur in nature and are probably safe, but they are used almost exclusively in junk foods. Their use indicates that the real thing (often fruit) has been left out. Companies keep the identity of artificial (and natural) flavorings a deep secret. Flavorings may include substances to which some people are sensitive, such as MSG or HVP.

CYCLAMATE ... Artificial sweetener: Diet foods. This controversial high-potency sweetener was used in the United States in diet foods until 1970, at which time it was banned. Animal studies indicated that it causes cancer. Now, based on animal studies, it (or a byproduct) is believed not to cause cancer directly, but to increase the potency of other carcinogens and to harm the testes.

POTASSIUM BROMATE ... Flour improver: Bread and rolls.. This additive has long been used to increase the volume of bread and to produce bread with a fine crumb (the not-crust part of bread) structure. Most bromate rapidly breaks down to form innocuous bromide. However, bromate itself causes cancer in animals. The tiny amounts of bromate that may remain in bread pose a small risk to consumers. Bromate has been banned virtually worldwide except in Japan and the United States. It is rarely used in California because a cancer warning might be required on the label. In 1999, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA to ban bromate. PROPYL GALLATE ... Antioxidant preservative: Vegetable oil, meat products, potato sticks, chicken soup base, chewing gum. Propyl gallate retards the spoilage of fats and oils and is often used with BHA and BHT, because of the synergistic effects these preservatives have. The best studies on rats and mice were peppered with suggestions (but not proof) that this preservative might cause cancer. Avoid.

Artificial sweetener: "Diet" products, soft drinks (especially fountain drinks at restaurants), packets. Saccharin (Sweet ’N Low) is 350 times sweeter than sugar and is used in dietetic foods or as a tabletop sugar substitute. Many studies on animals have shown that saccharin can cause cancer of the urinary bladder. In other rodent studies, saccharin has caused cancer of the uterus, ovaries, skin, blood vessels, and other organs. Other studies have shown that saccharin increases the potency of other cancer-causing chemicals. And the best epidemiology study (done by the National Cancer Institute) found that the use of artificial sweeteners (saccharin and cyclamate) was associated with a higher incidence of bladder cancer.

In 1977, the FDA proposed that saccharin be banned, because of studies that it causes cancer in animals. However, Congress intervened and has permitted it to be used, provided that foods bear a warning notice. It has been replaced in many products by aspartame (NutraSweet). In 1997, the diet-food industry began pressuring the U.S. and Canadian governments and the World Health Organization to take saccharin off their lists of cancer-causing chemicals. The industry acknowledges that saccharin causes bladder cancer in male rats, but argues that those tumors are caused by a mechanism that would not occur in humans. Many public health experts respond by stating that, even if that still-unproved mechanism were correct in male rats, saccharin could cause cancer by additional mechanisms and that, in some studies, saccharin has caused bladder cancer in mice and in female rats and other cancers in both rats and mice.

In May 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services removed saccharin from its list of cancer-causing chemicals. That action will probably result in the removal of the warning notice required on foods containing saccharin, increased use in soft drinks and other foods, and slightly greater incidence of cancer.

NITRATE ... Preservative, coloring, flavoring: Bacon, ham, frankfurters, luncheon meats, smoked fish, corned beef. Meat processors love sodium nitrite because it stabilizes the red color in cured meat (without nitrite, hot dogs and bacon would look gray) and gives a characteristic flavor. Sodium nitrate is used in dry cured meat, because it slowly breaks down into nitrite. Adding nitrite to food can lead to the formation of small amounts of potent cancer-causing chemicals (nitrosamines), particularly in fried bacon. Nitrite, which also occurs in saliva and forms from nitrate in several vegetables, can undergo the same chemical reaction in the stomach. Companies now add ascorbic acid or erythorbic acid to bacon to inhibit nitrosamine formation, a measure that has greatly reduced the problem. While nitrite and nitrate cause only a small risk, they are still worth avoiding.

Several studies have linked consumption of cured meat and nitrite by children, pregnant women, and adults with various types of cancer. Although those studies have not yet proven that eating nitrite in bacon, sausage, and ham causes cancer in humans, pregnant women would be prudent to avoid those products.

The meat industry justifies its use of nitrite and nitrate by claiming that it prevents the growth of bacteria that cause botulism poisoning. That’s true, but freezing and refrigeration could also do that, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has developed a safe method using lactic-acid-producing bacteria. The use of nitrite and nitrate has decreased greatly over the decades, because of refrigeration and restrictions on the amounts used. The meat industry could do the public’s health a favor by cutting back even further. Because nitrite is used primarily in fatty, salty foods, consumers have important nutritional reasons for avoiding nitrite-preserved foods.

One of the biggest dangers to health, particularly to those who do not live on a natural diet, is the ingestion of chemical food additives. In order to sell in a competitive market, food manufacturers must process their food, preserve it for long shelf life, color it an attractive ripe color, sweeten it, emulsify it, cure it, stabilize it, salt it, irradiate it, bleach it, blanch it, polish it, de-germ it, de-bran it, gas it, spray it with insecticides, with nematocides, with rodenticides and fungicides--all added to the sex hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, disinfectants, anti-spoilants, anti-sprouting agents, desiccants, and sex-sterilants that the animal or plant has been given previously.

By the time some of this processed food reaches your mouth, it is loaded with enough chemicals to start a drug store. Many of these chemicals are of proven high toxicity, some of them carcinogenic (tending to cause cancer), and almost all the rest have been insufficiently tested, and their effects are unknown.

There are probably close to 3,000 or more food additives, of which close to 2,000 are synthetic chemicals, most of which have never been tested for carcinogenicity.

These additives are supposed to be added in the food in so-called safe amounts, but the important fact is that the average person eats a wide variety and abundance of these adulterated foods three or more times each day, seven days a week, 52 weeks, 365 days a year. That would be well over 1,000 meals and snacks containing the "small amounts" of poisons which are accumulating in your body.

Whoa, this is a lot of things created to make food be “food”. think about it! Just to think that one simple food products can contain many of these ingredients altogether. People have choose to belief that is good and real food, but their body obviously doesn’t think like this and a high price they pay with their health. These artificial colorings and flavorings and other additives added to our food supply intoxicate the cells of your body. These additives have been show to be carcinogens. What that means? Exactly that, these “ingredients” create cancer cells that will manifest within your body.

__________________________
In Light, Love and health
Sincerely
Ana Sola, CLA, CHBE, BC

Ana Sola is a Professional Labor Assistant (Certified by A.L.A.C.E), Professional Breastfeeding Consultant, Holistic Health care Consultant, Women Counselor, and Motivational Speaker. Creator of ** Sacred tea for Nursing Mothers ** Exclusively formulated to help women increase breast milk supply. 100% Certified organic**. www.breastfeedingwomen.com

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