At the outset I want to say to you,
"Eat no food that contains any chemical food additive." To me the word 'additive' is a nasty or
contemptible word and here is what Webster's Dictionary says:
"Additive: a substance added to
another in relatively small amounts to impart or improve desirable properties
or suppress undesirable properties."
Dangers of food additives and
preservatives: Actually this tells an important story and should be a general
warning to all that additives of any kind or for any reason could be dangerous.
It is my sincere belief and conviction that additives are the greatest danger
on earth to civilization and to life itself. Lest you think I am overacting or
exaggerating I wish to assure you with all the rhetoric at my command that I
really am being truthful and very, very realistic.
Now a food additive is seldom if ever
put into food for the consumer's benefit. No matter what the food processors or
their advertising agents tell you, this statement is still true. The food
processors use additives for many reasons but basically it is to further their
own ends. No, they do not use them to deliberately do you harm .... yet the
harm is just as great as if they did do it deliberately.
One of the things that the food
processor worries about is that he might be sued if the additive causes harm or
injury to the consumer .... but he has little to worry about because the
additives are only used in minute quantities. However, those minute quantities
of chemical additives used in food are cumulative and build up or accumulate in
the human body. Then, when this build-up reaches specific proportions,
sickness, disease and perhaps even death may be the result. However, it can seldom be conclusively proven
that any specific additive caused these health complications for the simple
reason that no one eats a food containing an additive and then instantly drops
dead .... so the Food and Drug Administration and the food processors assume
that that additive is safe.
Now.,I study toxicology and thus I
learn a little bit about the dangers of many chemicals and I assure you that
the chemicals added to our food are definitely harmful. I maintain that they
are much more dangerous and deadly than most people realize. Why do you think
the food corporations hire the most famous food scientists and technologists in
the world to be continually on the stump to defend them? The sad part of the food additive affair is
that in many or most cases the individual who consumes the food doesn't realize
what he is ingesting. For example, in looking around, here are a few of the
things I learned:
Cereal used to mean a bowl of something
like oatmeal or wheat flakes. Today it means puffed wheat or some of the other
processed cereals to which have been added butylated hydroxyanisole as an
antioxidant, sodium acetate as a buffer, red No. 2 dye, yellow No. 5 dye and
aluminum ammonium sulfate, which is an acid.
Bread used to be made of flour, water,
salt and lard. Today it contains sodium diacetate to inhibit mold,
monoglycerides as an emulsifier, potassium bromate as a maturing agent,
aluminum phosphate as an improver, calcium phosphate monobasic to condition the
dough, chloromine T as a bleach, to make the flour snowy white, and aluminum potassium
sulfate.
Butter back in the good old days was
churned cream with a little salt. Today it has hydrogen peroxide as a bleaching
agent, yellow No. 3 coloring and nordihydroguaiaretic acid as an antioxidant. Oh, but wait, there’s more: Milk used to be the tasty white secretion
from a healthy cow's udder. Now it is a concoction that has been composed in a
dairy and contains hydrogen peroxide which functions as a bacteriacide, oat gum
as an antioxidant, a wide variety of antibiotics, plus various fungicides,
pesticides and various other chemicals that are used to kill germs in the milk
cans and milking equipment and on the cow's udder when they wash it before
every milking.
And even cottage cheese in the old days
was the curds from the unpasteurized whole milk of a healthy cow. Now it
contains dyes, diacetyl, to give it the flavor of butter, sodium hypochlorite
used for curd washing and hydrogen peroxide as a preservative.
Cheese was usually just good old
cheddar. Now it is usually processed and contains calcium propionate as a
preservative, calcium citrate as a plasticizer, sodium citrate as an
emulsifier, sodium phosphate as a texturizer, sodium alginate for stabilizing,
aluminum potassium sulfate for firming, chloromine T as a deodorizer, hydrogen peroxide
as a bacteriacide, acetic acid, pyroligneous acid to simulate smoke flavor, and
various coloring agents.
Ice cream was once a delectable and
nutritious dessert food, made from unpasteurized milk and cream. Most people
still find it pleasant and believe it to be nutritious and healthful. However,
in addition to pasteurized milk, now it contains agar-agar for thickening,
mono- and di-glycerides for emulsifying, calcium carbonate for neutralizing,
sodium citrate as a buffer, hydrogen peroxide as a bacteriacide, oat gum as an
antioxidant, and various other chemicals for flavoring, such as amylacetate for
banana and vanilidene kectone for vanilla.
Candy is loved by most children and
most parents buy it for their offspring with the feeling that it is essential
for their well-being. In the good old days gone by most families made their own
candy such as fudge, taffy, peanut brittle and taffy apples. Well, it has often
been said that sugar is the arch criminal destroying childrens' teeth and
perhaps doing other damage but, besides sugar, take a look at some of the
chemicals generally used in our candy today:
Sorbic acid (fungistate), Butylated
hydroxyanisole (antioxidant), Mono- and di-glycerides (emulsifying agents),
Poly oxye thylene (20) sorbitan monolaurate (flavor dispersant), Sodium
alginate (stabilizer), Calcium carbonate (n
e u t r a l i z e r), C inn amaldehyde (cinnamon flavoring),
Titanimoxide (white pigment), Mannitol (anti-sticking agent), Petrolatum (candy
polish), Propyleneglycol (mold inhibitor), Calcium oxide (alkali), Sodium
citrate (buffer), Sodium benzoate (preservative).
When I was a lad fruit was a scarce
item. Apples were our main fresh fruit and we would see an orange or two at
Christmas time, if we were lucky. Today the variety is much broader in the
fresh fruit line .... but who eats fresh fruit nowadays when canned is so easy
to get and so easy to serve? Just slip a few cans of fruit into your shopping
basket and have them in your larder for 'fresh' fruit at the push of a can
opener. However, here is what you get along with your canned fruit today:
Calcium hypochlorite (germacide wash),
Sodium chloride (anti-browning), Sodium hydroxide (peeling agent), Calcium
hydroxide (firming agent), Sodium metasalicate (peeling solution for peaches),
Sorbic acid (fungistat), Sulfur dioxide (preservative), FD & C red No. 3
(coloring agent for cherries).
To clinch this argument, all you need
is a good book on toxicology to quickly learn what harm all those various
chemical additives can do to your body. Of course, as mentioned earlier, these
foods will have long since passed through your alimentary tract by the time
your body is affected and, thus, no one will be blamed but God. People will
wring their hands and weep and moan to heaven while the real criminals, the
food processors and the chemical manufacturers, will go on their merry way
manufacturing more and more of their goodies. It doesn't sound right to me that
people should have their lives cut short while the government agencies just sit
still, not wishing to disturb the 'status quo'. People the dangers of food additives and preservatives are very real!
As always, stay safe !
-bird
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