Become Aware of What You Eat – What Are Food Additives, After All?

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Medical experts, doctors, nutritionists always advise us to avoid foods rich in additives. Everyone around us speaks about food additives, how harmful they are for our health…But do we really know what food additives are? How can we avoid these tiny health enemies that are hidden in aliments without having the slightest idea about what they really are and how they damage our organism? Food additives are substances added to aliments before they are put on the supermarket shelves and bought by consumers. Food additives can be natural substances or chemically synthesized substances. Additives are introduced in foods for various reasons, such as: for storing and preserving foods fresh for a longer period of time, especially foods that alter in a few days; for enriching the nutritive value of foods; for making foods processing and production easier; for enhancing foods’ taste, flavor, color, aspect etc. Most alimentary products alter very quickly if they are not treated with additives. This aspect is not very important in the case of some foods – like those that contain sugar. If these particular sugary foods are not added additives, sugar particles will simply stick with each other and form sugar clumps. These foods become a bit more difficult to be chewed, but no other side effect occurs. However, these cases of sugary foods are rather rare, as compared to dairy products, meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. If not treated with additives, this wide range of aliments alters in no time, becoming inedible. They get sour, rancid or putrid and cannot be consumed anymore. Therefore, food alteration is widely prevented by alimentary additives. Some of them slow the action of microorganisms in foods; others delay the alteration of fats and oils in alimentary products. There are also additives that help us preserve wet or dry foods, additives that make foods solider or additives used for frosting and covering alimentary products. Consequently, a great deal of additives is used in the food industry in order to prolong the life of aliments. The class of alimentary additives is extremely various and includes: emulsifiers (keep foods wholesome and give them a consistent structure), stabilizers and thickeners (give aliments a homogenous, uniform texture), anti-caking agents, vitamins and minerals (added to foods in order to supplement our bodies with the nutritive substances needed), anti-bacterial additives (kill bacteria, fungi etc. in some foods), antioxidants (keep oils and fats from becoming rancid), leavening agents (when heated, release acids and help cakes and other baked sweets to rise), color, flavor additives etc. Most additives are identified with E numbers. These E numbers appear on foods labels and are natural or chemically synthesized additives approved by the UE. Besides the vitamins and minerals which are added to common foods such as dairy products, cereals etc., we should try to avoid as much as possible food additives. This is because alimentary additives are chemical substances which cannot be beneficial for our health. However, this means that we should have a diet rich in natural resources, such as fruits and vegetables. That is why all nutritionists recommend us to pick up an apple from the tree or lettuce from our own garden. Even if they have their advantages and are used on a large scale by companies in the food industry, additives must be cautiously managed by each consumer. Try reading carefully the labels on each alimentary product and choose foods with fewer E numbers on the label. Do not let yourselves deceived by the fact that, for instance, all meat must be exclusively natural. There are companies which can inject large amounts of water into meat. Combined with color, flavor and taste additives, the meat will seem fresh and natural to us. But it is actually laden with chemicals. However, aliments that use trans fats (margarines, junk food, pastry etc.) and processed foods are the most harmful for our health, as they are the richest in bad fats and alimentary additives. Eat as less processed food as possible and lead a healthy lifestyle which includes fresh, unprocessed food. This is the best advice any nutrition expert could give us. source news.softpedia.com