Healthy Parenting

Food Additives

Food used to be simple. It was just food. Now, however, things have changed. "Food" the stuff that is supposed to fuel our bodies now contain a myriad of chemical additives for a variety of reasons. These reasons mostly suit the food manufacturers pocket by making products longer lasting, softer (as in bread) and better tasting/looking. I can't say that I've heard of one food additive or chemical that has been touted as being fabulous for our health.

                    

How can we allow coal tar dyes (carcinogen), aspartame, propylene glycol (which is questionable as a personal care product ingredient) to name just a handful, in our food? Are our bodies TRULY able to process without incident the ever growing list of chemicals in our environment and in our food? Questions to ponder.

Food additives come with the convenient fast lifestyle. The same one that increased the households having microwaves from less than 20% in the 1970's to over 80% in 1990. I'll bet that the number is near 100% now. We don't own a microwave. We put it in the attic when I got pregnant with our first son over 6 years ago and eventually it ended up being given away. We only used it to heat and reheat but even so the first two weeks without a microwave were murder. After that though, we didn't miss it. Almost on my way back to food additives, but first, here is a link on microwaves:
http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/Ch3.html

Articles

Chemical Food Additive Exposure During Pregnancy
http://www.chem-tox.com/pregnancy/artificial.htm

The MSG Myth: Why the wonder "spice" isn't so wonderful after all.
http://www.livingwithout.com/feature_MSG.htm

Recommended Reading

• Books to come very soon!

Resources

The Food Intolerance Network
http://fedupwithfoodadditives.info/

The Food Additives Guide
Great site to look up food additives.
http://www.foodag.com/en/home.htm

MSG Myth
http://www.msgmyth.com/

Red40.org
Education and information on Red Dye #40
http://www.red40.com/index.html

Truth in Labeling
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about MSG.
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/

Aspartame Kills
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about MSG.
http://www.aspartame.com/

Center for Science in the Public Interest
Comments on Saccharin.
http://www.cspinet.org/reports/saccomnt.htm

Holistic Med's Aspartame Toxicity Information Center
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

Holistic Med's Sucralose (Splenda) Toxicity Information Center
http://www.holisticmed.com/splenda/

Aspartame Dangers Revealed
http://www.sweetpoison.com/