The next time you go to the grocery store for a frozen pizza, take a look at the ingredients listed on the package. Pizzas are simple, right? A crust made of flour, yeast, oil, a little water, maybe a touch of salt, and then the toppings, which could include pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers, cheese, pizza sauce made from tomatoes and spices, garlic, mushrooms, olives, and, if I’m buying it… anchovies (if it doesn’t have them now, it will by the time I cook it). So, we’re talking about maybe a dozen or so ingredients, right? Wait—there’s more… an entire paragraph of things like sodium benzoate, monosodium glutamate, disodium glutamate, lecithin, soy isolates… What is all this stuff? It sounds more like a chemistry class project than something I’d want to eat. We’re talking about a frozen pizza here, not an Egyptian mummy! Are food additives really necessary? And more importantly, are they completely safe?
Some additives are included for preservation, and that is understandable. Since humans learned to grow and store food for future use, we’ve been using preservation techniques, including drying and dehydrating, pickling, fermenting, salting, and canning. Somewhere along the line—most likely at local outdoor farmers’ markets—someone found out that if you sprayed your vegetables with a certain chemical, it would retard ripening so they could stay on the shelf longer. Another chemical kept foods from losing their color, and yet another made meat appear bright red, as if freshly killed. Later, when pre-packaging was developed, it was discovered that certain chemicals kept powdered products like milk powder from caking. When the industrial age hit full force, and canning and other methods became popular, chemicals were introduced that enhanced flavor, allowing producers to use less of the expensive actual food and more ‘fillers’. This made production cheaper and increased profit margins. And, of course, chemicals were added to kill bacteria, molds, and fungi. As time went on, more chemicals were added to create ‘desirable’ characteristics in food, such as adding lecithin to bread to make it elastic and less crumbly, and food colorings to make the food more attractive. A lot of these additives were—and still are—harmful.
The Risks of Food Additives
A good example is boric acid. Many of you may recognize this as the world’s most efficient roach killer. It is the only thing I know of that will completely eliminate roaches from your home. The various species of roaches are renowned for their toughness and ability to survive almost anything, so if this chemical kills them, that should be a red flag. Be that as it may, from the 1870s until 1920 in the U.S., boric acid was allowed to be used as a food preservative. After World War I, it was discovered to be toxic (duh… this stuff kills roaches…) and was removed from the list of allowed food additives. During World War II, the need for a cheap, readily available food preservative led to its use again (evidently, the enemy wasn’t causing enough casualties on their own…), and it was finally banned for good (we hope…) in 1950. Another example of a harmful substance that is still allowed is aspartame. Numerous studies have proven that even at temperatures as low as the human body’s average of 98.6°F, aspartame releases carcinogens. Yet it is still added to most sugar-free soft drinks, and restaurants provide racks of it at each table for use in coffee. This is despite the fact that much safer alternatives are available, such as sucralose and xylitol.
Many additives are naturally occurring, such as lecithin, which comes from soybeans and is perfectly safe, even if unnecessary. These types of additives allow producers to label food as “All Natural.” However, the term “All Natural” is the most abused phrase in the food industry, even more than “Organic.” It means nothing. Just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it’s safe to consume. Cyanide is “all-natural” (it comes from peach seeds, cherry pits, apricot seeds, and apple seeds). It’s used as rat poison and was once used in gas chambers to execute criminals. Rattlesnake venom is all-natural, but if you drink it, it will kill you. Poison ivy, poison oak, tomato leaves, and petroleum are all “natural,” yet they can have harmful effects on humans, including death. And don’t forget the Amanita mushroom and tetrodotoxin (from the Tiger Pufferfish, used to make Fugu)—two of the most lethal substances on Earth, along with botulinum toxin, anthrax, and many other “natural substances.” They could put these in your food and still call it “All-Natural.”
As I said, the term “All-Natural” is meaningless. The problem is that, through marketing propaganda, most people interpret “All-Natural” to mean “unprocessed” or “nothing added,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Food Additives Fall Into Several Categories:
- Acids – used to make flavors ‘sharper’, and as preservatives and antioxidants.
- Acidity Regulators – used to adjust the acidity and alkalinity of foods.
- Anti-Caking Agents – used to prevent powders from caking and clumping.
- Anti-Foaming Agents – used to prevent foaming, mostly in liquids.
- Anti-Oxidants – inhibit the effects of oxygen on food, and can actually be beneficial to health.
- Bulking Agents – also called ‘fillers’, used to increase the bulk of food without affecting flavor.
- Food Colorings – used to make food appear more attractive and appealing. Many are known carcinogens.
- Flavorings – added to achieve a particular taste or smell.
- Flavor Enhancers – unnecessary additives used to enhance or stretch the existing flavor. Many, such as MSG, are potentially harmful.
- Preservatives – added to prevent spoilage due to bacteria, molds, and fungi.
Other additives such as thickeners, sweeteners, and stabilizers are often added as well.
While many of these additives are harmless and have been used since antiquity, such as the flavor enhancer salt, others, like monosodium glutamate (MSG), have well-known and documented health risks. Even if an additive is relatively harmless, it usually lowers the nutritional value of the food and often adds ’empty’ calories that do nothing but create fat. Good examples of this are starchy ‘fillers’. Some additives actually interfere with bodily processes, such as the sweetener high-fructose corn syrup. This is not the same corn syrup you buy in the bottle to pour on pancakes. High-fructose corn syrup, along with MSG, interferes with the secretion of the hormone leptin, which tells the brain you’ve eaten enough. This makes you eat much more than necessary, so you have to buy more. In addition, both MSG and high-fructose corn syrup cause the release of endorphins—hormones that create a pleasurable sensation and make you want to continue whatever activity is causing their release. It could be considered a mild form of addiction.
There is not enough space here to list all the potentially harmful food additives, but the internet is an invaluable resource if you want to know what’s going into your body. You can look up each ingredient on a label, research what it does, and why it’s added. Then, you can make informed decisions about what you consume and ask yourself, “Are food additives really necessary?” I must warn you, however, that if you do this, you will never look at processed foods the same way again. There’s a reason why I make almost all of our food from scratch, using the most basic forms I can obtain—up to and including growing and killing it myself when possible. This includes flour and cornmeal (I grind it fresh as I use it, from raw wheat and corn), condiments like mayonnaise and ketchup, and all of our bread and baked goods. I only buy staples and basics at the store, such as salt, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, etc. I even grow most of our spices.
Of course, this is not possible for everyone, but you can read the labels and educate yourself on one of the most basic needs of your body: food. By making informed choices, you can send a message to food producers that you demand safe, nutritious food and can lobby your elected officials to legislate harmful practices out of existence. You have a right to safe food. And if you don’t vote… shame on you. Get out and get involved. They’re your rights—use them or lose them.
