Diet and Nutrition Fitness and Health Healthy Eating Tips Healthy Foods

No More "Secret" Ingredients

How to make caramel from sweetened condensed milk
High-fructose corn syrup for sale
English: A pile of plain M&M's candies.

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Looking at these pictures may start your mouth-watering for any one of your favorite treats. But before you bite, check out last weeks blog, valerieberkowitz.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/secret-ingredients-are-not-a-secret/, and read on as I continue to open up a can of worms.
When you are eating your favorite treat and you focus on its appearance, I suggest you take a closer “look” and focus on the ingredient list to uncover the secrets in the foods you eat. What looks good on the outside may contain harmful dyes, preservatives and additives on the inside. Ingredients like hydrogenated oil, MSG, corn syrup, and the others I have mentioned here are dangerous villains when it comes to your weight and health.
Many commercially prepared processed foods contain deadly ingredients in order to prolong product shelf life, enhance eye appeal and mouth feel. Oh, and let’s not forget, increase the bottom for the food companies.
In fact, as good as the food looks on the outside is as bad as it is on the inside. For example, the pretty olors that draw you to a handful of M&M’s are made from petroleum and other toxic materials that are extremely hazardous to your health.
Here’s a short list of what is lurking in your pantry:
Caramel color (used in soda and many other products) sounds benign, as do all the other additives I am mentioning, but is made by heating sugar with ammonium and it has been linked with cancer.
Yellow dyes#5 and 6 are thought to invoke allergies and hypersensitivity/hyperactivity reactions, kidney and adrenal cancer and these ingredients are possibly contaminated with cancer causing materials.
Blue #2 has been linked to brain cancer.
BHA has been determined by The Dept of Health and Human Services as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen”.
Propyl gallate is likely to increase inflammation in those with asthma and cause skin and stomach issues.
Mycoprotein (or Quorn pronounced Kworn) is a high protein vegetarian food developed by the chemical manufacturer, ICI. It is produced by fermenting a fungus and culturing it in huge vats. “The company that makes Quorn has tried to describe the product as ‘mushroom in origin’, which is stretching the truth quite a bit and they have been taken to court over it in the USA“. The result, allergic reactions including vomiting and much more.
Despite the health effects, these products remain on the market! Why? How?

About the author

Valerie Goldstein

Valerie raises the bar for health and nutrition know how with unconventional expertise and unconditional support for wellness.