The Dangerous 10 - Top 10 Worst Food Additives
Food additives are substances added during the processing or making of a certain food in order to preserve flavors and freshness and enhance taste and appearance.
Although some of them have been used for centuries, the use of certain food additives is becoming really widespread and some of them are extremely dangerous for your health, I would say toxic even.
I'm not talking about the once-in-a-while consumption of a certain processed food containing additives, which can't harm anyone. I am talking about daily use. Statistics show that the average American spends about 90% of his/her budget on this kind of food; which means that if you open an American fridge or look up on the shelves you'll find tons of canned, dehydrated, artificial or processed stuff, which is extremely unhealthy, and its persistent consumption can cause health problems.
Typically these food ingredients are very difficult to identify, both for the variety of names and codes they're labelled with and the very minuscule fonts used to lists them on the ingredient list.
Here is the list of the top 10 toxic ingredients.
Go get your detective glass and start reading labels!
1) HFCS - High Fructose Corn Syrup
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a highly-refined artificial sweetener made from corn starch and found in almost all processed food such as: bread and baked goods, salad dressing, candies, yogurt, soda etc. And according to some studies has become the number one source of calories in the US.
Indeed, its easy handling and cheap cost made it the number one granulated sugar replacement: The amount of refined sugar we consume has declined over the past 40 years, while we're consuming almost 20 times as much HFCS.
HFCS is linked with weight gaining, it increases your LDL ("bad" cholesterol) levels, and contributes to the development of diabetes and tissue damage, among other harmful effects.
Also, recent researches published by the American Association for Cancer Research found that the fructose in HFCS promotes cancer growth, specifically pancreatic cancer.
2) Sodium Nitrate & Sodium Nitrite (NaNO3- NaNO2)
Both of them are chemical compound used as a food additive to preserve and give to cured meats, smoked fish and poultry a nice red pinkish color. Although their purpose seems harmless, these ingredients are highly carcinogen and their consume is linked with gastrointestinal cancer and heart diseases.
In fact, under certain conditions, they can form nitrosamines compounds, molecules that cause cancer in animals and humans.
Also, in massive doses, nitrite - and nitrate, which under some conditions changes to nitrite - can lead to a condition called methemoglobinemia. In our body, nitrites, indeed, have the ability to change the structure of the hemoglobin into methemoglobin: the binding of oxygen to whom results in an increased affinity for oxygen in the remaining heme sites. This leads to an overall reduced ability of the red blood cell to release oxygen to tissue and it may occur in tissue hypoxia.
Can't give up on eating salami, bacon or ham? Choose the uncured ones.Sodium Nitrate is listed under its INS number 251 or E number E251, Sodium Nitrite has the E number E250.
3) MSG - Monosodium Glutammate
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer commonly added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. While the Glutamic acid is naturally present in our bodies, and in many foods, such as tomatoes and cheese, the ones exploited by the processed-foods industry is chemically produced through hydrolysis of vegetable proteins with hydrochloric acid to disrupt peptide bonds or by the fermentation of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane or molasses.
The substance produced has the ability to excite our taste buds and make everything taste delicious, which wouldn't be a big deal if it hasn't been shown that high levels of MSG can seriously screw with brain chemistry causing damage to areas of the brain unprotected by the blood-brain barrier.
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