You eat for your health, right? Well, okay, most likely you eat for enjoyment, too. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be health conscious every time you eat – regardless of why you are eating. Unfortunately, the food options of today are laden with all kinds of chemicals that are horrible for your body. What with all of the processed food on the market, you must be extra conscious of what you ingest if you are concerned with your health. Here are seven common food additives you should avoid:
Trans fat. This common preservative is found in fast foods, margarine, bagged chips, and other fried foods. It is also one of the most dangerous food additives you can consume, shown to be responsible for raising bad cholesterol levels and lowering good cholesterol levels, which makes you more vulnerable to heart disease and stroke.
Food dyes. Any time you see a color with a number after it (“red #40,” for example), it is a good idea to steer clear of that food. Food dyes are found in everything from candy to cheese products, and are known to be linked to a variety of health conditions, including cancers, tumors, and chromosomal damage.
Artificial sweeteners. These are found in just about every diet food there is. One of the most common artificial sweeteners is aspartame, which gives flavor to everything from diet soda to sweetener packets at your local fast food joint. Aspartame is some seriously bad stuff – a known carcinogen, as a matter of fact – shown to be linked to Parkinson’s disease, cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, emotional disorders, kidney tumors, and much more.
High fructose corn syrup. This is not an artificial sweetener, but high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) should be avoided, just the same. HFCS accounts for most of the calories that all Americans eat, and it is a constituent of just about every single processed food product on the American market! These are startling statistics, considering HFCS is known for causing obesity, diabetes, high bad cholesterol levels, and other health problems.
Sodium nitrate. Look for this dangerous additive in process meats. It is a preserver used in bacon, hot dogs, packaged lunch meats, and more, and is known for giving old, gray meats a fresh, red appearance. Sodium nitrate was up for banning by the FDA in 1970 because it is a known carcinogen. However, it still shows up in many of the foods we eat today. Look for it.
Today’s food pantry is a dangerous place. Protect your health by staying on the lookout for these common food additives.
About the Author: Loralee Aydt is a certified nutritionist who enjoys helping people better understand the relationship between foods and their bodies. She loves following health sites like yeastinfectiontreatment.org and others that tie potentially food-related illnesses and their symptoms together.
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With the whole world set up in a “health craze”, everybody is trying to find healthier alternatives of their personal favorites. Included in this health craze are coffee drinkers, and many of them are wondering whether or not decaffeinated coffee is a better alternative. Decaffeinated coffee has been around since about 1906, when a German coffee merchant (Ludwig Roselius and Karl Wimmer) successfully removed caffeine from the coffee beans.