Okay, maybe I sound like a broken record here but it just drives me crazy how we have been tricked into thinking the food we’re eating is actually good for us.  Things like ‘All Natural Ingredients’ and ‘No Artificial Preservatives Added’ make us think we’re doing good for our bodies, but are we really?

Let’s look at a loaf of bread for instance.  The ingredients include: enriched wheat flour(wheat flour, malted barley, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, wheat bran, vital wheat gluten butter.  Contains 2% or less of each of the following: rye meal, corn flour, molasses, rolled whole wheat, salt, dough conditioners (ammonium sulfate, sodium stearoyl lactylate), brown sugar, honey, vinegar, oatmeal, soy flour, mono and diglycerides, partially hudrogenated soybean oil.

Here is an analysis of the ingredients (Courtesy of the book Healthy Eating: For Extremely Busy People Who Don’t Have Time For It and an extremely gifted holistic doctor and my friend Dr. Chase Hayden):

• Enriched wheat flour is white flour.  The bran and the germ portion of the whole wheat, which are rich in vitamins and minerals, have been refined out.  To compensate for refining out approximately 20 nutrients, they add back 4 synthetic nutrients, niacin (vitamin B3), reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate (synthetic vitamin B1 derived from coal tar), and riboflavin (vitamin B2).  These nutrient additives are added to mostly refined and processed foods giving a false sense of nutritional value and can lead to nutritional imbalances.
• High fructose corn syrup is basically sugar derived from corn.  It is associated with blood sugar problems, depression, fatigue, B-vitamin deficiency, hyperactivity, tooth decay, periodontal disease and indigestion.
• Dough conditioners, in gneral, can cause mineral deficiencies.
• Ammonium sulfate may cause mouth ulcers, nausea, kidney and liver problems.
• Sodium stearoyl lactylate may be corn, milk, peanut or soy based, and may cause blood pressure and kidney disturbances, and water retention.
• Brown sugar is frequently white sugar with molasses added.  It is assocaited with blood sugar problems, depression, fatigue, B-vitamin deficiency, hyperactivity, tooth decay, periodontal disease and indigestion.
• Mono and diglycerides may be soy, corn, peanut or fat based.  they may cause genetic changes, cancer, birth defects, and allergic reactions.
• Partially hydrogenated soybean oil is associated with heart disease, breast and colon cancer, atherosclerosis and elevated cholesterol.

So, when you see things like All Natural Ingredients and No Artificial Preservatives added to the packaging…DON’T BE FOOLED!

For more information on this subject, check out the book Food Additives: A Shopper’s Guide to What’s Safe and What’s Not and also the movie Food, Inc.  “There are more than 3000 different chemicals that are purposefully added to our food supply.  the testing for the safety of these chemical additives is generally done by the company that wants to produce the chemicals or to use the chemical additives in the foods they produce.”  Also, through my research I’ve learned that the FDA does not regulate these chemicals like they do pharmaceuticals although they have many harmful side effects.