Food additives: those who know them avoid them

Drawing up a list of over 1500 food additives would be a very difficult and essentially useless undertaking. First because the data would only be indicative and second because it would be impossible to remember and would require too long consultation times. In this regard, it is still possible to consult the guide to additives on Wikipedia .

In this article we will instead try to focus our attention on some points.

the Ministry of Health and the various international communities aim to protect and reassure the consumer by regulating the sector with specific laws:

• the studies carried out to establish the toxicity of additives are mainly done on animals and in any case there is no proof of their long-term effects. Who assures you that what is not harmful today will not become so after 50 years of continuous intake?
• it is impossible to test all possible combinations of additives and their respective intake dosages. Nothing prevents us from thinking that particular combinations of additives, harmless if taken individually, could have negative repercussions on the body.
• it is impossible to link additivesto the appearance of all diseases; if an additive does not directly cause a pathology, it is not excluded that it could contribute in some way to its appearance
• if the alleged negative effect of the additives present in a food is added to that of another food and so on for a day, a week and a year, considering the increasingly massive use in the industrial field, who assures us that we are really exempt from dangers?
• the sector’s industry has a record turnover growing year after year (about 20 billion dollars in 2000); this data should at least give pause to the most intelligent and mischievous consumers
• finally, consider that in industrialized countries an average annual consumption of additives of 6-7 kg per individual has been calculated.

In short, it is really difficult to orient yourself in this world that is still obscure in some ways. It is not possible to express a unitary judgement, it is not possible to state that food additives are harmless, nor to condemn them unjustly.

Trusting is good, Not trusting is better

Some tips to protect the consumer:

• at the supermarket prefer foods with a low content of additives; shop using your brainand not your eyes: if the color of a food is too flashy, compare it with the price. If it’s cheap, artificial dyes have certainly been used .
• Prefer fresh foods, avoid pre-cooked and packaged foodsin which the use of additives is often important.
• Rediscover traditional cuisine, using top quality natural ingredients