Top 10 Scariest Food Additives

By David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding

Jul 01, 2011

There was a time when "fruit flavored" and "cheese flavored" meant "made with real fruit" and "made with real cheese." Today? It's artificial everything. Most of the food at your local supermarket is no more authentic than Snooki's tan. Our fruit comes packaged in Loops, our cheese delivered via Whiz. Sure, it's edible, but there's no way your great grandparents would recognize this junk as food.

The problem with additives runs deep. The FDA currently maintains a list of ingredients called Everything Added to Food in the United States (EAFUS), which features more than 3,000 items and counting. Thankfully, most EAFUS ingredients are benign, but a few of them do have potentially harmful effects. Why they're legal is a mystery to us. Some of them might be backed by powerful lobby groups, while others probably survive simply because some guy at the FDA has too much paperwork on his desk and hasn't made time to adequately review the data.

Below are 10 of the most dubious ingredients hiding in your food, compliments of Eat This, Not That! 2011. Even if you're not convinced of their danger, you have to admit this: The more filler ingredients you cut from your diet, the more space you have for wholesome, nutritious foods.

For the meat of the article, so to speak, see the full list at:

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/top-10-scariest-food-additives

Bon Apetite.

Generally, the more "natural" the better but weren't there also studies about some of these additives that suggested that humans would have to consume "tons" of them per day to even possibly have the same risks as the rats? It could come down to, who do you trust? Like statistics, studies can be found to support most any position.

Certainly, I am not suggesting that anyone go out and see how many products they can eat in one week that contain these additives but keeping our eyes open and considering the various options should be a philosophy worth pursuing.

Best regards,

RA1

Thanks, TY. I was aware of most of these, but 'caramel color' had slipped under the radar. I've got a case of Mexican Coke to finish up, and I'll keep my fingers crossed they used the kind without ammonia.

I would love to see a fifty-year chart that shows the percentage of chemicals in our food supply versus the increase in obesity. I'd be amazed if they didn't line up pretty well.

This lab food is not only unhealthy, it tastes like crap too. I've always loved cream soda and A&W root beer, but stopped buying both when they started using artificial flavor. Feh!

I needed graham cracker crumbs for an Easter cheesecake crust and couldn't believe what Nabisco had done to the product since the last time I bought it a few years ago. Not only did it taste like particle board, but I couldn't crumble the crackers in my hands any more; they had the strength of particle board too. I can recall when graham crackers were considered a healthy snack.

I'm not a food fanatic, but I do read ingredient lists and put stuff back on the shelf when I see a list of chemicals I don't recognize. I hope more folks start doing that too and getting a message back to the manufacturers.

Thanks again for the info.

Try putting back something that says "Made in China." Your dog will go pretty hungry. But he might live longer!

I like the Mexican Coke too, and I don't believe for a minute that the Mexican authorities would allow ammonia to be used in it.

It's only in this country that the FDA looks the other way when fraud is being committed on the consumer. Well, isn't it?

I heard of an interesting diet today that involved imported Mexican river water. Anyone care to try it and report?

Best regards,

RA1