These days when people look at the information labels on their foods, there seem to be more and more unfamiliar ingredients. Very few people know what those ingredients actually are and what potential health risks they may pose.
Those unfamiliar ingredients can usually be categorized into two different groups: food additives, which are used to make food taste better; and food preservatives, which are used to make food last longer. Some common examples of food additives would be trans fats, MSG, artificial sweeteners, and high fructose corn syrup. Some common preservatives would be sodium nitrate (a type of salt), sulfites, BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) and BHA (Butylated hydroxyanisole), and sodium benzoate. Despite the big words, food preservatives aren’t usually that bad, unlike the additives.
“The three things that bring out the flavour in a product are salt, sugar, and fat. So that’s why a lot of processed foods will be loaded with one of those,” said Andy McAnally of Causeway Natural Health. “So when you see something that’s advertised as low fat, they have to change the formula somewhat so that it still tastes good. So if it says low fat, it’ll be high in sugar or high in salt because those are the three magic ingredients.”
The Food and Drugs Act of Canada regulates the types of food additives and their amounts that companies are permitted to produce the food. According to McAnally, however, companies have found a loophole in the regulations. By decreasing the serving size on their nutrition information, they can legally stay within the permitted amount of additives.
“When the law was brought in to restrict trans fats, what some companies did was keep the same amount of trans fats in the product but cut the serving size down so it didn’t look like there were trans fats in the products,” said McAnally. “So instead of listing all the ingredients for one cup, they cut it down to half a cup. It’s just one of those loopholes.”
The body does not recognize food additives and so it either has a hard time breaking them down or can’t break them down at all. A trans fat like partially hydrogenated oil is twice as difficult for the body to break down as saturated fat and increase bad cholesterol while decreasing good cholesterol (yes, there is such a thing). They can cause heart disease, diabetes, and nutritional deficiencies, among other things. All around, they’re just bad, bad, bad. They can usually be found in foods such as margarine, vegetable shortening, crackers, cookies, baked goods, salad dressing, breads, and chips.
Then there’s aspartame, also commonly referred to as Splenda, Sweet’N Low, or Equal. According to the American Cancer Society, the artificial sweetener aspartame breaks down into phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol, the latter of which can be toxic in high quantities. There have been debates about it causing things like cancer and brain tumours, but the FDA discounted all of these theories. There’s also one other interesting side effect of sweeteners:
“It tricks the tongue into thinking you’re actually getting something when you’re not,” said McAnally. “So the brain is getting the message that it’s tasting the sweetness, but there are calories, so you’re inclined to eat more carbs if you’re not getting the message that you’re actually consuming carbs.”
In other words, sweetener lulls people into believing they’re not consuming that evil sugar, which means they turn around and start consuming more carbs unknowingly.
Preservatives, on the other hand, aren’t all that bad. Salt is an old trick that even pioneers used to preserve their meat. Today, it can typically be found in canned vegetables and packaged meats.
Some preservatives aren’t too unhealthy, “depending on the type,” said Dr. Megan Parker of It Starts with Nature Health Clinic in Humboldt. “So something like pickles, using pickling salt, that type of preservative isn’t all that bad for you, but you don’t want to be having high amounts of it. Something like a sulfate or sulfite, those types of preservatives are more man-made and added to foods that shouldn’t have to be kept for long periods of time. Sulfites are huge and can be found in meats like bacon, packaged meats, processed meats, sausage, hot dogs, things like those.”
According to Parker, rinsing off any canned vegetables should get rid of most of the preservatives, although there will still be trace amounts. Obviously, that option isn’t viable for packaged and processed meats, so it would be best to avoid them all together and stick to fresh meats.
When it comes to additives, it seems the safest route is – at it always has been – the more natural the food, the better. If the food requires an ingredient label at all, it’s most likely processed, which means more additives and preservatives.
The more (unfamiliar) ingredients there are, the less healthy it will likely be. There’s also a great chance that those foods will cause serious health concerns later on down the line if they’re consumed in excess. If a person simply can’t give up those cakes and cookies, the next best thing is to eat in moderation.
“(The ideal is to) make the majority of our diet whole foods that we can understand the ingredient label or foods that don’t even require an ingredient label,” said Parker. “We can have those unrecognizable foods or processed and preserved foods as an occasional addition to that healthy diet.”
