This week will require a little research and a \"food additive treasure hunt\" i

Question

This week will require a little research and a "food additive treasure hunt" in your own kitchen. First, review the link below from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The original article, which they publish about every 4 years or so, was called Chemical Cuisine, and you'll see why. This is a long list, make sure you scroll down and see it all. Study the safety key for a minute or two before proceeding to the list. Take a look, read through them. Then, find some foods in your own home that have them (this won't be hard). For full points, find at least 4 products, find both products with "bad" additives and some benign (non-harmful) ones. Pick 1 additive in each product to explore in detail, how is made, why is it used, what are the arguments for its safety/benefit and/or what are the arguments for its deleterious effects?

http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm

For your original posting: Discuss what surprised you about the food additives info (either from a general standpoint or from your personal pantry observations). Then, let the class know the foods you found in your own pantry or fridge so we know what is okay to buy and what we might want to start avoiding. If everyone does 4 or more then we will have a nice list of "good" and "bad" going.

Explanation / Answer

In the era when foods that is used for consumption have to be segregated as organic and factory made, it is a great concern for the public health as these flavour adding, presentation enhancing and long term preserved food are actually silently killing the human race from within.

It is indeed alarming to see the list of foods that are catogerized as caution and avoid as these foods are so much commonly used in daily living. The concept is GRAS (generally recognised as safe) is astonishing as various additives are accepted by the governing federation under the category.

In a fridge of every house, very commonly found agents transfat oils, food dyes, antioxidant agents, artificial sweeteners, fortified salt, processed meat, fruit extracts, artificial and natural flavouring agents, vegetable oil which are basics for every cooking are proved to be hazardous.

Is given an opportunity to buy foods which are termed as "okay" they would be vinegar, oat fibre, food starch modified, Stevia leaf extract, vegetable oil sterols and yeast.

It is indeed an eye-opener to see a long ' to avoid list "and a short can be accepted list

Bad additives would be corn syrup, invert sugar, fruit extracts, favouring agents which are natural and artificial, aloe Vera, artificial colorimetric agents, artificial sweeteners and trans fat oil.

The irony of today's food item are that there are more in the list "to avoid" rather than considered " safe for consumption" but definitely our diet does have an increasing impact of upcoming disease such as cancer.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.