Playing With Your Food: Additives and Preservatives
Thanksgiving is traditionally a time when we get together with friends and family and enjoy eating a feast. The Autumn harvest was once all the food one had to live on until crops could be harvested again in the new year. Of course, things have changed since the days we had to live on the Autumn harvest through the Winter. Food is plentiful throughout the year, and if there is something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving then I suggest this would be it. Unfortunately, people today are turning on their food in greater numbers than ever before.
One of the most persistent attacks on our food is objections to additives and preservatives. These two things are considered by many to be harmful, and should be removed from foodstuffs. Without offering a shred of scientific evidence, some people claim our food is poison. These people do do not know what it was like to live without the additives and preservatives in food we have today. Back then, sometimes people really got sick from eating their spoiled food, and sometimes people starved from not having enough food to eat. Lets look at a few of the reasons safe additives and safe preservatives are added to our food today.
An additive might be mixed with the bread dough so that the bread rises to a higher volume than regular bread giving a better value to the consumer. An additive could be a vitamin that is added to increase the nutritional value of the food. Fortified cereal is an example of this. Your body does not care where the nutrients come from, nor whether the nutrients are natural or synthetic or not. An additive can also be a flavouring ingredient, or a food colouring. We like to eat food that tastes and looks good.
Preservatives are most important for health reasons. Some preservatives, for example, inhibit mold growth in bread. Some types of mold can create toxins harmful to human health. This was a serious problem in the past. Our bread does not go moldy after a few days. Preservatives might also help keep insects from contaminating foodstuffs by keeping the food from spoiling sooner. Our biscuits are not crawling with bugs after a while. There is also the change in habits of the shopper. Most of us do not buy food each day, we buy our food usually once per week. Because of this, food needs to last longer in our cupboards, and on store shelves. Many of us tend to buy more food than we can eat before it would normally spoil. Mechanical refrigeration and canning has gone a long way in foodstuff preservation, but not all our foodstuffs is refrigerated or canned. Preservatives, and additives, are used in minuscule amounts in our food because that is all that is needed. This is a long way from the days when meat was coated with salt and packed in brine to persevere it. This required a lot of salt, time, and expertise because if not done correctly the meat would still spoil.
Too many people today believe in the false conclusion that additives and preservatives in food are harmful despite the stringent burden of proof requirement before any food additive or preservative is approved to be safe, and the scientific evidence. Just because one can not pronounce the scientific name, or because one does not know what the additive or preservative is, or its purpose, or something was on the Internet, or in a book, or was said by some person, is not proof anything in the food is harmful.
© Trevor Dailey