Food Additives: Are They All as Bad as We’ve Heard?
A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Your Waistline
I’ll admit I’m the first to jump up and down in frustration about what qualifies as food in the US and what’s allowed to be in our foods. Nevertheless, they’re not all bad. Let’s highlight three food additives that have gotten a bad reputation, mostly from misunderstanding, and three food additives we want to avoid.
Fundamentally, a food additive is any substance added to food and supplements which preserves the flavor, enhances the taste or appearance, or helps make a product more digestible while maintaining or improving the nutritional qualities and freshness. Many of us rely on the benefits of additives to help us meet our nutritional needs, but as with anything, it seems, the great plans can go awry. Note these pretty controversial additives.
Magnesium Stearate
It’s the fine white coating on vitamins or supplements, often added to processed foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Sometimes it’s added as a flow agent so that the natural ingredients don’t stick to each other or the machine that’s used for manufacturing. You may have heard that stearates increase bad cholesterol. While stearic acid is saturated fat, it actually does not have a great effect on cholesterol levels. Stearates are often used in small amounts, and really don’t pose the same health risks as other saturated fats because stearates are well-absorbed, and do not coat the GI tract, unlike most saturated fats.
Carrageenan
Carrageenan is a soluble fiber that has no calories, no fat, no cholesterol, and no sodium. It’s used in the food industry to stabilize foods and beverages and is added to supplements to improve texture, or as a thickening agent. One misconception is that it’s linked to increased inflammation, and a wide range of dangerous health effects — this really isn’t supported by science. However, carrageenan is not absorbed through the intestinal walls during digestion. It passes through intact — like fiber. Toxicologists in food safety agencies have supported high-quality food-grade carrageenan for years.
Propylene Glycol
It’s a colorless, odorless liquid that comes from either petroleum, natural gas, or vegetable sources, and can be found in everything from artificial sweeteners and medications to ice cream, processed foods, and yes, antifreeze. Because it’s used in antifreeze, many think it has to be toxic. It’s an ingredient within the antifreeze, but that doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Propylene glycol is safe if consumed in small amounts. The acceptable dietary intake is 25 milligrams for every kilogram of body weight. If we talk about a person who is 150 pounds or 70 kilograms, they would need to consume several cups of propylene glycol to surpass that limit, which is not really happening.
So those three have a bad reputation, but can actually serve a purpose in our foods. While we want to stay as close to nature as possible with our food choices, we don’t necessarily need to sound the alarm over every additive. There are, however, three food additives we do want to avoid.
Yellow Number Five.
Yellow number five is a lemon yellow dye that’s used in candy, soft drinks, chips, popcorn, cereals, and vitamins. This dye has been associated with changes including irritability, restlessness, depression, and difficulty sleeping.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Used as a sweetener or thickener, high fructose corn syrup can be found almost everywhere, mostly in processed foods. Corn syrup, itself, poses no threat when consumed in moderation. But most people who are eating a Standard American Diet get quite a bit of it, quite often. So this ingredient which provides no nutritional value increases the risk of excess weight gain and metabolic challenges. Bottom line: stay away from high fructose corn syrup.
Hydrogenated Oil
Hydrogenated oil is the trans-fat food manufacturers use to extend the shelf life of packaged foods, like baked goods and snacks. The more trans fat you consume, the greater your risk for heart and blood vessel complications. Trans-fats are considered unhealthy, but you can still label food “zero grams of trans fat” as long as it’s .5 grams or less per serving. This means you must read the ingredient list to see if it has the words “hydrogenated,” “partially hydrogenated,” “fractionated, or “hydrolyzed.” All these words, when connected to a fat, typically a vegetable oil, indicate a trans-fat and the nutrition facts can still say zero grams.
There you have it. Three food additives that have gotten a bad reputation for maybe the wrong reasons, and three we really are best served by avoiding. Next steps? Look through your pantry and spend a few extra minutes exploring at the grocery store; you’ll definitely find at least one of these. And, it goes without saying, the more we eat foods without labels, the better.
