why should we be wary of some additives in our food?

Answer 1

Additives are there to either enhance the food's perceived quality(1), its shelf life(2) or its process-ability(3) in the way the food is made or packed. They vary from natural to synthetic.
eg: 1. flavour (natural or synthetic) & colour (natural or synthetic) & polishing (bees wax)
2. increasing the shelf life of bread & cakes with natural emulsifiers & water binders(stops the staleing)
3. adding emulsifier (lecithin) & fat (refined vegetable) to assist cutting
Essentially there is nothing wrong with additives otherwise they would have been banned by now. The nub of the issue is that some of us are allergic to almost every food ingredient, and that our life-styles have changed too fast. Historically we had few mechanical aids so everyone had heavy exercise & then ate lots. viz. Breakfast for a farmer would have been >14 eggs(free range), 14 sasuages, 21 slices of toast (butter not marge), 7 tomatoes(not tunnel), & poggidge (at ~4am) etc. per week. If an office worker ate that they would explode in weight. But with all that food being burnt there was a lot of nutrition comming in to keep the system running well.
As we eat less we have to be picky & include any vit. & minerals that may be missing in our limited diet.

Answer 2

I am not a vegetarian tho considering to begin purchasing organic type foods. Why, you might ask? I have learned a couple years ago (it has taken me a while to sink into my head) that all of these foods with preservatives in them do exactly what they are supposed to do: preserve food. When an autopsy is done on a person, pockets of foods can be found in the intestines that are so well preserved ... and who knows how long they are there. They believe food can stay in little areas of the intestine for years and due to being stuck in a pocket area, natural digestive enzymes I guess, dont get at the food in the pocket.... and pockets keep filling up... while the food stays in a great preserved state. So, I figure that if the preservatives are keeping old food intact, they are also doing something unatural to our bodies. We have so many cancers and health problems such as ADH that can be contributed to unhealthy preservatives that food makers have placed within our bodies. This all just grosses me out. I am close to a healthy eating lots of fresh foods lifestyle, more and more each day. Ocean salmon vs farm fed, etc. I am kinda-sorta watching for the preservatives/dyes and have been gradually changing to better foods for my body. If you are young, read all of your answers here and start now. You will have a more healthy future.

Answer 3

Additives like food coloring are in so many things you can eat. Look at a box of cookies, jello, cake mix, candy, yogurt and even lipstick and you'll be sure to find some red dye in a lot of those things.

Some red dye is listed as Carmine or Cochineal Extract. It has some number like Red Dye #. It is actually made up of ground insects.

Since I read about this years ago, I stopped knowingly eating anything pink or red.

Also, food that is processed by major manufacturers are allowed by the FDA to have a certain percentage of rat feces in them. A small percentage, the FDA says, but to me NONE of it should be there in the first place. Like there could be 1/100th per each 1000 litres of something. Undiscernible to the average person, but it's still legally allowed. The major manufacturers say that it's impossible to rid themselves of all contaminants.

That's why you want to buy kosher, even if you're not.

Answer 4

Because it wasn't meant to be in your body. Why do you think we have such a high rate of cancer and so many people with stomach, ulcer, and intestinal problems?

These additives are all meant for the express purpose of prolonging the shelf life of the product, and have nothing to do with nutritional value. Food makers are not as concerned with your life-long health as their ads say.

For instance, peanut butter. You buy Jiffy or Peter Pan and you get not only peanuts, but what is basically shortening, sugar and other additives, all designed to make it look pretty and so that you don't have to stir the jar with a knife now and then to remix the oil with the peanuts. Why? Your body certainly doesn't need those things, and pure peanut butter with just a bit of sea salt is absolutely fantastic tasting.

Follow as natural a diet as you can, eat foods as close to their whole state as you can, and I don't care what your health, it will improve.

Answer 5

Most of the additives used in our heavily processed foods are not natural, and are lab-created in order to keep the food "fresh" longer. While that Pop-Tart may be flaky and delicious, it is full of emulsifiers and preservatives that your body will not digest. These chemicals float around your body and clog your cardiac system, liver, spleen and kidneys.

Many of the things we've done to "protect" ourselves from foods we've deemed dangerous are more dangerous than the food! Chemicals used to replace butter in recipes are full of indigestible plant molecules and a grab-bag of chemicals to make them taste like butter, while the only fault of butter itself is saturated fat. The sugar substitutes made recently have been made with chemically-altered fruit sugars that your body has a hard time removing, or are full of the carcinogen saccharin.

Do yourself a favor and check the ingredients the next time you buy your ice-cream or bread. If YOU'VE never cooked or baked with it, the odds are good you don't want to be eating it.

Answer 6

People can become allergic to the additives in food, and it can be hard to pinpoint. Also, even though the FDA says they are safe today, that doesn't mean they really are.

Think of trans fat -- a few years ago it was the thing that was going to save us from saturated fats -- now, it apparently kills on contact (or you'd think so from the media attention)

Answer 7

Thats what makes them frankenfoods! All the junk they put into them and the weird stuff they do to the foods. If you ask me God knew that tomatoes and fish were not suppose to mate!!

Answer 8

Because they have a negative effect on our bodies.