Figuring out those mystery Food Ingredients & Additives!

                    Tiease's Valley of the Paper Divas

                               Tiease D. Deutsch

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I thought it would be a helpful service to provide my fashion/health conscious readers with a quick mini comprehensive guide containing lay-person terminology. Part of being a Pro-Self-Health Advocate requires becoming an informed consumer, identifying & understanding food additives. 


Unfortunately all to often merely attempting to read some food product labels is disheartening and intimidating task. Regardless of the fact that manufacturers are now legally required  to provide ingredients & nutritional value fact labels on their food products. Truth is the average shopper is completely baffled by incomprehensible industry related words & scientific terms. I have provided some helpful data for you within my article below!


                       KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE LABELS!

                  

• Acacia Gum/Gum Arabic/Guar Gum: Supposedly a natural ingredient made from the hardened sap of  the acacia tree and helps stick ingredients together while adding fiber.

• Aspartame: artificial sweetener that's commonly used in diet soft drinks and chewing gum is 180 times sweeter than sugar.

• BHA/Butylated Hydroxytoluene: Chemical used as a preservative in cereals and snack foods. 

• Bleached Flour: After it's milled and bleached white with chemical like chlorine, this baking flour loses many of its original whole-grain nutrients.

• Calcium Peroxide: Agent is used to bleach flour and improve dough strength, grain, and texture.

• Casen/Sodium Casenate: This dairy protein can help hold different foods together.

• Chicory Root Fiber: Used to hold different ingredients together and salso contains the naturally occurring fiber inulin.

• Disodium Guanylate: Flavor enhancer is 50-100 times more potent than mono sodium glutamate (MSG) & help enhance flavors in snacks, sauces, and canned foods.

• Evaporated Cane Juice Syrup: Minimally processed sugar, this amber colored liquid retains a slight golden color and a subtle taste from the original cane juice.

• Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil:  Supposed all-natural plant oil is extract using a non-chemical process & has good monounsaturated fat and ALA omega-3 fatty acids.

• Expeller-Pressed Ingredients/Cold-Pressed Ingredients: In this process natural oils are extracted from acids by mechanical pressure without the use or addition of chemicals, colorings, or preservatives.

• Fractionated oils:  These are plant-based oils that have gone through a series of heating and cooling steps instead of hydrogenation and are used for coatings on many energy bars.

• Glutamate/Glutamic Acid: Free glutamate is naturally occurring in some foods like cheese, dairy products, tomatoes, mushrooms, yeast and soy. This is different from mono sodium glutamate (MSG), the artificial flavor enhancer, a compound of sodium plus glutamate.

Glycerin: Colorless liquid helps ingredients of different water content get along together (so dry ingredients such as grains stay dry, and moist ingredients like fruit stay moist). 


High Fructose Corn Syrup: Highly processed liquid sweetener and preservative consists mainly of glucose; it has become a common ingredient in many manufactured foods and drinks.


Lactic Acid: Known as milk acid, this natural compound is used to increase the cheese flavor in foods like pizza. Despite the term milk acid. When only vegetable sources are used, it's okay for vegan diets.


Maltodextrin:  This form of sugar usually made from rice, corn, or potato starch,c an give the body energy over a longer period of time because it releases into the blood stream more slowly than typical sugar.

• Mono sodium Glutamate(MSG): This controversial flavor enhance is commonly used in Chinese food, canned veggies, soups, and processed meats.

• Non-Irradiated Spices:  Unless specificall stated as "non-irradiate," spices undergo a process of ionizing radiation to increase shelf life and kill bacteria. While this may sound good, we believer using gamma radiation fro nuclear material goes beyond the level of processing necessary to make natural foods.

• Oligofructose: Olingossaccharide is an alternative sweetener derived from insulin, which is found naturally in chicory root. Often used to help provide a thicker texture.

• Partially Hydrogenated Oil: This oil has been partially hardened through chemical processed & contributes trans fats to foods.

• Polydextrose: This chemically created additive is used as a sugar replacement & a fiber supplement in many foods.

• Potassium Sorbate: This food presevative is used to hinder the growth of mold and yeast.

• Silicon Dioxide: Synthetic substance used to keep powdered foods flowing smoothly without congealing.

• Sodium Benzoate: Chemical preservative is used most prevalentl in acidic foods like salad dressings, carbonated drinks, fruit juices, and condiments.

• Sodium Phosphates: These are normal & essential salts for the body that work as natural leavening agents, helping make baked goods light and fluffy.

• Sucralose: Artificial sweetener: said to be 600 times sweeter than real sugar.

• Tartaric Acid: This organic acid can be found in plants& is used to provide tartness to food

• Xanthan Gum: Processed using petrochemicals, this is used to create sticky dough.

                                        Copyright by Tiease D. Deutsch 9/24/2011