Food Preservatives: The Healthy Eating Facts

Do food preservatives provide food savings for you to be eating healthy on a budget? Or, do they always mean the food is unhealthy food?

Food preservatives provide the manufacturers a means to prevent spoilage during transport and the wait until you buy. They are added to processed foods in addition to any pesticides in the food already.

These food additives can be classed as antimicrobial or antioxidant.

The antimicrobial would be used to prevent mold, yeast and bacteria.

The second class, antioxidants, are used to prevent food from becoming rancid, browning or getting black spots. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that is commonly used for this purpose in food preservation.

Food irradiation has now entered into food preservation. It is method of preservation that subjects food to radiation in order to kill off living organisms.

Some examples of preservatives are:

Calcium Propionate - used in bread.

Disodium EDTA - you'll find in canned kidney beans.

BHA - is found in shortening.

The FDA has classed these as 'generally regarded as safe' or GRAS for short.

In Canada the Food and Drug Act regulates what is permitted.

A common preservative, sulfites can cause adverse reactions in people. These are put in fruits and vegetables. An example would be dehydrated potatoes. Sulfites are also in caramel color; a common food additive to marble rye bread.

Preservatives must be listed on the label. So read your ingredients labels.

These chemicals are not nutrients. They do not contribute to your healthy eating plans. They are ingredients that you would not use in a home cooked meal. The processed food diet is loaded with chemical additives.

Heavy processing causes a loss of vitamins and minerals normally found in raw food. To return lost nutrients, manufacturers enrich the foods. Enriched foods may sound good. But, these are foods that had to be repaired to provide nutrient value.

To make processed foods more appealing to the healthy eating mom, manufacturers have made more of their products fortified foods. Fortifying unhealthy foods does not then make them healthy foods to eat.

Food preservatives can best be avoided by eliminating processed foods. I know that this is huge. Perhaps even too huge to comtemplate. We have become so reliant on ready to eat meals that we have forgotten the basics of healthy cooking.

The best way to make the change from unhealthy food to eating healthy on a budget is to take it is steps.

First, make a list of all the fresh foods you have in the kitchen.

Next, make a list of all the processed foods you have. These would be foods in a box or package. Anything that was manufactured.

When I say manufactured, I mean in a factury-a food factury. Food safety standards are in place to protect us. Even though the standards exist, we almost weekly, hear of food recalls and health concerns from the food industry.

Food preservatives are unhealthy foods to eat. They do not guarantee the food was manuafactured to the standards you demand for your family.

Ok, now take a look at both lists you have made; the heathy fresh foods and the processed foods.

The processed foods list may shock you as to its size. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Because recognizing the magnitude of the situation will be your next step.

Now, you just need to make a decision. All action has a decision before it is ever done. So, now you need to decide that you will learn about healthy cooking and make some healthy foods to eat. You'll probably need to start with a few healthy recipes -recipes without any food preservatives.

When making any change in habit, it takes a bit of time to get used to the change. And it is in that time of change that it is easy to fall back to the old ways.

An example of this would be a New Year's resolution to exercise more. At first you're probably eager. But without keeping in some sort of exercise everyday, you fall back to your old habits within 3 weeks.

Let's not let this happen with your healthy eating goals. The best way to avoid this lapse, is for you to take a healthy eating action each and every day.

Whatever action you decide on, you need to implement it with discipline. Whether it is to make a homemade salad or homemade spaghetti sauce, just do it. It won't take long for you to realize that you have been eating healthy on a budget. And this will help you to stay motivated with your healthy eating plans.

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