ASEHA Qld

PROCESSED FOODS CAN BE PROBLEMATIC

Having problems eating processed food lately!!!  Many ASEHA members are reporting severe gut problems following meals.  Some are unable to eat any processed foods at all, and the overall quality of food, appears to be deteriorating.  Some members are losing foods and experiencing difficulty finding an adequate supply of fresh produce to sustain them, maintain their weight and allow something that resembles quality of life - more importantly to stop them from losing foods and having to further restrict diets.

Food additives. Over the years food has become a commodity like any other product.  It has been subjected to research into new additives, flavorings and processes to the degree that a food item such as a simple cake which normally involves five or six ingredients – wheat, eggs, milk, sugar, flavourings – can now contain many more ingredients.  Some of these are additives that have been linked to hyperactivity in children in recent years, while others are amongst the 60 or so additives that are known to cause adverse reactions in sensitive individuals.

Choice magazine recently surveyed baked goods in supermarkets and claim you can find anything up to forty ingredients in cakes and these are used by manufacturers to disguise poor quality ingredients. Choice purchased 97 cakes in total from Coles and Woolworths supermarkets and examined the ingredients list for ingredients that would not be used in home baked products e.g. egg powder, milk solids, potato or tapioca starch, palm oil, maltodextrin and dextrose.

While some cakes actually contained whole eggs and some real butter, most cakes included additives identified by numbers and while some of these are things like beta carotene or bicarbonate of soda, others are not so innocuous e.g. sulphur additives, benzoates and flavourings.  Some additives allow manufacturers to use cheaper ingredients e.g. palm oil in place of butter and apple or other flavouring in place of raspberries in jam filling.  We need to realise that if we want to use convenience food, some additives are necessary and most people tolerate some level of these before they impact on their health.

According to Choice:

• Cottage Cakes Banana Cake, was the only cake that contained no additives other than baking powder.

• The two cakes that topped their list were Woolworths Bakehouse Sponge Iced and Fresh Cream Filled that contained 27 additives, while Top Taste Rollettes Choc and Woolworths Bakehouse Sponge Single Birthday Fresh Cream both contained 26 additives.

• Choice could find only eight brands to recommend that averaged fewer than 10 additives.

The number of additives used in home baking were excluded e.g. raising agents.

The six additives found in recent research to be associated with hyperactivity were counted and listed in the fourth row.

- Ref.  Choice Magazine March 20

Ingredients in Woolworths Bakehouse Jam Drop 14 PK 250gram

Cookiewheat flour, vegetable margarine (vegetable fats and oils), water, salt, emulsifiers (322 lecithins, soy, 471 mono- and di-glycerides of fat forming fatty acids) antioxidant (306 tocepherols concentrate mixed [vit E]), colours (100 curcumin [turmeric], 160a carotene), flavour (unspecified), sugar, egg, milk solids, wheat starch, flavour, mineral salts (450 sodium or potassium phosphates, or potassium triphosphate, 452 Potassium polymetaphosphate or Sodium metaphosphate, insoluble or Sodium polyphosphates, 500 Sodium carbonate or Sodium bicarbonate, 541 Sodium aluminium phosphate), vegetable gum (412 Bone phosphate), food acid (330 citric acid) salt, Jam 1, 12 (unable to identify these), sugar, apple, wheat flour, vegetable gum (440 pectins), food acid (330 citric acid), colour 120 (carmines, carminic acid or cochineal), nature identical raspberry flavour.  Be aware that this label does not list any genetically modified ingredients or identify products of nanotechnology if these exist in the product.

- Ref. FSANZ.  Food Code.  2007.  www.foodstandards.gov.au

FOOD ADDITIVES MOST LIKELY TO CAUSE PROBLEMS

Colours

Preservatives

Antioxidants

Flavour Enhancers

More information at  http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/information/nastyadditivecard.pdf

Thanks to Sue Dengate of FINA for this information.

Flavours

Additive numbers do not exist for these.  They are trade secrets and therefore unidentified.  The flavouring industry is known as the fragrance and flavouring industry as the same ingredients used in perfumery are also used to produce flavours.  Anyone who reacts to phenolic compounds in food needs to avoid both fragrances and flavourings.

Recommendation – If you have food allergy or food and chemical sensitivities it is best not to eat from the commercial market but to buy whole foods – organic of course - and cook your own from scratch