The Latest Nutritional Fad

An Additive or Not an Additive

With the increased awareness and sensitivity to what is in our foods these days it is interesting to see a new wave of additives appearing in our foods. The question is are these additives in the old sense of the word (like artificial colours and preservatives) or are these just natural materials that we are boosting in the food?

Just because a thing is natural does not mean it is harmless. Vitamin A in large quantities can cause some very serious symptoms and even lead to death. This was fatally discovered by Sir Douglas Mawson's team. Xavier Mertz actually died from an overdose of Vitamin A!

Food Manipulation

As the manipulation of our foods increases the line between what is believed to be natural and unnatural will become a hard one to find. The average shopper will find is stressful and confusing to make the right choices. Every week more and more foods have foreign ingredients added.

Are our children today like "test rats" from some research laboratory. A laboratory that is the whole community of children, eating a wide range of manipulated foods from birth! So many foods today have extra metabolically active ingredients that the manufacturers claim have health benefits.

The nett result of this is that the public may be uncertain as to what is natural and what is un-natural and what is actually a nutritionally good food!

Healthy and Natural Became Functional

It has been said that in the '80s and '90s the food industry pushed the idea of everything being natural. Everything from yoghurt to fruit juice ice-pops were marketed as natural.

The latest is the addition of "healthy" components to make our food even more beneficial than the natural sources. These are known as functional foods.

You can buy almost anything that is "fat free", low in kilojoules because of the "artificial sweetener" that is zero energy! Loaded with anti-oxidant, lycopene, bacteria, omega-3 acids, folate, etc all added to make you live longer be stronger and look healthier!

BUT has anyone tested the impact of taking all these functional components?

Are they as safe for your 5 year old as well as you? A male as well as a female?

Can you have too much folate? Too much .........

Since no one has really bothered to investigate this trend we may not know until something starts to happen in the health statistics. By then it may be too late!

Let Food be Thy Medicine

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, coined the tenet "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food". If this headllong rush into adding these "natural" substances into our food goes on unchecked we may well need medicine just to recover from eating our food!

Until next time, I'm eating my all natural apple, without extra fibre!