Information About Food Additives

The battle wages over smokers and non smokers. Even as bars and the casino patrons bemoan their hatred of smokers. Complainers refuse to see what's under their very noses and either wish to remain ignorant or find some group of smoker's to blame for the entire health problems of this world.

Folks it's about money (isn't it always). They tax cigarettes 250%. They fine bars and casinos and yet.. Literally there are 1,000's of extra synthesized ingredients in our food supply. Many poorly tested if at all.


HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. (More About This Later)
It's found in nearly all our foods products. Study the 'high fructose corn syrup' usage on the ingredients labels you are consuming and you will understand, people are not getting fat for the reasons officials claim. Go, right now pick something off the shelf in your home.

Our food and water's being adulterated with literally 1,000's of synthetic chemicals in which we have no idea how they interact within our body's chemistry.

The Huge FDA List of Food Additives
What this list doesn't contain...:
*Obviously safe substances not cited in a regulation as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).
* Synthetic flavoring substances in 21CFR 172.515. The CFR does not contain a complete list of permissible flavorings. Certain trade groups such as the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association have established expert panels to evaluate and make determinations on the GRAS status of their own products
* Those pending administrative determination
* Substances granted prior sanction for specific use prior to enactment of the Food Additives Amendment
* Indirect food additives
* Color additives

Food Additives Under GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe)
Designated that a chemical or substance added to food is considered safe by experts, and so is exempted from the usual Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) There are over 880 of them!

Here's a small sampling of GRAS allowed ingredients..

Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose - expanded substitution pattern (HPMC-ESP) Use in food in general, including meat products (a filler)

Phosphatidylserine Ingredient in yogurt (excluding fat-free yogurts), powdered milk, ready to drink soymilk, meal replacements, cereal bars, powdered beverage mixes, chewing gum, and breakfast cereals at 20 milligrams per serving

Carbon monoxide In modified atmosphere packing (MAP) for red meat products at levels of 5.5 milligrams/pound (12 milligrams/kilogram) of packaged meat

alpha-Cyclodextrin Use in selected foods, except meat and poultry, for fiber supplementation, as a carrier or stabilizer for flavors (flavor adjuvant), as a carrier or stabilizer for colors, vitamins and fatty acids and to improve mouthfeel in beverages

Conjugated linoleic acid Ingredient in yogurt, meal replacement beverages, meal replacement bars, fruit juices, milk-based fruit drinks, and milk-based beverages at a level of 1680 milligram per serving; in liquid cream substitute, powdered cream substitute, and milk chocolate at a level of 400 milligram per serving

Bovine milk-derived lactoferrin Use as an antimicrobial spray on beef carcasses that will subsequently be washed to reduce the levels of exogenously applied lactoferrin

Laccase enzyme preparation produced by Aspergillus oryzae expressing the gene encoding a laccase from Myceliophthora thermophila Use in breath freshening products (such as breath mints and chewing gum) as an enzyme

Glucose oxidase enzyme preparation from Aspergillus oryzae carrying a gene encoding a glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger Use as an enzyme in baking applications and (in combination with a catalyze enzyme preparation) in the manufacture of foods such as cheese, beer, carbonated beverages, and fruit juice

1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane (HFC-134a) Use in the production of food flavors and flavorings as an extraction solvent

ARASCO (arachidonic acid-rich single-cell oil) Provide ARASCO (as a source of arachidonic acid) in term infant formula, at a maximum level of 1.88 percent of total dietary fat when used in combination with DHASCO (docosahexaenoic acid-rich single-cell oil; as a source of docosahexaenoic acid) at a maximum level of 1.25 per cent of the total dietary fat and at a ratio ranging from 1:1 to 1:2 (DHASCO:ARASCO)

Pullulanase derived from Bacillus licheniformis carrying a gene encoding pullulanase from B. deramificans Use in the manufacture of starch hydrolysates and high fructose corn syrup as a processing aid at a minimum level necessary in accordance with good manufacturing practice

Lipase from Penicillium camembertii Use on fats and oils to produce fatty acids or glycerides at a level up to one percent of the weight of the fat or oil

The Murky World of High-Fructose Corn Syrup
(Excepts from)"When sugar (gloucose) is given to rats in high amounts, the rats develop multiple health problems. The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose (high fructose corn syrup) or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems.

So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results.

The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy--that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They also had delayed testicular development.

Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production. (Copper deficiency, by the way, is widespread in America.)

In a nutshell, the little bodies of the rats just fell apart. The females were not so affected, but they were unable to produce live young.

Every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic.

Comment: Nothing Natural About It!

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. It all sounds rather simple--white cornstarch is turned into crystal clear syrup.

However, the process is actually very complicated. Three different enzymes are needed to break down cornstarch, which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars glucose and fructose.

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers.

Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top.

The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 50-52 percent glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity.

There are two more steps involved.

First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90 percent fructose.

Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55 percent fructose--what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.

HFCS has the exact same sweetness and taste as an equal amount of sucrose from cane or beet sugar but it is obviously much more complicated to make, involving vats of murky fermenting liquid, fungus and chemical tweaking, all of which take place in one of 16 chemical plants located in the Corn Belt.

Yet in spite of all the special enzymes required, HFCS is actually cheaper than sugar.