A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, 7th Edition: Descriptions in Plain English of More Than 12,000 Ingredients Both Harmful and Desirable Found in Foods - Softcover

Winter, Ruth

 
9780307408921: A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, 7th Edition: Descriptions in Plain English of More Than 12,000 Ingredients Both Harmful and Desirable Found in Foods
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0307408922 ISBN 13: 9780307408921
Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

An Essential Household Reference…Revised and Updated

With our culture’s growing interest in organic foods and healthy eating, it is important to understand what food labels mean and to learn how to read between the lines. This completely revised and updated edition of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives gives you the facts about the safety and side effects of more than 12,000 ingredients–such as preservatives, food-tainting pesticides, and animal drugs–that end up in food as a result of processing and curing. It tells you what’s safe and what you should leave on the grocery-store shelves.

In addition to updated entries that cover the latest medical and scientific research on substances such as food enhancers and preservatives, this must-have guide includes more than 650 new chemicals now commonly used in food. You’ll also find information on modern food-production technologies such as bovine growth hormone and genetically engineered vegetables.

Alphabetically organized, cross-referenced, and written in everyday language, this is a precise tool for understanding food labels and knowing which products are best to bring home to your family.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

RUTH WINTER, M.S., is an award-winning author of thirty-seven books. She has contributed to Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, Self, and Vogue, and has also appeared on many TV programs, including Good Morning America and Today. She runs an informational website at BrainBody.com and blogs about food and cosmetic additives at IngredientBlog.blogspot.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

GUESS WHAT YOU ATE?

In this completely revised and updated seventh edition of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives, you will learn how safeguards have weakened since the last edition and that hundreds of new and untested chemicals have entered the market.

Are you aware, for example, that direct and indirect additives in your food and drink at this writing may be

•allergens?

•antibiotics?

•cancer-causing agents?

•digestion disturbers?

•hormones?

•pesticides?

•sex life disrupters?

•toxins?

•untested new chemical compounds?

Additives are substances, or a mixture of substances, other than basic foodstuffs, that are present in food as a result of any aspect of production, processing, storage, or packaging. BHT and BHA are examples of preservatives and Red No. 3 and annatto are examples of colorings. Some substances, vitamins E and C, for example, are both nutrients and additives. The two vitamins are sometimes added for their ability to retard rancidity. The majority of food additives, however, have nothing to do with nutritional value, as you will see from the contents of this dictionary. Most are added to feed our illusions. We want enhanced food because all our lives we have been subjected to beautiful pictures of foods in our magazines, on television, and on the Internet. We have come to expect an advertiser’s concept of perfection in color and texture, even though Mother Nature may not turn out all her products that way. As a result, the skins of the oranges we eat are dyed bright orange to match our mental image of an ideal orange. Our poultry is fed a chemical to turn the meat yellower and more appetizing, and our fruits and vegetables are kept unblemished by fungicides, pesticides, herbicides, and other antispoilants. Our meat and fish have color added to give the appearance of greater freshness. Food additives are estimated to be $23 billion market worldwide.1

Lest you think that all additives are harmful, I want to reassure you that many are beneficial. They delay spoilage, keep us well-fed, and protect against illness. But scores of added substances are unnecessary, and some may be harmful, even lethal. I know how all this can be confusing with all the overlapping underfunded regulatory agencies, the conflicting media reports about the newest studies, and the advice from the latest diet guru. This seventh edition of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives has been written to help you choose more wisely in today’s marketplace.

Positive Changes

Since the first edition of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives was published in 1978 there have been major positive changes.

•First, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO); the European Union; and the Japanese, Australian, and New Zealand food protection agencies have, among others, increased computerization of information about food additives and made the data available to us and to each other on the Internet.

•Second, the evaluation of food additives has become international, so many more eyes are watching the potions cooked up in the lab.

•Third, readers like you are making an effort to become educated about what is good for you and what is not and how to pierce the hype that surrounds food and drink today. If this weren’t true, you wouldn’t be reading this book.

Persistent Problems

However, some problems mentioned in all six previous editions haven’t gone away.

ANTIBIOTICS

The body of evidence linking extensive antimicrobial use in food- producing animals and resistant antibiotic strains in human beings continues to grow. Other nonhuman uses of antimicrobials (in pet animals, aquaculture, and horticulture) may also play a role in this transfer of resistant bacteria. When resistant pathogenic bacteria are the cause of infections in humans (as well as in animals), it will often result in inappropriate and/or more protracted therapy to cure infections and, increasingly, the infections become incurable. Since the first edition of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives, regulators, including the FDA, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and WHO, have been trying in vain to deal with the situation in which the same classes of antimicrobials may be used in both humans and animals. Few new antibiotics have been developed to replace those that have become ineffective through resistance.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based nonprofit organization, estimates that each year 25 million pounds of valuable antibiotics—roughly 70 percent of total U.S. antibiotic production— are fed to chickens, pigs, and cows for nontherapeutic purposes like growth promotion.2 In fact, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is theoretically empowered to withdraw agricultural antibiotics from the market under existing law, in practice its procedures are so cumbersome that such withdrawals would take years for each type of antibiotic. Indeed, withdrawal proceedings for other kinds of agricultural drugs have taken up to twenty years to complete. To avoid these unacceptable delays, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007 (PAMTA) amends the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to withdraw approvals for feed- additive use of seven specific classes of antibiotics: penicillins, tetracyclines, macrolides, lincosamides, streptogramins, aminoglycosides, and sulfonamides. Each of these classes contains antibiotics used in human medicine. The cancellations automatically take effect two years after the date of enactment unless, prior to that date, the antibiotic’s producer demonstrates to a reasonable degree of certainty that use of the drug as a feed additive does not contribute to development of resistance affecting humans.3

The bill bans only the feed-additive uses of the named drugs for “nontherapeutic” purposes, defined as use “in the absence of any clinical sign of disease in the animal for growth promotion, feed efficiency, weight gain, routine disease prevention, or other routine purpose.” By specifically targeting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics, the bill allows for sick animals to receive treatment and for legitimate prophylaxis. The bill leaves farmers with many options, including other nontherapeutic antibiotics that are not used in human medicine, as well as improved animal husbandry practices such as those utilized in Europe and on some U.S. farms. In addition, the legislation provides that if a nontherapeutic antibiotic that is now used only in animals (i.e., one that is not one of the seven named antibiotics) also becomes potentially important in human medicine, the drug would be automatically restricted from nontherapeutic use in agricultural animals unless the FDA determines that such use will not contribute to development of resistance affecting humans.

The consumer is becoming more aware of the danger of nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed; thus you now see raised without antibiotics signs on many products in the supermarkets. PAMTA will help cut down on the salting of animal feed with antibiotics just for weight gain.4 The European Union has banned most antibiotics in feed. This is progress!

CANCER-CAUSING AGENTS

Progress has not been made as far as stopping the addition of potentially cancer-causing additives on our plates and in our glasses. In fact, some regression has occurred. A major report on the relationship between nutrition and the development of cancer concludes that 3 to 4 million cases of cancer per year could be prevented by appropriate diet.5 As you will...

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Verlag
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307408922
ISBN 13 
9780307408921
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
608
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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