- Health, Fitness & Weight Loss
- Sport Specific Performance
- Nutrition
- Adapting Recipes
- Avoiding the Runs while Running
- Breakfast Boycotters Beware!
- Dentist Dollars
- Don't De-Tox, De-Junk!
- Eat Well to Stay Healthy this Winter
- Food Additives
- Get Grainwise
- Healthy Eating - It's a Balancing Act!
- Healthy from the Inside Out
- How Alcohol can Contribute to your Weight
- How Food Choices can Influence your Sleep
- How Iron Deficiency Impairs Performance
- Is Sugar the New Fat?
- Improving your Power to Weight Ratio
- Portion Patrol and Control
- Sports Drinks - Do they Work?
- Supermarket Shopping Survival
- Sustainable Eating Practices
- Ten Top Tips when Out Eating
- Vitamin D - The Sunshine Vitamin
- Will Vitamin Supplements Keep the Bugs at Bay?
- Training with Specific Conditions
- References
Food Additives
How Food Additives Find their way into your Food
Food additives have attracted alot of attention in the media recently, so it seems timely to provide you with some more information about them. There are many classes of food additives including food acids, thickeners and antioxidants, however the ones that attract the most debate are colours, sweeteners, preservatives and flavours.
Colours
Colours are sometimes regarded as an unnecessary cosmetic addition to food, however the colour of a food can often influence how people perceive it's quality. For example, do you think we would eat banana flavoured products if they were blue?
Food colouring is found in either a ‘natural’ (e.g. caramel colour) or an artificial form (e.g. tartrazine (yellow colour)). It is the artificial colours that have come under the spot light with many people linking them to adverse reactions, including hyperactivity.
The main food contributing to artificial colour is confectionery, but should this be included in a normal daily intake to start with? Of course not! Even when you are exercising, reaching for lollies isn’t always the best option. Sure, you are exercising, but this isn't a license to eat what ever you like.
Sweeteners
Sweeteners are used to replace sugar in diet products such as soft drinks, yoghurt, sugar free lollies and chewing gum. They can be useful if you are trying to watch your overall calorie intake as they contain fewer calories than sugar. However, because they supply no carbohydrate, thus no energy, you will be better off sticking with the real thing when on a mission. Sugar may provide more calories, but the trick is to consume it in food that is nutrient rich, e.g. porridge with brown sugar.
Preservatives
Preservatives are added to food to extend it's shelf-life. They prevent or slow the growth of micro-organisms such as mould, yeast and bacteria on food. The main foods contributing to the intake of preservatives in young people are sausages, soft drinks, cordials, hamburger patties, dried apricots, orange juice, margarine and baked goods, (e.g. cakes, muffins).
Again these are things you shouldn't be eating to much of in the first place, so by eating a well balanced diet including the four major food groups, it is very easy to reduce your intake of added preservatives.
Unfortunately if you are camping or adventure racing, preservatives are almost impossible to avoid as many of the foods that are portable and convenient, have preservatives added to improve shelf life (e.g. dried fruits). It’s important to look at foods as a whole and consider whether they are adding nutritional value or not. For example consider the difference between dried apricots and soft drink. Both contain preservatives but there is a big difference in terms of nutritional value.
Flavours
Flavours bring out the flavour or aroma of a food but contribute no flavour of their own. MSG or Monosodium glutamate is the most famous added flavour and has been linked to adverse reactions in a small number of people.
Flavours are generally added to savoury items such as gravy, stock powders and instant noodles. It is the flavour sachet in the instant noodles that contains added flavouring not the noodles themselves. Because these can be a convenient option when in the bush, an alternative might be to still use the noodles but flavour them with something else (e.g. flavoured tuna, pesto etc).
By Kath Fouhy, BSc, PG DipDiet, NZRD - 15/05/08