Total Health Fitness

For centuries, people have enhanced their foods with various flavorings, preservatives, and dyes. But some ingredients on today’s food labels can be downright scary.

Few foods reach today’s supermarkets free of additives-substances that do not occur naturally in a food but are added for various reasons. These include preservatives to prevent spoilage; emulsifiers to prevent water and fat from separating; thickeners; vitamins and minerals (either to replace nutrients lost in processing or to increase nutritional value); sweeteners (both natural and artificial), salt, flavorings to improve taste; and dyes to make everything from candies to soft drinks more visually appealing.

In all, North American food processors may use any of about 2,800 additives. Although many people question the safety of these additives, the fact is that their use is governed by stringent regulations. Authorities require extensive studies before an additive is allowed on the market. In spite of this, rare reactions to certain additives are possible. The appropriate use of additives, though, allows us to enjoy history’s safest and most abundant assortment of foods.

The most common food additives are sugar, corn syrup, other sweeteners, and salt; they are used both to enhance flavor and to retard spoilage. Other additives offer their own unique health benefits; these include calcium, as well as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin E, and other antioxidants that prevent fats from turning rancid and may also offer some protection against cancer, heart disease, and other ailments.

Some vaccines can produce serious complications. Immunization with live polio vaccine can cause paralysis, for example. However, this is extremely rare—one in 2,5 million doses. Many parents fear DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) because, in very rare cases, these combination vaccines for children can damage the nervous system. Some researchers have also linked the MMR vaccine to autism and inflammatory bowel disease, but all the evidence overwhelmingly refutes this. Many parents become far more worried about the side effects of the vaccines than about the diseases they might protect their children from.

Doctors are anxious to point out the fact that the risk of serious complications in connection with the vaccines is very low compared to the risk if the child actually falls ill with one of the diseases. They warn parents that increasing number of unvaccinated children will inevitably lead to more of them catching that disease. Nevertheless, parents do need up-to-date information on which to base their decision.