We all know that feeding our children – or ourselves – processed foods isn’t a good idea. But I think many of us believe that it’s unhealthy if eaten to excess and a little now and again won’t hurt. Well I would disagree. It’s unhealthy and dangerous every time you eat it.
Processed foods have many additives, one of which commonly being a derivative of coal tar. Yes… COAL TAR! This additive has been especially linked to hyperactivity in children.
You wouldn’t directly spoon coal tar into your children’s mouth, so why feed it to them disguised as food? Coal tar can be found in many artificially yellow or orange junk foods like soda (such as Mountain Dew) or cheese “flavoured” products like tortilla chips (Doritos – USA) or Kraft products. It’s not only these brands (and it may not be in all of their products), these additives are in a whole host of processed and packaged foods commonly lining our supermarket shelves. In fact, even foods like pickles may have been artificially coloured to make them look more appealing.
Coal Tar – Tartrazine (which is actually added to some corporate named slimming products too, like the ones which claim to be “medically supervised”). It is also linked to thyroid tumours. When reading labels it may come under a different name such as E102 or Yellow 5. Apparently products Tartrazine within the EU have to carry a warning label so many products sold there have very different ingredients to those sold in the US where they have no such regulations. In fact, if you check the ingredients of Doritos in the UK they will not have Tartrazine, however check the US ingredients and it will. Also, interestingly, if you check the ingredients in Capri-Sun it will list high fructose corn syrup in the US, but not in the UK. (Not that it makes them any healthier though!).
Junk products, either in excess or in moderation, will still harm you every time you consume them. “Oh a little won’t hurt…” Yes. It will.
Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029886_industrial_waste_pickle.h…http://www.naturalnews.com/030293_artificial_colors_hyperac…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartrazinehttp://www.additivesinfood.info/codes/102
