Shelf Life is Not Your Life
Shelf life is the term used by conventional grocers/ manufacturers as a time frame by which food products can last without taste and nutritional changes. Shelf life is critical to the success of the food stuffs in the marketplace, as it prevents oxidation, rancidity, and bacterial contamination. Packaging and branding of products is the basic “101″ of marketing design to visually entice your attention to purchase and consume the item. The manufacturers are always looking for newer strategies to extend the shelf life of their product, but their philosophy is not directed toward what is best for your health and ultimately your life.
What makes shelf life possible or sustainable are the additives and preservatives. Food processing includes adding flavor enhancers, texture agents, colorings, excessive salt, and sweeteners. There are over 400 additives approved for use in this country. While the stability (shelf life) of the food product is necessary for the success of the grocery business, it doesn’t consider the overall negative effects on your health.
Additives and preservatives are chemicals that do harm to your immune system and brain function. After many years of consumption, these chemicals in the shelf life foods accumulate, being stored in your cells and ultimately becoming toxic. What happens next is disease.
Victor Lindlahr, Ph.D. stated fifty years ago: “You are what you eat.” Hippocrates, the Greek physician, over a thousand years ago wrote, “Let food be thy medicine.”
Do you or your health advisor discuss the relationship between what you eat and your health? Many people do not make the connection between what they eat and how they feel. The accumulative process of eating devalued, denatured, and chemically ridden foods takes many years before the onset of serious illness. These diseases include: rapid aging, brain fog, and memory decline. You and even your children can become sensitized through the additives, leading to allergies, ADD (attention deficit disorder), and hyperactivity.
Some other food products which cause health concerns are:
* Sausages, bacon, deli meats-they contain nitrites, a known cause of cancer.
* Decaffeinated coffee-it contains a solvent, methylene chloride.
* Yellow cheese color-it is enhanced by titanium oxide, now banned in Europe.
* Margarine-it contains potassium sorbate and monoglycerides, toxic additives.
* Lettuce, cabbage, beans, celery, and cucumber-they have pesticide residue.
* Apples, pears, lemons etc.-they are coated with paraffin wax.
* Grapes-they are sprayed with sulfites that aggravate asthma and migraine headaches.
There are many more hidden additives which remain unknown after reading the label. On your dinner plate your foods may include pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, antibiotics, and heavy metals- all foreign and harmful to your normal bodily functions. The processes to keep foods safe from bacterial invasion may be more hazardous than beneficial. The processing procedure of a natural food source requires pulverization, intense heat, bleaching, acid/ base buffers, antioxidants, emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, humectants (holds moisture), and flavor enhancers almost all included in shelf life foods.
An additional health problem may be associated with the uncontrolled genetically modified ingredients currently in some products. The negative effects to your health are not always immediate and may not be known for years. As of now, there is no mandatory labeling requirement.
When it concerns your individual nutritional health, you cannot rely on the FDA. I recently read the label on a frozen dinner. It had over 30 chemical additives! The FDA has no inclination to count the amount of chemicals or how harmful they can be to a child or an adult. It is truly up to you to seek professional guidance, read labels, go on the Internet, and garner the information for you and your family’s well being. Later in your life, should you succumb to a serious illness, it is unlikely you would connect your disease with years of ingesting additives/chemicals. There is scientific evidence that long term toxicity can result in cancer, debilitated immune system, and chronic diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.
What can you do?
* Be aware of additives by reading all labels.
* Avoid processed foods.
* Choose certified organic produce, organic dairy products, and chemically free meats.
* Wash/peel fruits and vegetables.
* Be particular about what you order when eating out.
* Do not eat cheese wrapped in plastic film-it absorbs chemicals in the plastic.
* Eat organic meats/chicken-they contain no hormones, antibiotics, lead, and arsenic (used to increase growth in chickens)
Environmental pollution, which includes “food pollution,” is all additive. You must take a proactive stance to protect your health and longevity. Cancer and most degenerative diseases have not been eliminated. Some cancers are more prevalent now than 30 years ago. Cancer is not a single entity. It encompasses several diseases which share a common thread where mutant cells divide at will. Cancer specialists relate pollution in foods and the environment as a major cause of cancer. You can’t expect the government or your physician to be the guide for what you eat. Presently organic foods offer the best protection.
by Jordan K. Davis, M.D.
Brain and Memory Institute
Copyright Total Health Communications Feb/Mar 2005