What are We Really Eating?

What’s Really in Processed Food?

If you eat processed food—that is, food that comes in boxes or wrapped in plastic or foods that have many ingredients—you are eating much more than what is shown on the picture on the front of the package.

Processed foods are supplemented with additives that prevent the food from going rancid in the normal amount of time, color foods to make them look fresher and more inviting, stabilize ingredients that tend to separate or break down, provide a smooth texture to a specific ingredient, flavor foods, sweeten foods that wouldn’t otherwise be sweet in a can, etc. The list is actually endless!

All these are chemicals that people have never eaten before the late 19th century, so, for many of them, we don’t even know the long-term affect on our bodies.

While this over-exposure to chemical additives may be of concern, there is more! Even before the food is packaged, the raw ingredient may have been sprayed with pesticides that do not entirely wash away.

Or it may have been modified genetically to incorporate the pesticide right into the grain itself. When you eat that Genetically Modified food (GMO) you’re eating the pesticide or any other gene that has been implanted.

In a typical meal including meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains, you might be exposed to more than 14 different pestidicide residues. The “residue” is what is left when growers either make an attempt to wash the food before bringing it to market (they can never get it all off), or what is left after they wait the required 10 days, 30 days, or whatever period of time, after the last spray with pesticides. By then the active chemicals may have become inert, but they’re still there in some form.

Caveat emptor—let the buyer beware.