by Herman Gardner

A friend asked me about the scoop on what she should watch out for when buying food or cosmetics.  She has heard about the potential problems with aluminum oxides in underarm antiperspirants, and knowing that I follow health and food issues closely, she asked me for some general advice on this and other related food issues.

We are told so many conflicting things about food additives that we lose track of the basic purpose of eating: To remain healthy.  When in doubt about the safety of a food additive, logic and common sense would tell you to avoid it if it hasn't been proven safe.  Don't we wish it were that easy?

Scientific Testing

The problem starts with this, most things being put into the stuff we eat and use everyday has not been thoroughly tested.  Many of these untested chemicals have been in use for decades.  Some really bad stuff, like trans-fats, establishes its own reputation as people over the decades see the effects of the chemical on their bodies (e.g. heart disease, diabetes).  Many other chemicals are just as dangerous, they are just less notorious as they are present in smaller amounts and intermixed with a slew of other chemicals.  Thereby being nearly impossible for the common man to identify which specific chemical may be, for instance, causing your gall bladder to twitch up and down like it's a jumping bean.

In general, natural foods that profess to use only natural ingredients are usually somewhat to much better, since they rely on ingredients that have been in nature for aeons and thus our bodies are capable of manipulating and handling them better.  In many cases, noxious chemicals from nature are accompanied by additional compounds or enzymes in the plant or animal being consumed, which help the body ingest and properly handle the noxious chemical.

This does not automatically mean that all natural ingredients in consumer foods are good, many natural ingredients have not been tested either.

Organic

The word 'organic' has been corrupted by big money, which has allowed exceptions to what we would consider 'true' organic foods and 'true' organic production methods.  Thus a label that says organic may not be what you expect, but may have some proportion of other non-organic ingredients or non-organic growing processes than what is generally defined by people as true organic would not allow.

This has led to the evolving a game in the marketplace where true organic food companies agree on and use other terms to indicate that their products are more closely sticking to the organic ideal.  The best way to guess at which product may be more organic than another is to look at the other statements listed on a food package.  With chickens it would say "free range" (good), instead of saying "cage free" (bad), which might only mean that the chickens could see grass outside their hut but they never left their cages and have never been outdoors in their lives.  Other statements might say, "grass finished" (somewhat bad) beef, or "molecularly distilled" (good) omega 3 fish oils, which eliminates the mercury and other heavy metals in the fish oils.

Other 'good' indicators are "no nitrates / no nitrites," "antibiotic free," and "no growth hormones used."  Those that care and desire to create true organic foods will use no package statements that are either hedged or otherwise wordsmithed into extensive potential mis-meanings.

You really have to do some web research on each type of product to figure out which options are best to look for.  Of course once you have found a good product you like, you get to know the good keywords in several similar product types and you do not have to switch products since you already have a proven natural product.  [Unfortunately, more and more of the formerly 'safe' companies are being bought out by the least desirables. ex. Tom's of Maine was just bought by P&G (Procter & Gamble) in Mar-06. --Ed.]

Problem Chemicals

Back to artificial.  The problem with the chemistry lab type foods and products we use is that there is more and more evidence that it is the consumption of small amounts of all these products TOGETHER that cumulatively is causing things like sensitivities to chemicals, allergies, asthma, and other auto-immune diseases.  Because you would need to test literally billions of combinations for the tens of thousands of chemical compounds, how would the safety level of most of these chemicals ever be found out?

Some problem chemicals to avoid:

• MSG - Monosodium glutamate is a drug and a neurotransmitter (some define it as a neurotoxin).  It's in just about everything and should be avoided entirely.(1)
  


• Corn syrup / high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - Something I thought was relatively innocuous, but then I read how many steps it takes to make the stuff.  It causes obesity because it needs to go through the liver to get digested, unlike regular sugars (at least this is what I hear now).  ["Consumers trying to avoid genetically modified foods should avoid HFCS.  It is almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then it is processed with genetically modified enzymes." - Linda Joyce Forristal, CCP, MTA]
  


• Food colorings - Can cause restlessness, blurred vision, heart arrhythmia
  


• Preservatives - Obvious, why would we want to preserve ourselves and slow down our functions in the body?
  


• Phthalates - Present in many soft plastics, they are estrogen simulators that are causing women to menstruate earlier, and men to grow man boobs.  They may also be responsible for lower sperm count in men in recent decades.  Cooking in such containers is not the problem either; evidence is now emerging that seemingly ALL soft plastics at every temperature leach some phthalates into food.
  


• Aspirin - Has never been found to reduce fatal heart attacks and has shown no improvement in heart attack survival rates.  The study cited for justifying the "Take a Baby Aspirin a Day" to reduce heart attacks was corrupted by the concurrent use of magnesium.  Magnesium has been shown to decrease types of heart disease and sudden deaths, so take it, and skip the negative heath effects of long-term aspirin use.
  


• Sodium Nitrates / Sodium Nitrites - Something like a 6,700% increase in pancreatic cancer risk from eating processed meats.  (Note: I've also seen this referred to as 67%, but I've not found the links to the original research.)
  

Anyway, I can go on and on naming chemicals.

Restaurants

Restaurants are another "bad thing."  As we all know, restaurants are not required to list ingredients and they get lots of their foods from the big conglomerate food suppliers.  Who knows what sort of stuff is in there.  My understanding is that in Europe, on the other hand, food companies are not allowed to put anything into food without it being tested first by scientists.  The best quickie rule I can offer, if you see a Sysco truck delivering to your favorite restaurant, maybe it's time for you to find another restaurant.

Another example of this- I can no longer go to Taco Bell and eat their tacos.  All a taco is supposed to have is meat, lettuce, tomato, cheese, shell, and sauce.  Yet I get a nasty stomachache for several hours after eating one of their tacos.

In reference to my friend's original question- aluminum oxides and other similar things are not good for you.  Lots of evidence of neural problems and well known links between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease.  Your body also NEEDS to sweat under your arms to get rid of toxins.  Speed Stick, non-aluminum variety, at least helps to cover any odor or slow down bacterial growth without stopping sweating.

As an aside, as opposed to aluminum compounds, the same cannot be said automatically for zinc or titanium compounds.  I have not heard one way or the other on those, and without several sources of evidence, one can go crazy or get paranoid from reading a single article somewhere that may implicate a compound but for which there isn't other evidence.

There Is Hope

Organic food companies still have some problems.  For one thing, some of their foods taste hideous.  My best guess is that the people running those companies have acclimated themselves to the unusual flavors because they produce their own meals based on nutritional needs rather than on how good the food tastes together.  On the other hand, you can argue it could be our taste buds that have gotten used to eating all the 'non' organic sludge we now call food.

But there are more and more mid-tier food companies that want to increase their sales within the organic marketplace and are producing good tasting organic, or close to true organic, foods.  Again, you have to get familiar with which companies are better or trustworthy.

One personal experience stands out in particular- there is a fruit and nut bar called Kind imported from Australia.  [We are not affiliated with, nor receive compensation from, Kind.  - Ed.]  After trying most of the fifty or so bars at Whole Foods and finding out most of them taste like butt, I have not been able to figure out how it is American natural food companies cannot make a good tasting, healthy bar.  But Kind is doing it, and they are apparently selling a lot of bars, from what I was told by the girl at the Whole Foods.  Kind is made of dried fruit pieces, roasted nuts, and some sugary stuff to keep it together.  That is it.  The bars have no weird aftertastes, are not too sweet and are as healthy as you can get- no trans-fats, etc.

Once you start being more careful in what and where you eat, your body thanks you for it, and you get to enjoy a longer and healthy life.  But it does becomes harder to handle bad foods, which is just as well, as you learn to stay away from crap food places.  And since I don't want to ever take medicines (Have you read their disclaimers?), I'm all for eating healthy to stay out of a doctor's office.

It really is about common sense and keeping your eyes on the places that regularly post articles about foods, food additives, and food chemicals.  Probably the best bets are independent web sites run by people who scour numerous sources for articles.

Do not trust the major media, they are massive conglomerates with corrupt, money driven agendas, many of the media companies are allied with, owned by, or own major food companies, so they have a vested interest in feeding us inedible crap if it is profitable to them.  Many of the rest of the companies have corrupted cultures, the scientists come from other companies that do not care what they put in food.  With enough independent reading you will start getting the picture, and won't have to rely on anyone but yourself to make informed decisions about what you eat.

The point, for me at least, is to eat like they do in Italy or France, you know one of those places where healthy people are still the majority of the population.  Eat fresh: olive oil, vegetables, long grain pastas, whole grain breads, spelt breads, cheese, wine, and meats.  Do the research, don't panic, and make the best choices you can at the time you make them.  Life is about learning, isn't it the most important thing we can do to know what we are putting in our bodies?

Here's to appreciation of good food,

Herman Gardner