How to Eat Healthy With No Additives

Candy contains additives.

Eating a healthy, additive-free diet is challenging because many of the foods in the grocery store have some form of additives in them. An additive is a substance added to food to keep it from spoiling, to give it texture, or to add color, nutrients and flavor. Food additives include mustard, citric acid, corn syrup, artificial sweetener, salt, pepper and baking soda. Health Professionals have different opinions about the safety of food additives, and some belief there is a correlation between sugar substitutes and cancer.

Instructions

1. Shop at natural food stores and health food stores, as these sell many additive-free foods you may not find in your local grocery store.

2. Get your complex carbohydrates from preservative-free bread. Read the labels of breads in the store and choose those without calcium propionate. Calcium propionate is an additive often added to bread to help preserve it. Brown rice and whole-wheat pasta are also good sources of complex carbohydrates.

3. Eat organic fruits and vegetables. Buy from Farmers Markets, or look for fruits and vegetables in natural food stores that are labeled with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic label. This means they are grown according to USDA standards. Organic fruits and vegetables are grown without the use of chemicals or pesticides. They are packaged and processed without the use of colorings, artificial preservatives, irradiation or other additives.

4. Eat organic meat and poultry including chicken, beef and turkey, as these are free of any additives, fortifying agents and processing aids. Find the USDA Organic label on the packaging or pre-packaged meats or ask your butcher about fresh organic meats.

5. Consume organic dairy such as milk, yogurt, buttermilk and cheese. Look for the USDA Organic label on the packaging for your dairy of choice.

6. Avoid products sweetened with artificial sweeteners such as saccharine, aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame potassium. The National Cancer Institute states there is no link between sugar substitutes and cancer in humans, but since a saccharine study in the 1970s resulted in bladder cancer in laboratory animals, there have been doubts about this statement.

References

• Additive Education: Easy First Steps Toward Additive Free
• Colorado Allergy and Asthma Centers: Additive-Free Diet
• Mayoclinic.com: Organic Foods - Are They Safer? More Nutritious?
• Sunorganicfarm.com: Why Organic?
• Organic Trade Association: Why Buy Organic Dairy Products?
• National Cancer Institute: Artificial Sweeteners And Cancer