Food additives to avoid

Food additives often get a bad wrap but we believe generally rightfully so. Food additives are ingredients commonly found mostly in processed and packaged foods.

Food additives are added to enhance the flavour, texture, appearance and shelf life of foods.

Doctors and nutritionists believe that food additives can be linked to medical conditions as well as behavioural & physiological conditions/problems such as poor concentration or hyperactivity.

It is regulated that every food additive should have a specific purpose, such as to prevent foods containing fats and oils from becoming rancid; or artificial flavours to make up for the loss during processing and to maintain taste and restore the loss of colour during processing; or preservatives preventing deterioration and so on.

Be aware that additives have no health benefit for children.

Any food additive cannot be added if its intended function can be performed another way, if cost effective, or if it disguises inferior quality food or faulty processing or deceives or is of no benefit to the customer.

While the laws do state that food labels must list all the ingredients in descending order, they only need to list the additive such as preservative, flavour, colour, etc.

Colours:

Preservatives:

Flavour Enhancers

Synthetic Antioxidants

Others

Food Standards Australia has a more comprehensive list of food additives and their numbers. This can assist you in choosing certain foods.

For further information about the food additives list and other food related information, we recommend you visit the www.foodstandards.gov.au