Senomyx Flavors In Your Food

Senomyx is a company that's been around for a few years. It makes genetically engineered flavors for your food. Their ingredients will never be listed on the label because they are used in such small amounts that the FDA allows them to lump them into the categories of artificial or natural flavors.

Even though you may never have heard of them, they sell their flavors to most of the major processed food producers and are making profits in the billions of dollars.

So, if they're used in such small amounts, why should you even be concerned?

Because they are genetically engineered and when you eat GE food, you are a part of a huge experiment that no one know the outcome to. There is enough evidence that eating GE and GMO food is damaging to your health. But the big issue here is that you will never know when you are eating foods with these GE ingredients or any other of the many GE ingredients already in processed food. You are a human guinea pig!

Read more about Senomyx. This article was well researched and written.

Now read about how you can avoid GE foods.

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What's In Those Chicken McNuggets You Feed Your Kids?

Did you know that McDonald's Chicken McNuggets are less than 50% chicken?

They are 56% corn, from corn starch, partially hydrogenated corn oil, numerous food additives derived from corn and the chicken being fed corn.

But that's not all.

There are other syntheric ingredients derived from petroleum in Chicken McNuggets to keep them fresh ... like sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate and sodium acid pyrophosphate.

In addition, "there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxane, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules." This chemical "is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable."

"But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."

Now the next time you think about stopping at McDonald's for Chicken McNuggets or any of their other highly processed and preserved chemical concoctions, ask yourself ... "Is this what I really want to feed my kids?"

Just imagine what these chemicals are doing to yours and their health.

Read more.

Learn more about healthy food and healthy cooking.

Answer to ... What do gluten and MSG have in common?

They're found in some of the same ingredients like

hydrolyzed wheat protein
stearyldimoniumhydroxypropyl (hydrolyzed wheat protein)
hydroxypropyltrimonium (hydrolyzed wheat protein)
hydrolyzed malt extract
hydrolyzed vegetable protein
maltodextrin (can be from barley)

These ingredients can be found in food as well as cosmetics and personal care products. So they can be enter your body either when you eat food containing these chemicals or when you apply products to your skin that contain them.

Guten and MSG

Question: What do gluten and MSG have in common?

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

I'll post the answer later this week.

The Truth About Artificial Sweeteners

You've probably heard that artificial sweeteners will help you lose weight. After all, when you consume diet beverages and foods, you're eating fewer calories, so that must be true, right?

Wrong!

With the glut of diet foods on the market and the volumes being sold, if they worked, you'd expect that the majority of people would be slim and trim.

However, the opposite is true. Nearly 70% of the population is overweight or obese, and the figure is growing every year. The rate of obesity is even increasing with children.

So, now that you know that artificial sweeteners don't help you lose weight, let's look at some of the popular sugar substitutes and see why they're not a healthy choice.

The manufacturers and the FDA say they're safe. But, let's take a look at the facts.

Aspartame, also known as NutraSweet and Equal, can cause a wide variety of symptoms from headaches, difficulty breathing, speech impairment, chest pain, dizziness, memory loss to seizures, blindness and death. These are just a few of the 92 documented reactions to aspartame.

The symptoms caused by aspartame can mimic the symptoms present in various diseases. Therefore, people suffering from aspartame poisoning can be misdiagnosed with a disease, such as Alzheimer's, epilepsy, severe depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's to name just a few.

Acesulfame-K, or acesulfame-potassium, in some studies has caused cancer in lab animals. It has not been fully tested for safety.

Saccharin, in the past, was listed as a carcinogen. However, due to industry pressure, it was delisted and said to be safe. Yet, there are still scientists who consider saccharin to be a carcinogen.

Sucralose or Splenda is chlorinated sugar. Contrary to manufacturer claims, it is partially absorbed by the body, up to 40% according to the Japanese Food Sanitation Council. Splenda has been shown to shrink the thymus gland, enlarge the liver and kidneys, cause miscarriages and diarrhea in animal studies. It contains small amounts of dangerous contaminants, like heavy metals, methanol and arsenic. Splenda has not been adequately studied for safety. No studies have been done on children or pregnant women.

These are the worst of the artificial sweeteners on the market. But that doesn't mean the others are safe.

Your best choices for sweetening your foods and beverages are organic whole cane sugar, organic maple syrup, raw organic tupelo honey and stevia.

Learn more about food additives.

Find out the real secret to losing weight.

What Are FD&C Colors?

Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a packaged food you bought and seen that it contained FD&C colors, like FD&C Red No. 40 or FD&C Yellow No. 5? Did you ever wonder what FD&C means and where the colors come from?

FD&C stands for Food, Drugs & Cosmetics. These colors are approved by the FDA to be used in Food, Drugs & Cosmetics. They are artificial colors. Most are derived from coal tar, a petrochemical which is known to cause cancer.

Now, while the FD&C colors themselves may not be "known" to cause cancer, many are potential carcinogens or may be contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.

FD&C Colors are certified by the FDA to not contain more than 10 parts per million (ppm) of lead and arsenic, both of which are poisonous to the human body. The FDA does not address any other harmful effects these colors may have on human health.

Sometimes you will just see ingredients like Red 40 or Yellow No. 5. They're still FD&C colors. Any time you see a color with a number on a food package, it's an FD&C color.

These artificial colors can contribute to hyperactivity in children. They may also contribute to learning and visual disorders and nerve damage.

Coal tar is not a food and was never meant to be consumed by humans, and like most food additives, has never been proven safe.

Learn more about food additives and get free tips here.

Approval of GMO Sugar Beets Rescinded

At least for now, the sugar beets used to make refined sugar will not be genetically engineered. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is required before the planting of GM sugar beets can be approved. It is estimated that the EIS will be ready in 2012.

Read the article.