In previous newsletters we have looked at vegetable oils and their
effects on health. Crisps contain a huge amounts of these unhealthy oils
but that’s not the worse part of eating crisps. Check the list of
ingredients I photographed from a typical bag of crisps and you will see
E627 – Disodium guanylate, look this up on wikipedia
and you will see it is not safe for babies under twelve weeks, and
should generally be avoided by asthmatics and people with gout – that
can’t be good for you!!
Further down the ingredients list you will see Monosodium Glutamate (MSG).
MSG is one of the most harmful additives on the market and is used in
frozen dinners, crackers, canned soups, processed meats, barbeque sauce,
salad dressings, crisps and much more. It’s found in your local
supermarket and restaurants, in your child’s school dinners and,
amazingly, even in baby food and infant formula.
Why is MSG so harmful? It’s an excitotoxin — substances, usually containing amino acids that react with specialized receptors (neurons) in the brain in such a way as to lead to the destruction of certain types of brain cells.
In
a study using rats scientists created these morbidly obese creatures by
injecting them with MSG when they are first born. The MSG triples the
amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats to become obese.
MSG creates a lesion in the hypothalamus that correlates with abnormal
development, including obesity, short stature and sexual reproduction
problems. MSG has also been shown to kill brain cells as well as to
cause nausea, vomiting, migraine headaches, depression, and heart
problems.
MSG is often disguised under many other names and therefore, you may not
be able to detect it in a list of ingredients unless you know what to
look for.
The following are hidden MSG derivatives listed on ingredient labels that should be avoided.
- Natural Flavours/Flavoring
- Corn oil
- Glutamic Acid Yeast Extract
- Soy Protein
- Soy Isolate
- Carrageenan (often in almond and other nut milks)
- Stock
- Broth
- Natural Beef Or Chicken Flavouring
- Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
- TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)
- Glutamate Textured Protein
- Gelatin Yeast Nutrient
- Autolyzed Yeast
- Caseinate
- Citric Acid
Food companies learned that MSG increased the flavour and aroma and
enhance acceptability of commercial food products, so it is doubtful
that they will ever quit using this brain killing cancerous additive to
our food supply. Take a quick trip to your kitchen and check your
cupboards and fridge. You will likely see that MSG is in almost
everything processed: soups, chips, gravy, sauces, salad dressings,
crisps, biscuits and so many other items.
If you want to avoid MSG, learn to read ingredient labels and better
yet, eat foods that are whole foods – foods from nature that are
unprocessed. Your health and your family’s are worth the extra effort!
Already you can see how harmful Crisps can be. Not even mentioned on the
packets however is the fact that it is how the crisps are actually
manufactured that produces the biggest health risk.
Researchers have found that heating up high-carbohydrate foods forms acrylamide,
a substance classed as a probable carcinogen. Levels hundreds of times
higher than international safety limits were found in bags of potato
crisps. Acrylamide, which is also used to treat drinking water, is
believed to induce gene mutations. In animal tests, it has
been found to cause benign and malignant stomach tumours. It is also known to damage the nervous system.
The tests were carried out at Stockholm University for Sweden’s National Food Administration.
The scientists found that a bag of potato crisps could contain up to 500
times more acrylamide than the maximum level allowed in drinking water
by the World Heath Organisation. The table above shows some of the worse
offenders, The European food safety authority (EFSA) benchmark for
acrylamide is 750 milligrams per kilogram, yet the Tyrrell crisps were
found to contain a huge 2,483 milligrams and these are “sweet potato
crisps” which some people would perceive as healthy!
Even a single potato crisp could contain the maximum WHO levels.
Leif Busk, head of the watchdog’s research department, said the products’ raw ingredients showed no trace of the chemical.
He added: ‘The discovery that acrylamide is formed during the
preparation of food is new knowledge, It may now be possible to explain
some of the cases of cancer caused by food.’
This doesn’t stop at crisps though, Processed foods such as bread, biscuits, potato crisps and chips could contain toxic levels of this chemical linked to cancer, with Fries sold at Swedish franchises of Burger King and McDonald’s contained about 100 times the WHO limits.
If in doubt leave crisps and biscuits well alone, and more importantly
don’t feed them to your kids!! It really is cancer in a bag!!
