Eating For Health

We recently got back from a wonderful trip to Europe.   What food is enjoyed every day, many times a day in Europe?   Bread.   All kinds of bread from delicious croissants in France to many different kinds of breads in Germany and Netherlands.   One morning in France, we talked to a woman walking her dog and later saw her with a bag from a bakery and she held it up and said, “My breakfast”.   We found the bakery she had gone to and went in and the shelves were half empty.   Puzzled the store clerk said they had sold out all those baked goods that morning.   We bought a baked roll and the store clerk gave us a fresh croissant.   It was one of the best croissants I had ever eaten.   Why does the bread in Europe seem so good compared to the bread we eat in the USA?   One reason is that many of the preservatives used in breads made in the US are banned in Europe.   Europeans buy their bread fresh every day because their bread has no pre...

The USA is well known for its safe food supply.   But there are foods and ingredients in the USA that are banned in other countries.   Each country and the European Union have their own food standards so what can be sold in one country may be banned for sale in another country.    Go on a trip to another country and you will see American food everywhere.   In France, you can easily stop at a McDonald’s for their coffee or food.   Our fast food restaurants seem to populate the globe.   But some foods you can easily buy in the USA are not sold in some other countries.   Or, there are some ingredients you can find on food labels in the USA but not in some countries.   What are some of these ingredients and what countries ban them?      1.     Artificial Food Dyes :     Many candies and other foods are colorful because of artificial food dyes.   M&M’s – one of my favorite snacks, esp...

Almost everything we eat has some form of preservative in it to make the food have a longer shelf life.   I you made your own bread, it would get moldy within a few days on your counter.   So store bought bread has preservatives in it to help prevent this growth of mold.   Read the label on packaged cured meats like bacon and sausage and a number of preservatives will be listed.   So are these preservatives safe to it?   Are there any we should avoid/ A recent article in Environmental Nutrition explored the safety of preservatives ( Safety of Preservatives Explored ).    Before modern food processing, many techniques were used to preserve foods.   Adding salt to foods, sugar is used in canned jellies, home canning vegetables was used to preserve them for future use.    Now manufacturers add sodium benzoate, sulfites, BHA and BHT.   So why do manufacturers add these chemicals to our food?   Their reasons include: Lon...