Tips on Food Additives: Parenting Advice Kendal

By  Yvonne Wake Supernanny Expert 16/08/2007

We're often told that E numbers are terrible, but total disapproval may be a little excessive. However, we do need to become more clued-up about what they are for, and look at whether or not we really need to eat the food products which contain them.

A very long time ago, before food was bought in shops, our food came from the land and farms. Back then food additives weren’t usually necessary because we only ate the food that we could grow, and did so on the day it was harvested. Today, however, there are so many people in the world (especially in the big cities) that food is now especially grown to provide for everyone. Food has to survive transport from all over the world and it can sometimes take up to six weeks from the moment it is picked from the field to its arrival on a supermarket shelf.

It’s true that some food additives have been used since very early times, with salt the great preserver of meats and fish and saffron also used to make food appear yellow. But although the concept of ‘adding’ something to the food is not totally new, in today’s society so much is added that we have become increasingly suspicious of all additives.

So, what exactly are all those additives?

There are 2,500 additives currently in use (with more appearing each year). They are chemicals which can be natural or man made, and are classified with E numbers within Europe (the ‘E’ is for Europe). This classification has to go through many rigorous stages to be certified and legalised for use.

Additives are not normally consumed as a food itself, but used in foods to carry out certain roles. Their role is to preserve the freshness of food as it travels around the world, as well as to improve nutritional value as it relates to taste, texture and colour. Some food additives help to keep food for longer, stop mould and bacteria growing and prevent the food from contaminating and poisoning us. Without food additives many of the foods we take for granted just would not be around. All processed foods have additives and everything in a packet is processed. Avoiding processed food would be a way of avoiding additives!

That said, some foods contain many more additives than others and checking the label first will give you the opportunity to choose foods which contain less additives, even though that may reduce the shelf life or its sell by date. A good example is the Innocent brand of ‘smoothies for kids’, which contain NO additives at all. They contain 100% pure fruit ‘and absolutely nothing else’. These smoothies are able to withstand the time and stay fresh because they are produced using light pasteurisation (like milk). This is a process of heating liquids to a certain temperature in order to destroy viruses and certain harmful organisms. They do need to be consumed on the day you open them, but hey, what’s wrong with that?

Contrary to what we read and hear, most food additives are harmless and natura...