The 12 Most Terrifying Ingredients Of Processed Foods

Even if the consumption of different foods is very difficult to avoid, it is advisable to know the effects on the body. You should replace these with healthier foods whenever possible.

Actually, we all know: Eating out of bags, cans or cardboard boxes cannot be healthy. The ingredients of conventional, industrially processed foods are chemicals and additives that we would never even use on the stove.

If only because nature did not make it available to us at all. Read here which ones are among others.

Ingredients in processed foods that are harmful to health

Trans fatty acids

Trans fatty acids are formed when vegetable oils do not harden properly. This happens in industrial processing. Trans fats cause heart disease and high cholesterol.

They are especially found in poorly processed margarine, over-heated vegetable oils, and products made from them such as french fries, chips, and cookies.

Artificial Flavors

“Nature-identical aroma” has nothing to do with nature, it should just taste like it does in nature. But then it is far from healthy, just because “nature” is in the name.

Food that needs to be pepped up with artificial flavors are inferior because they do not have a taste of their own.

The ubiquitous artificial flavoring means that many children learn “green apples” as the taste of natural apples and can no longer recognize a real apple by its taste when blindfolded. A good natural product does not need an artificial aroma!

Flavor enhancers

Another ingredient of processed foods. As with artificial flavorings, a good, high-quality food or dish does not need flavor enhancers. Artificial flavor enhancers trigger allergies and can lead to migraines in some people.

Artificial colors

Coloring agents have to be added especially where the natural color has been lost in the course of the industrial processing process.

For example with vegetable oils. They are actually bluish after they have gone through the manufacturing process in the factory. Nobody would buy them like that.

With a little yellow color, on the other hand, it is “pimped up”. And a yoghurt that is only made into “strawberry yoghurt” with an artificial flavor also needs color so that the customer succumbs to the illusion of healthy fruit.

Artificial sweeteners

Many artificial sweeteners have been shown to be carcinogenic in animal experiments and are used in pig fattening. Why should you eat something like this? The “sweet taste” is trained.

Less sweet is also possible – and if so, nature has sweeteners for us too, we don’t need chemicals to make unhealthy sweet drinks “pseudo-healthy”!

Preservatives

An “important” ingredient in processed foods. There are so many traditional means and methods to preserve food: smoking, drying, boiling down, salting, sugaring, candying, vacuum packing, pickling in vinegar, souring, …

Preservatives are only used today to conceal unclean production methods or to make food last longer than is good for you!

Antibiotics

Factory farming and conditions inhospitable for animals lead to sick animals for slaughter. So that the animals come to the slaughterhouse in good health, all farmers who use conventional animal husbandry then administer antibiotics to their animals.

As a result, there are now bacterial strains against which antibiotics are not effective. Maybe your next eczema or even your grandmother’s incurable pneumonia can be traced back to antibiotic meat?

Bisphenol A.

Bisphenol A acts like a hormone and decreases fertility in people. It was carcinogenic in animal experiments. Bisphenol A is contained in plastic packaging and plastic bottles and from there passes into food.

The more acidic the food (citric acid in lemonade, for example), the more bisphenol A is released from the plastic. Only industrially processed foods are not in plastic, fruits and vegetables from farmers!

aluminum

Aluminum can damage the brain and is suspected of promoting Alzheimer’s disease. It gets into our food when tin or beverage cans are not properly coated (or the coating comes off) or when we cook with aluminum dishes.

Hence, it can be another ingredient of processed foods.

Pesticides

Among other things, pesticides ensure that the plants are not infested with pests. In conventional agriculture, tons are sprayed over the fields.

Part of it goes into the ground with the rainwater and is absorbed by plants. So a carrot still has the poison even if you wash it! Good Appetite!

Fungicides

These antifungal agents are found on many types of fruit to help prevent mold from growing. Citrus fruits in particular have a thick layer of it on the skin. Particularly critical: peel citrus fruits and lick your fingers as well as caipirinha with conventionally grown limes!

Melting salts

Processed cheese, slices of toasted cheese, cooked cheese and other similar products contain melting salts, which ensure that the cheese melts nicely while retaining its shape.

Unfortunately, melting salts also work to loosen the calcium from your bones. The calcium in chemical cheese is of no use, your bones will become brittle!

What can you do about it?

It’s very simple: ignore all processed foods. Remember traditions around the stove and only use natural ingredients that come from nature and not from a factory.

And if you do want to use a finished product, buy it in an organic supermarket or health food store: the chemical construction kit is strictly prohibited in organic food! But, to be honest: what do you need ready meals for?