Where do I start? That is the question I get asked all the time, and it is a great question because there is so much information out there it can get confusing.
I started by boosting our immune systems, because if you have a healthy immune system your body is able to fight disease and heal itself. The purpose of our immune system is to detect when something is wrong, attack it, and fix it. Although many people suffer from different diseases, not many are actually targeting the true problem, our weakened immune system, but it is constantly under attack.
The first thing I did was I got rid of all the additives (preservatives, colours etc) out of the food we were eating. Once you start looking at what is in all the food you purchase you will be horrified, I know I was.
Lets start with ‘numbers’, these are by far the most important as they are in just about everything that is processed. The simple solution is don’t eat processed food, but that is easier said than done in the beginning. Try and get to know what all the numbers are.
The system works like this:
Numbers between 100 and 180 are colours; 200 to 290 are preservatives; 300 to 320 are antioxidants; 322 to 494 are emulsifiers and numbers 905 to 097 are mineral hydrocarbons.
Colours are used purely for cosmetics to make the food uniform and have been shown to alter children’s behaviour. There are 6 colours that are known to cause hyperactivity in children and have been banned in the UK but are still allowed in children’s food in Australia, these are:
110, 122, 102, 124, 104, 129
Sulphur dioxide – 202- is another one which is found in dried fruit, especially dried apricots. There is 16 mg in one dried apricot. To put that into perspective, the Acceptable Daily Intake for a 10-year-old weighing 21kg is just 15mg of sulphite per day.
Sulphites should be avoided by people with asthma. You can get dried apricots without 202 from a health food shop, but you may not recognise them as they are very dark brown, but they taste wonderful. Avoid the bright orange dried apricots!
Flavour Enhancers, or MSG (monosodium glutamate) 620 – 625, 627, 631 and 635 are also known as hydrolysed vegetable protein, and yeast extract, . It has an adverse effect on the nervous system and should be avoided: very common in flavoured potato chips. It makes you addicted to the food that it is in and makes you want to eat more of it. Please avoid this at all costs.
The list goes on and on and I have only just scratched the surface.
There are a couple of fantastic books that will give you all the information you will need about additives:
The Chemical maze by Bill Statham www.chemicalmaze.com
For those of you with iphones, this is now available as an iPhone app.
Additive Alert by Julie Eady: www.additivealert.com.au/
(Image by Chris Baker)