E numbers

Mr-White

Mr-White

Mr-White

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Just bought my self a flapjack for my mid morning snack and just discovered all the E numbers. After some quick googling, here's a brief summary of what they're used for. What's shocking is the number that are banned in atleast one country and the side affects. Now I know why cheap carpy food makes me feel rough :(

MW
 
For some reason I was expecting e-stats. 20" arms cold?
But yep, since the old smartie days I think everyone knows e-numbers in food are pretty bad :p
 
That's why I'm a little bit anal when it comes to checking the ingredients of pre-packaged foods and "snacks". Food doesn't need E numbers or flavour enhancers etc... That's why mass produced bread isn't so good, they add so much crap to it, stablisers, preservatives and one of the worse, emulsifiers etc... They can all be avoided and minimised depending on what you eat. Ok, ultimately you can't get away from them 100% but you can minimise your exposure to them. Some aren't TOO bad and in general most can be natural (though the foods tend to cost more as a result - believe it or not it's cheaper to produce chemicals, than extract natural elements from the food.) and as such not too bad - but you have to ask yourself; why has this been added to my food?
 
I try to avoid pre-packaged foods, i've felt much healthier since doing it. I could actually taste the cheapest in the flapjack.

MW
 
You just have to look at the backs of foods. It's why in Lidl I never buy anything processed. Just their raw fruits and veggies which are cheaper. The rest of their stuff, sausages, bacon, frozen burgers have ingredient lists as long as this post. :(
 
:eek: The seasoning I use pretty much on every steak I cook has Silicon Dioxide in, which apparently is not very good for you. I think I'll be giving it a miss from now on.
 
"When silica is ingested orally, it passes unchanged through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, exiting in the feces, leaving no trace behind"

Imo don't worry too much, unless you live in a bubble a little bit of chemical crap here and there in your food is only going to be the tip of the iceberg compared to what you have inhaled etc during the day.
 
Best thing is to make your own flapjack. Easy to do and tastes 1000x better. Infact you have reminded me I need to make some! :D
 
dun said:
"When silica is ingested orally, it passes unchanged through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, exiting in the feces, leaving no trace behind"

Imo don't worry too much, unless you live in a bubble a little bit of chemical crap here and there in your food is only going to be the tip of the iceberg compared to what you have inhaled etc during the day.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that will teach me to stop reading before the end of the paragraph :D I went back and read the rest and you're quite right, apparently it's only a danger when inhaled orally.
 
But don't make the mistake thinking all e-numbers are rubbish. Plenty of e numbers are very natural all though almost certainly human produced.

Like e100 is the main compound in turmeric.
 
Be wary, though, of glutamates. MSG can be labelled as over 20 different things, and is "Natural" even though it's very, very bad. It goes under names like "Natural flavorings" and "Spices", and then there's all the derivatives such as "Soya protein" and "barley malt extract" etc etc...
Yes, it's natural, but so is arsenic.
The amount of crap in pretty much anything you can buy (Yes, even 'healthy' food like branflakes have the dreaded MSG in) is shocking BUT, not as shocking as the stupidly lax regulations which allow products to advertise "Absolutely no MSG!" when they've simply used a different form of the same compound and listed it as "Spices".

Of course, none of it will kill you outright, moderation is always the key. Problem is, useless labelling laws make moderation very very difficult because you simply don't know how much you're eating. Say they declared 100mg of MSG as hazardous... The amount in a packet of crisps is never advertised, so how do you know how much you're consuming?

Ugh.

"The Good Life" seems like the only way to go these days.
 
denyerec said:
even though it's very, very bad. .
Click to expand...

No study has shown it to be bad for humans.
Big thread on this just a week or so ago in GD.
The amount you need to consume to be potentially dangerous is extremely high and you would never reach it.

Even msg syndrome only has very tedious links, which only a minority of people complain about. And only if you consume around 3.5grams in one sitting. But even this is short term complaints and not damaging.
 
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