Read any ingredients label these days and you might have a hard time finding the actual food in your food.
Chemical additives, flavoring agents, artificial colors and lab-created sweeteners are appearing just about everywhere -- and not all of these "ingredients" are safe for human consumption.
Now, the European Union is opening a new investigation into one of the most dangerous food additives ever approved: aspartame.
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New probe into common additive
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You probably know aspartame -- aka NutraSweet and AminoSweet -- as the not-so-secret ingredient that transforms sugar-soaked soda into a calorie-free "diet" drink.
But most of the people who sip those colas all day have no idea that thousands of complaints have been filed with the FDA over the years involving at least 92 side effects -- including headaches, seizures, vision problems, memory loss, and more.
Some even say aspartame can mimic diseases ranging from fibromyalgia to lupus.
The FDA has failed to act on those complaints -- but its European counterpart, the European Food Safety Authority, is being ordered by lawmakers across the pond to open a new investigation into the sweetener.
That might sound like a step in the right direction -- but the EFSA has ruled on the safety of aspartame at least three times.
And at least three times, they found it to be perfectly safe – including a recent re-examination of the sweetener in light of new studies that linked it to premature birth in humans and cancer in lab animals.
In other words, if they had kangaroos in Europe this would have all the makings of a classic kangaroo court -- so don't be fooled if the agency eventually rules, again, that aspartame is safe.
It's not safe -- and it's in everything from yogurt to chewing gum.
It's even used to sweeten children's meds.
Whatever happened to "just a spoonful of sugar" anyway?
Aspartame isn't the only food additive you need to watch out for -- a key ingredient in Chinese take-out is also facing new questions.
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MSG causes more than headaches
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Monosodium glutamate is a staple of Asian cuisine, especially Chinese food.
Like aspartame, it's considered safe by health officials. Like aspartame, it's been linked to illnesses that fly in the face of what those health officials want you to believe.
And like aspartame, it's a lot more common than most people realize -- often hidden in processed foods and canned goods under any number of names, including glutamic acid, autolyzed yeast, and hydrolyzed vegetable proteins.
People who are sensitive to MSG often complain of headaches and nausea after eating it -- but a new study finds an even bigger potential problem with this stuff: obesity.
Researchers tracked more than 10,000 Chinese adults for an average of 5.5 years, asking about their MSG intake and visiting them at home to measure the actual consumption of products that contain the additive.
They found that those who were not overweight at the start of the study and ate about 5 grams of MSG a day were 33 percent more likely to become overweight by the end of the study than those who ate less than half a gram a day, according to the study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
But what came first here -- the chicken, or the eggroll?
MSG works by making food seem to taste better than it really is -- and, because it all tastes so darned yummy, people might simply be eating more and getting fat from the extra food... not the additive itself.
But whether the stuff is actually causing the weight gain or simply tempting you to eat more of the food that leads to weight gain, the effect is still the same -- and that means your best bet is to keep MSG in all its forms out of your diet.
And lay off the eggrolls while you're at it.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
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