Yes I have!
... did a bit of research, and now avoid everything with artificial ingredients (esp hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup/processed fructose and msg….) It’s a challenge, but thank heavens for Whole Foods!
A bunch of things have TBHQ—in (much much much) higher doses its a known toxin, which is why it works as a preservative. Even mold doesn’t like it! I think there’s something like BHT which is similar, too… pretty sure in low doses the body can handle it, just don’t eat too many peanut butter cups!!

This is why I try to only eat fresh foods, but sometimes it is impossible. In which case I never read the label, I would rather be blissfully ignorant.

Honestly though, I would never have thought to look at the label or a candy bar. Is nothing sacred????

no, I don’t care

I’d rather die than live without Reese’s cups.

The average person eats 9 pounds of preservatives a year!

Yum, preservatives!

Yes, I worry about it. Then I get overwhelmed and shove my head back in my handy sand-hole.

It has to be better not to eat perservatives and other chemicals, but I don’t get too wound up about it. Almost every chemical ever studied causes cancer in lab animals because they give it in such a super high dose when testing. My point with that is I tend to ignore these studies. I think our bodies are pretty good at eliminating toxins. I think it is cumulative, so I try to eat whole foods as much as possible, but do admit to eating packaged foods. As a side note when I was diagnosed with hyothyroidism I called Stouffers frozen and Campbell’s soup and both do not use iodized sodium, so I wondered if some of the throid problems in America have to do with a reduction of iodized salt in our diets since we cook from scratch less? Luckily, the local confectioner does not use preservatives so I can get a chocolate fix without worry lol! I still have a Reese’s cup every so often though.

I thought the reason for preservatives was to preserve us as we get older!

I do, but then when I think about how much more I would be spending at Whole Foods, only to have it go bad quickly, I don’t mind so much. If you think you are avoiding chemicals by not eating preservatives, then you are wrong, they are everywhere. You might as well enjoy your Reese’s and quit worrying.

I want chocolate now.

only when eating twinkies…

You can always vote with your dollars. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.

This is one thing that I tend not to worry too much about (and te aren’t many things that don’t worry me!). I try and eat healthily but I don’t deny myself a treat here and there. I’m sure there is something in nearly everything we eat that could be potentially bad for us and if we believed half of what the news tells us about everything that can cause cancer etc we would neer eat anything. There are so many things in life that could cause ill health or even death but we do them anyway, smoking, drinking alcohol, driving, crossing the road, the list goes on….

My grandmothers favourite saying is “everything in moderation”. I can live with that!

Hey, they wouldn’t sell it if it wasn’t good for you, right? :)

A cursory inspection of my pantry and refrigerator shows that I don’t buy food in boxes except for pasta and cans except for tuna. I did have a mini dark chocolate Toblerone the other day. That was probably full of crap. :(

Yeah, see? That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t wanna live forever do ya?

Personally, I find it easy to buy fresh and local from my Farmer’s market. We have ice cream without corn syrup and desserts without artificial flavoring.

Some old-fashioned vanilla ice cream and brownies made on the premises work well with winter root vegetables and brussel sprouts still on the stalk and an occasional piece of wild broiled salmon or free-range happy chicken.

It’s a good idea to avoid canned or packaged foods if possible. Check out Bisphenol A and this.
Several nasty blood cancers (Chronic Leucocytic Lymphoma and Multiple Myeloma) are on the rise. So is the number of autistic children being born, compared to 50 years ago.

Youth always equates itself with invincibility, but your salad days last only so long, and then you wilt.

NIckolas Kristof’s column in Sunday’s NYT’s op-ed page. He is repeating things many of us have known for years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06kristof.html?em

@gailcalled interesting article about the plastics, I avoid them, and have switched mostly to glass containers, but about it leading to early menstruation I question. I am 41 and most of my friends had periods by 12 and 13 and we did not have microwaves and most of us did not cook and/or store in plastic back then, certainly not in the amounts we do now. I kind of buy more into young women being heavier now as the contributor to early menstruation, and possibly hormones in foods. What do you think?

I’m afraid preservatives are part of the high price of convenience. In order to be able to get food items that are already made (heat & go), they use preservatives. In order to get food items from outside of the local area, they use preservatives. In order to mass-produce high quantities & let the stores have them on the shelves long enough to sell rather than throwing out spoiled items, they use preservatives.

That said, I would certainly prefer to have whole foods, organic foods, preservative-free, hormone-free, pesticide-free foods, but have found that they are cost prohibitive.

I try my best to avoid what I consider the “worst offenders” (for example, I buy milk that is certified hormone-free, avoid trans-fats, avoid artificial sweeteners) and don’t put every food label under a microscope. My personal opinion is that having an active, healthy lifestyle in general is more important. So I think it is ok to have a piece of chocolate that has some preservatives every once in a while as opposed to eating like chocolate is one of the “major food groups.”

anything with hydrogenated oil is harmful now try to find some thing in the store without it , I have and it is nearly impossible without buying the ingredients and putting it together yourself and even some of the ingredients like say bread impossible to find without hydrogenated oil, crackers,cheese,butter,tortillas all have it in there

I eat more than I want to or should. But hey, maybe all the preservatives we eat are what’s keeping everyone so young looking these days. ;)

i wrote my senior paper in high school on how fucking nasty almost everything we eat is. processed foods, mostly. i dont remember most of it now, but i do recall that a lot of the coloring used in foods, even vegetables, is nooootttt good at all. like if you buy carrots that aren’t organic, they have this orange coloring on them that is actually a hallucinogen. of course you’d have to eat a shit ton of carrots, probably more than is possible, but it’s still there and it still aint goood.

@deni now the food coloring thing is very interesting to me. I was talking to this guy who was saying he sometimes allergic to strawberries, sometimes not. I theorized that it is mabe the pesticides. I know this guy who owns a pesticide business, he only sells natural pesticides and what I remember is that he said never eat a Chilean grape (I sometimes still do, but rarely) and that Driscoll’s uses his product, so I suggested he try Driscoll’s or organic vs. not organic if he cannot find that brand, and see if those berries don’t bother him so he can try to figure out if it might be the pesticide. BUT, I never thought that it might be food dyes. Do you think the berries are dyed? Would they have to list that on the packaging? Some people are very allergic to certain food colorings.

@deni – holy cow, I had no idea that carrots are colored. There is truly nothing safe left to eat! That is really something new to me.

We are moving soon to one of the most fertile growing areas of Australia. I can’t wait to get there and either grow my own or buy directly from the growers! (I am assuming coloring would be added after they are picked)

@JLeslie I’m not sure, but I assume almost all fruit is dyed to look more vibrant and appealing to the eye. It makes sense…and I’m sure a lot of people have allergies to certain food dyes, probably without even knowing it. Like you know how sometimes a food just randomly makes you sick? Maybe it’s the dye! You’d never suspect it. Could be, who knows!

@rooeytoo I also would assume the coloring is added last, right before they’re packaged. It wouldn’t make much sense to add it earlier because it could rub off or get dirty….and lucky you, Australia…sigh

@deni @rooeytoo @JLeslie I think the reason food coloring is added to some fruit is because it needs to be picked before it is fully mature & ripe in order not to become overripe after transit.

I did see a show about pineapples and that they paint or dye the outside yellow, but I did not think of it as affecting the fruit itself.

They color salmon to increase the ‘salmon’ color and make it more appealing… it’s salmon color, but not that much.
And cheddar cheese is colored, too. (Ever wonder why it’s the only orange cheese out there?)
The fruit-dying thing is wild though… I didn’t know that! I mean, really? What do we eat in its real color? haha…

@JLeslie I remember reading about how even dyes that are put on the skins of fruit almost always get into the fruit part that we eat and are usually very unsafe.

growing your own produce is always the best solution