Food chemicals such as food additives have exploded into our food supply since the 1950's. They are mainly used to increase shelf life of products (antioxidants, anticaking agents) , make products look better (colours, whitening agents, thickeners? or even taste better (flavouring agents, MSG, thickeners, sweeteners).
In our family kitchen, I have been trying to decrease the amount of processed food that we consume, by making our own foods from scratch e.g. bread, mayo, yoghurt, cheeses, sauces, ferments, cereals etc.
This decreases the exposure to said food chemicals, and new potentially harmful chemicals in general (such as endocrine disruptor chemicals- more on these in a future post).
With hundreds on thousands of new chemicals having been developed and introduced into our food supply and environment since the '50s, it is impossible for each and everyone of these to have been tested on humans. UNFORTUNATELY, and very sadly, the current approach in many countries such as U.S and Australia is to assume that all new chemicals are safe, until proven unsafe.
My mantra is and always will be:
Titanium dioxide nanoparticles E171 may impact human health
The University of Sydney research provides new evidence that nanoparticles, which are present in many food items, may have a substantial and harmful influence on human health.
Experts call for better regulation of a common additive in foods and medicine, as research reveals it can impact the gut microbiota and could lead to inflammatory bowel diseases or colorectal cancer.
Titanium dioxide did not change the composition of gut microbiota, but instead it affected bacteria activity and promoted their growth in a form of undesired biofilm. Biofilms are bacteria that stick together and the formation of biofilm has been reported in diseases such as colorectal cancer,” said Associate Professor Macia, who is an immunologist expert on the impacts of the gut and gut microbiota on health
Source: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/05/13/common-food-additive-found-to-effect-gut-microbiota.html?tc=edm|sam-jun-2019|mc-university|||#
13 May 2019