The way a food tastes and smells is important when it comes to choosing what we eat. Food companies engineer foods to ensure they taste and smell appealing by adding flavors and spices. These can be natural substances or chemicals synthesized in a laboratory. They can be a single ingredient—like vanilla extract, dried basil, or a specific chemical—or blends of many ingredients formulated and developed by professional flavorists.
Manufacturers hide thousands of food chemicals—some deemed unsafe in other countries—from consumers and the FDA via vague ingredient labels and lax oversight.
Food AdditivesThomas Galligan, PhD, Zachary Goldstein, MS
The color additive titanium dioxide can potentially cause DNA damage but is used in Christmas treats and dairy products. Tell the dairy industry to ditch TiO2.
Titanium dioxide is a potentially DNA-damaging food color additive found in many snacks, candies, dairy products, and more. Here's where you'll find it—for now.
A possible link between food ingredients and adverse behaviors such as hyperactivity was first raised in the 1970s. Over the past 40 years, many double-blind studies have concluded that food dyes and other ingredients can impair behavior in some children.
The cereal aisle is full of brightly colored boxes and flashy marketing…and many kids are full of opinions. Here are 7 tips to help you wade through your supermarket’s sea of cereal boxes together and choose a winner that’s rich in whole grains, not too sugary, free of food dyes, and kid friendly. We've included a list of more than two dozen healthy cereals for kids that fit the bill.
