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Be On The Lookout For These Sneaky Ingredients

Have you ever taken time to read the ingredients in one of the foods you buy at the supermarket? Even if you have, do you understand what all those ingredients are? Ingredient labels are required to list everything included in the food. If you are trying to clean up your diet and eat better, you need to take the time to look for sneaky ingredients that aren’t good for you.

Preservatives

Let's start with some of the obvious ones. Preservatives are ingredients used to prolong the shelf life of the product. Yet, they are often harmful to human health.

Ammonium sulfate is one example. Yes, ammonium sulfate is a close relative to the ammonia that you use to clean the house. Its cleaning/sterilizing properties make it a great preservative.

Butylated hydroxyanisole, also known as BHA, is another food preservative. It has recently been proven as a carcinogen in lab animals, and acts like a human carcinogen as well.

Others to look out for include sodium nitrate, sodium nitrite, sodium benzoate, and Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT).

Artificial Sweeteners

When artificial sweeteners were first introduced, they were seen as wonders of modern science, providing the sweetness you crave without the calories or health problems. That hype masked the potential dangers they presented. Some of them actually alter the way you process sugar, making people more susceptible to overeating.

Here are a few artificial sweetening ingredients you might encounter: acesulfame potassium, aspartame, sugar alcohol, glycerol, licorice, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol, saccharin, sorbitol, sucralose, and xylitol.

If a food product claims to have 0 calories, or be low in sugar, there is likely an artificial sweetener lurking in the ingredient list. Avoid any "diet" food or beverage because it always has an artificial sweetener somewhere.

The Many Names For Sugar

Artificial sweeteners arose due to the desire to reduce the amount of sugar in people’s diets. Even with artificial sweeteners, people are still trying to cut sugar intake down. What they may not know is that sugar has many names and it may be in more products than they think.

Fructose, glucose, maltose, lactose, dextrose, and sucrose are different forms of natural sugars, and they are quite common in many ingredient lists.

What can be harder to discern are ingredients that sound innocuous, but are major sources of sugar. Here are a few: agave nectar, corn syrup, fruit juice, caramel, molasses, treacle, rice syrup, and evaporated cane juice.

If you want to eat a cleaner diet, free of these ingredients, eat use whole foods as much as possible. The nutritional experts at Matrix Age Management can help you design a meal plan to fit your needs.

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Tags: Nutrition

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