It often amazes me to see all of these studies published on the web or pitched in the media that persuade people to into choosing one food choice over another. Eggs are good for you with one particular study and then they are bad for you with another study. Many of these "Studies" are all part of the marketing machine and more times than not, aren't ground in truth. Personally I know that many foods out there can be good or bad for you based on the foods they are combined with.
But there are some foods no matter how you combine them that will have negative affects. Enough so that they are BANNED from most countries because of the ingredients they contain. It is one thing to try to determine if something is good for you based on studies. It is another thing when countries make foods illegal and charge hefty fines to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per offense. I always knew that pre-packeged foods were not good for you because they were "processed". Do you know what they were processed with?
- Olestra - commonly used in low/no-fat snack foods and known to cause serious gastrointestinal issues for those who consume it - is on the list, having been banned in both the United Kingdom and Canada, you may be shocked to hear that Mountain Dew, Fresca and Squirt all contain brominated vegetable oil, a substance that has been banned in more than 100 countries "because it has been linked to basically every form of thyroid disease - from cancer to autoimmune diseases - known to man."
- You might be upset to hear that the food coloring used to make your kid's delicious Mac & Cheese dinner visually appealing - yellow #5 and yellow #6, namely - is made from coal tar, which among other things is an active ingredient in lice shampoo and has been linked to allergies, ADHD, and cancer in animals.
- There's azodicarbonamide - commonly found in frozen dinners and frozen potato and bread products - which is used make things like bleach and foamed plastics like those found in yoga mats (tasty!). Azodicarbonamide has been banned in most European countries because it's known to induce asthma, and is in fact deemed so dangerous that in Singapore its use carries a hefty $450,000 fine and up to 15 years in prison.
- There's butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) - found in Post, Kelloggs and Quaker brand cereals - which is made from petroleum and is a known cancer-causing agent. It's been banned in England and Japan.
So is this information just hype? Should we keep turning a blind eye to these issues? It is startling to see that this type of information is not seen in the mainstream news yet the newscasters are always ready to spew on again and again about another egg study...
What are your thoughts?