Why I Say Preservatives are Bad, and Our Changes!

You are what you eat?!?!? That’s why I say preservatives are bad. While some preservatives are okay in limited quantities according to the FDA, such as Sorbates, Sodium benzoate and benzoic acid, Vitamin C and Citric Acid I challenge you to look at the ingredients of what you eat every day. How many things that you eat have the above mentioned ingredients in them; most? I’d say chances are you are consuming, as most people do, more than a limited quantity. I know my family was. Now, that being said, limited quantities of these things wouldn’t be bad. If the aforementioned things were all that was in my family’s diet, I wouldn’t be on the rampage I’m on to rid our diet of preservatives all together. I dare to say we were eating quite a few things that had “bad” preservatives in them such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), Sulfites, Nitrates. The aforementioned all have horrible side effects, including the possibility of cancer. Having already had thyroid cancer myself, I am on a mission to be a little more vigilant about what this family eats!

We still haven’t used up all of the boxed and canned food in the house yet, but I’m not one to let things go to waste…so we will continue to use that up. However, we are starting our preservative free campaign.

We are still a typical American family and very much on-the-go. Both my husband and I work full-time jobs outside of the home. Two of our three kids are in school, and the other one attends daycare (where they feed him all organic food J). So, it has been muffins during the week so far for breakfast, and everyone seems to like this. I bought a great cookbook King Arthur’s Flour Cookbook, and it has provided me great options for muffins, breads and the like. Today I will attempt to make my very first loaf of bread! I’m not above buying sandwich meat, but this family is only going to buy nitrate/nitrite free sandwich meat, such a Hormel Natural Choice. For snacks, we’re going to make cookies instead of eating chips, and we’ll make crackers and eat fresh fruit and vegetables.