Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork
By: NIGHTA J. DAVIS

Left) Fast foods and foods with additives decrease your lifespan and leave you vulnerable to diseases.

There was a time that cancer was considered a disease of the elderly. Today it afflicts over 25% of americans, including infants and children. It is believed that this has happened due to lack of exercise, overeating of rich foods, depletion of the soil, modern food processing,food additives, omnipresent low-level radiation,increased susceptibility to parasitic infections,environmental toxins, smoking, too much fatty foods, and lack of vegetables, fruits, grains and beans in our diets.Scientific studies suggest it takes many factors to trigger cancer and we may be able to block the development by getting in the way of just one.

Inspired by the English proverb," don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork",I did some research on food additives and discovered there are over 3,000 artificial chemicals added to our food supply today. Most food additives are not healthy for humans or their pets.Children are suffering the most because they are exposed to food chemicals from infancy, and human bodies were not meant to be exposed to the volume of food additives that we are currently including in our daily diet.It is vital for everyone to be aware of the types of chemicals and food additives they are consuming.Some of the most common food additives to avoid are listed below:

(Above) These luscious additive and chemical free garden vegetables are from Bill McConnell's backyard garden. McConnell is a lifetime resident of Towns County.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) During the early 1900's a Japanese chemist identified MSG as the substance in certain seasonings that added to the flavor of protein-containing foods.Unfortunately, too much MSG can lead to headaches, tightness in the chest, and a burning sensation in the forearms and the back of the neck. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing us to become obese. Check your kitchen cupboards and the fridge, you will find MSG in almost everything you eat.The items that don't have MSG may contain an additive called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, which is just another name for MSG. It is shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children everyday are filled with MSG. Start asking at the restaurants where you dine what menu items have MSG. Ask for the ingredient list, which they are required to provide upon request.Are you one of those people who love the crispy crust coating on the skin of your fried chicken?The taste secret is most likely MSG! MSG is added to food for the addictive effect it has on the human body.

From the informational site,msg.com website, it states that studies have found that adding MSG to certain foods,such as soup and mashed potatoes,has been successful in increasing the food intake in institutionalized elderly populations.

Findings from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health:January 06,2006 study proves, that the widely used flavoring agent MSG--at concentrations that only slightly surpass those found in everyday human food,exhibits significant potential for damaging the metabolic regulation of appetite,and thereby determines the trend toward worldwide obesity.We suggest to reconsider the recommended daily allowances of amino acids and nutritional protein, avoid the popular protein-rich diets,and particularly stop adding MSG.

Nitrite and sodium nitrate are two closely related chemicals used for centuries to preserve meat. When nitrite combines with compounds called secondary amines, it forms nitrosamines, extremely powerful cancer-causing chemicals. The chemical reaction occurs most readily at the high temperatures of frying. Nitrite has long been suspected as being a cause of stomach cancer.

Olestra, the fake fat recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is both dangerous and unnecessary. Olestra was approved over the objection of dozens of leading scientists.The additive may be fat-free but it has a fatal sideeffect: it attaches to valuable nutrients and flushes them out of the body. Some of these nutrients -called carotenoids appear to protect us from such diseases as lung cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and macular degeneration. The Harvard School of Public Health states that "the longterm consumption of olestra snack foods might therefore result in several thousand unnecessary deaths each year from lung and ,prostate cancers and heart disease, and hundreds of additional cases of blindness in the elderly due to macular degeneration. Despite being approved as safe by the FDA, all snacks containing olestra must carry a warning label

BHA & BHT-These two closely related chemicals are added to oil-containing foods to prevent oxidation and retard rancidity. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, consider BHA to be possibly carcinogenic to humans and can cause cancer.

Artificial Coloring -The great bulk of artificial colorings used in food are synthetic dyes. For decades synthetic food dyes have been suspected of being toxic or carcinogenic and many have been banned.Whenever possible, choose foods without dyes.They're mostly used in foods of questionable nutritional worth anyway. Natural ingredients should provide all the color your food needs.

Equal/Nutrasweet/Aspartame is in thousands

of diet products as an artificial sweetener. It has been linked to brain tumors, lymphomas, and leukemia's in rats. Headaches, dizziness, hallucinations can occur in sensitive people.

A 2005 research report on common food additives, including the controversial sweetener aspartame and food colorings, suggests they may interfere with the development of the nervous system.Researchers at the University of Liverpool examined the toxic effects on nerve

cells using a combination of four common food additives that theoretically reflect the compound that enters the bloodstream after a typical children's snack and drink,the additives stopped the nerve cells growing and interfered with proper signaling systems.The researchers concluded that the exposure to certain food additives during a child's development has been associated with behavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder..