Saving Your Life through Nutrition

Having readily available nutritious food is necessary to protect us from becoming sick from a lack of essential vitamins and minerals. Think of the scurvy epidemic as an example. This epidemic killed many sailors migrating to America and was caused by a simple lack of vitamin C. Similarly, medical studies since the 1990s reveal that vitamin B17 kills cancerous tumors, and a deficiency in this may be the reason for unchecked growth of cancer cells.

Preserving food has been a practice ingrained in our culture and many other cultures over the centuries. Families who preserved food during the Great Depression used it as a strategy to survive hard economic times. They would simply go to their storage area to get what they needed when fresh, healthy food was not readily available. Fresh food preserved at the height of freshness provides the proper nutrition necessary to stay healthy. The benefit of learning how to preserve fresh foods and educating yourself in overall nutrition facts is a great way to guarantee good nutrition, protect against uncertain times and provide nutritious foods to improve and sustain good health.

• Using Additives to Preserve Food - A Bad Choice

Foods can be artificially preserved by mixing them with “additives”. Additives include chemicals, artificial flavoring, preservatives, hormones, dyes and a host of other synthetic additives. Foods are artificially preserved for economic reasons because it costs less and takes less time and effort than when preserving foods naturally. This speeds up the distribution process. Overall, using additives helps business owners make more money by saving time, being less expensive and allowing them to distribute their product quickly.

Potassium bromate, for example is an additive that serves as a key bulking ingredient, but it is so widely accepted as a carcinogen (cancer causing agent) that it has been banned in the European Union, Canada and even China. This artificial additive speeds up bread-the making process and cuts costs. Unfortunately, it is a common additive used in breads in the United States. United States law allows the chemical to be used as an ingredient in food because it was approved by the FDA back in 1958 before modern anti-cancer legislation went into effect (www.naturalnews.com). It is linked to kidney, nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.

• How Additives Help Food

With the drawbacks inherent in using additives, what are the benefits of using additives? Using additives is a quick way to preserve large quantities of food which lowers the price for the consumer and allows consumers to pick from a large variety of food. Fresh food is more expensive to ship and must be sold quickly before it spoils, and food preserved naturally takes more time and effort increasing the costs.

• Uncovering Additives in Foods

Food preserved naturally without using additives does not come with the risks that food with additives come with which included illnesses, ailments and disorders. Consuming foods with additives has been known to cause illnesses, so avoid foods with additives to improve health.

• How additives get into food

Chemicals can leach out from plastics because of heat during transportation in hot trucks. Food that is microwaved can also cause chemicals to be released into food from. White, processed sugar (considered an additive) is not natural and is added to foods. Processed white sugar is very bad for your health according to many studies.

• Nutritional Benefits to Preserving Food Naturally

Preserving fresh foods free of additives will help you get the right balance of good enzymes, essential minerals and the vitamins necessary for overall good health. There are many ways that food can be tainted with additives either by choice or accidentally, but you can control the quality of the food you consume by picking fresh, additive free foods and preserving them naturally. Since additives can make us sick, it only makes since to consume fresh foods without additives or make the personal choice to preserve fresh foods naturally as a way to stay healthy. You can also save money when preserving food by preserving food that you buy in bulk; or you can grow your own fruits and vegetables or even raise your own livestock, such as chickens for meat and eggs.

• Improve your health as you eat additive-free foods.
• Take advantage bulk purchases or sales.
• Grow large quantities of your own fruits or vegetables.
• Keep large quantities of fresh foods preserved for later consumption.
• Raise animals for meat and eggs (Feed animals with naturally grown grasses and feed not genetically modified (GMO) and free of additives if possible.)
• Protect your family should you have an emergency shortage of resources.

I have a book available on Amazon on the issue, "Food Preserving Naturally - for Beginners" by Nancy Moral