Do You Eat Preservatives?
Our family has embarked on healthy eating for now. It is a huge challenge cos there seems to be hundreds of steps to take on this journey!
Many would say, ohh just cut back those deep fried food, high sugar food and stop junk food! It’s not that difficult! Well, I wish it was just that! You see, this healthy eating that we are starting is NOT simply low fat, low sugar with lots of fruits and vegetables.
So What Am I Referring To?
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P.R.E.S.E.R.V.A.T.I.V.E.S
But you say, we need preservatives so that we can keep food longer! True, but think about it, what spoils food? Bacteria! If the food has preservatives, it simply means the bacteria can’t survive on that piece of food. That’s pretty unnatural, isn’t it?
In the past, people preserved foods using SALT, SUGAR, SMOKE or some natural means. But sadly, not anymore now.
Look at the good old chocolate chip cookie. If you bake a batch of cookies, you put in regular ingredients like butter, sugar, flour etc. No preservatives. How long do those cookies last? At best, 2 weeks in an air-tight container. Now think of the cookies you bought off the supermarket shelf. How long do they last? At least 2 years!! 
Now look that huge pyramid of margarine at the coffeeshop (I’m not discussing butter vs margarine here)
Ever thought how much preservatives are in that lot of margarine? No one puts margarine out of the refrigerator in Singapore and expects it to keep.
Now think of the common Yong Tau Fu (veg stuffed with fish paste):
Ever tried leaving cooked fish in the open? Within 1-2 hours, it would turn bad. So why wouldn’t Yong Tau Fu, which is filled with fish paste turn bad? The hawker puts it out to display for the entire day!! Makes you wonder if it’s really pure fish in there!!
And of course there’s the preserved meats like sausages, luncheon meat (spam), nuggets etc. The new-age term is to call them processed food. The Mum’s the Word term? DEAD MEAT!
These meat are so filled with preservatives that I’m not sure if it’s even meat. These meat can be left in the open, and they are so filled with preservatives that the meat won’t go bad. These meat ain’t meat if regular bacteria are not even a least bit attracted to it.
My quest for healthy eating now is about looking food with as little artificial preservatives as possible. That’s Biology 101 today. We will look at what preservatives are in Chemistry 101 next week!
We do eat preservatives … but we try to keep them to a minimum.
I have a friend who is ALLERGIC to them, so she has to be VERY careful
Good for you! I'd like to say no we don't eat anything with preservatives in them but I can't. We eat pretty healthy but stuff such as lunch meats, breads and the like I just can't give up.
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Yikes, that's a little disconcerting to think about some of this.
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I try to eat pretty healthy but am far from completely leaving preservatives out of my diet.
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Yeah, that is pretty gross. I try to avoid preservatives much as I can.
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It's pretty nasty to think about. We try to avoid them, but sadly they are in a lot of things.
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we cut them out of nearly everything we eat this year!
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I don't eat foods that contain preservatives and it really is so much better for your health. Btw, some things can be left out because they are naturally fermented.
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it's pretty hard not to eat preservatives. We do our best but we still get plenty.
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It is so much better to make things from scratch and avoid preservatives!
Good luck! It is a tough challenge.
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You can do this. I have found that cooking from scratch is really the only way to make sure we are not eating all the extras that we don't really want.
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I'm sure there are lots of them in my pantry…I would love to change it though.
I try not to think about it. I'm trying to get better about fresh but sometimes it is just so much easier to get the convenience food
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I do eat them but have definitely cut back.
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good food for thought!
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I have been trying to avoid most preservatives too.
I try my best to avoid preservatives & pesticides in my food. It's good for your health. My kids are young so they will live & learn to make good food choices in the future.
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