Preservatives are one of the varieties of food additives. Previously, all food additives were completely painted on product labels. However, over time (we must assume that when their number began to go off scale), it was decided that they should be labeled. So there were harmful "E-shki", where "E" - from the European standard. The law was adopted in 1953, preserving its original appearance even today. Each "E-cabinet" has its own personal number, denoting a detrimental preservative.
The purpose of preservatives specifically is to extend the shelf life of the product. To do this, you have to work on the product in a special way - to sterilize them. By way of action, preservatives are most successfully compared with antibiotics - both of them kill microorganisms. Due to this, the food product is protected from reproduction inside its environment of fungi, bacteriophages, microbes. But preservatives, having made a business, do not escape from the product - we eat them and enjoy them together with your favorite dishes. In the end, they also affect our body - kill a little bit, on the cell. True, we have more cells than single-celled microbes, so we survive, but they do not. But, alas, this does not end there. Preservatives accumulate in the body in the form of carcinogens, and, having accumulated in the required volume, will lead to some terrible disease (to cancer, for example). That's why, they are - harmful preservatives.
But our body is also not a fool. He knows how to protect himself. The best protection from preservatives is the hydrochloric acid contained in the stomach, though, even after passing through the gastric environment, some preservatives are still alive.
The most harmful additives
The most harmful additives in products are preservatives and antioxidants. They have a similar action: if the preservative sterilizes and prolongs the shelf life, the antioxidant protects the oils from rancidity, discoloration, etc.
The numbers of preservatives are indicated - from Е200 to Е299, antioxidants - from Е300 to Е399.
The only conditionally safe antioxidant is E363, in other words, succinic acid. It is added to desserts, soups, dry drinks. Asking which preservatives are harmful is useless, because they all cause a set of digestive disorders, allergies and cancer.
The most popular in the world and at the same time the most harmful preservatives are:
- sodium nitrite - Е250;
- sodium nitrate - Е251;
- potassium nitrate - Е252.
These preservatives you will find in any sausage-meat product and even in canned and smoked fish. The fact is that after cooking, mixing meat for sausages, the meat loses attractive color, becoming gray. Therefore, one of three preservatives (or all three) is added to embellish it for the consumer.
The danger of nitrates is that when they get into the human body, they form more dangerous nitrites, and then, nitrosamines. All this occurs when the supplement has got into a weakened organism - affected by cholecystitis , kidney disease, and dysbacteriosis.