Pervasive preservatives

As someone trying to live a healthier and more environmentally conscious life, I sometimes find myself having to make compromises. Take, for example, my penchant for enjoying a hot-buttered crumpet with my cup of tea, during the winter months. There is - as yet anyway - no such thing as an organic crumpet. So I push my convictions aside as I hurl the packet into the trolley each week. "They're not so bad," I reason to myself. "Much healthier than many other afternoon treats I could have"

Now that wholemeal crumpets have become available, I have virtually decided that any guilt I still feel over my crumpet's non-organic status is no longer justified. "So what if they're not organic?!" my self-talk assures me. "They are healthy and wholemeal, and way ahead of the lamington on all counts!"

But there is one lurking demon that has come to my attention in recent weeks that I simply can't shake off. Crumpets are loaded with two of the worst preservatives known to human kind. Preservatives 202 and 234.

What's a girl to do? Preservatives are so hazzardous to our general, long-term health (despite what Food Standards Australia New Zealand says) that as part of my organic conversion I have started to try and avoid preservatives at all costs.

Its amazing just how many food chemicals, including preservatives, are in our everyday food. The website www.nutritionandyou.com.au warns that the so-called "healthy average Australian diet" can easily provide you with over 100 toxic food chemicals each day. Many of these are suspect carcinogens and proven to cause nervous system damage, hyperactivity, damage to babies, children, pregnant and breast feeding women.

The great news is that choosing Certified Organic food is the safest bet for avoiding preservatives. For a food to be certified organic it must be free of preservatives - even the processed food items. And if you are going to buy a non-organic item beware of products claiming to be "all natural" and "additive free", as they can still legally contain an array of nasty chemical cocktails. Even "Natural Flavour" is not necessarily natural, and may merely refer to nature identical flavouring, which is legal to do.

So what about those crumpets? Well, I still don't think I'm ready to give them up, despite staking out the moral high-ground. But I have made the decision to cut down to just one or two a week. And to take a VERY close look at all the other non-organic food items I have lurking in my pantry to ensure that my intake of preservatives falls way below the "average" Australian intake. Scary stuff. And another good reason to choose organic whenever possible.