And because we are eating them every day, then we should definitely try to eat good quality and safe flavourings, but ingredients of almost all the flavourings on the market are poor quality imitations of natural flavours.

Let's take a look at food additives, now found in nearly all foods, and the various flavourings and seasonings.

Food additives An average person on a normal diet consumes around 80 food additives, roughly 15g (2 heaped teaspoonfuls), every day. That's about 5.4kg of food additives per year. Is your food OK? Food additives are artificial substances and so are unnatural extraneous "foreign" matter as far as your body is concerned. The concern with additives that are mixed with all kinds of food is the toxicity that attacks the body very slowly over long periods of time. Cheese, vegetables, bread, eggs, ham This is the reality of a quite normal breakfast! Bread Flour improvement agent, conditioning agent, emulsifier, baking powder, bleach, antioxidant, preservatives, etc. Ham Binding agent, colour fixing agent, preservatives, synthetic colouring agent, chemical seasoning, etc. Eggs Synthetic vitamins in the feed of the parent bird, antibiotics, bactericides, insecticides, etc. Soy sauce Chemical seasoning, synthetic colouring agent, acidulant, preservatives, etc. Cheese Fermentation regulator, synthetic preservatives, conditioning agent, etc. Vegetables Pesticides, freshness-maintaining agent, etc.

In recent years, it is general knowledge that food additives can be harmful, and food manufacturers tend to keep in mind that the fewer additives they put in the food the better.

More and more people take the trouble to avoid products containing food additives when they shop for food for themselves, their families and loved ones.

That is really a wonderful thing!

However, although manufacturers are supposed to be taking more care over food additives, things have not really changed all that much.

The proof of this is in the increased occurrence of atopic reactions (allergic hypersensitivity), allergies, and lifestyle-related diseases, and their occurrence at younger and younger ages.

Why on earth is this happening, despite the fact that we are supposed to be taking care over this kind of thing?

This is because every day without fail the things like sugar, salt, miso, soy sauce, soup stock, mayonnaise, ketchup and other sauces, curry powder and so on, that we ingest consist of flavourings and seasonings that are chemical agents (such as amino acids).

However hard you try in your home to be careful about this, when you eat a meal at a restaurant, or café, or pub and so on, or just have a snack in a café or buy a ready-made lunch or some pre-cooked food at a convenience store or supermarket, or eat a school lunch, or just enjoy a piece of cake, or a dessert, or a bottled or canned drink, the flavourings and seasonings used in these foods are food additives.