E for Additives. Maurice Hanssen
href="#ulink_9b5f5163-4197-52fb-8d68-3b590ac8bfc0">Foreword
There has been a revolution in the approach to what we eat. A series of reports have clearly established the link between food intake and health. It has been supported by doctors, pharmacists, dietitians and politicians. In 1985 a decision was made to establish an all-party Parliamentary Food and Health Forum, of which I am Chairman, and this has become one of the most active Parliamentary groups. Across the country there is concern at the fat and sugar content of food and a growing awareness that 30 per cent of adults in Britain are overweight. There is also a growing interest in colourings and artificial flavourings—in fact, in every type of additive. With Britain’s appalling record of avoidable diseases, there is now a major campaign linking diet and disease.
This growth in interest has led to a public demand for more information, and since 1962 the EEC has been issuing Directives on additives. Since the beginning of January 1986, most foods have carried a full list of additives, apart from flavourings, described by their E numbers on the package. A great step forward—providing you can fully understand the implication of the E number! For instance, I have aspirin sensitivity, and my wife is asthmatic. So we need to know, for both those conditions tend to bring in their wake sensitivities to certain common food preservatives and colours. The book describes these relationships fully, and in addition makes a convincing case for the full disclosure of ingredients and additives on products where they are not yet required to appear by law, such as in many types of confectionery, alcoholic drinks and medicines.
In 1984, following a great deal of research, Maurice Hanssen’s first edition of E for Additives was published. It was a tremendous success and was a bestseller for many months, along with Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer. It is still in great demand. It contains just enough essential information about the contents and effects (including adverse effects) of each product to enable the shopper to know just what they are being asked to buy.
But since 1984, research has provided a mass of additional information about E-numbered additives and about the wider implications of the need for certain additives in foods where many manufacturers are able to produce excellent foods without their use. Key issues such as the nutritional consequences of the overuse of additives are explored for the first time in this new edition of E for Additives.
To me, the great merit of Maurice Hanssen’s book is that his explanations are clear to all. It is cram full of essential information for the careful shopper. Every essential term, like preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, tenderizers and flavouring, is clearly spelt out.
This book is not just for those who did not buy the first edition. It contains so much that parents need to know. Do additives affect ability, and what about hyperactivity in children? The fact is that more and more is now known about the effects of what we eat—and we all need to know.
We know that there is a close link between what we eat and our physical—and maybe our mental—health. I doubt whether anyone else in Britain has done more to cut through the commercials and bring out the facts. Maurice Hanssen has been at the forefront of this food and health revolution. For me, it is a real pleasure to commend this new edition. I hope that it, too, will be a bestseller.
THE RT. HON. LORD ENNALS
HOUSE OF LORDS
This comprehensive book is one which in a sense I wish need never have been written. I would prefer to live in a world where we harvested our foods fresh from the earth, ate them immediately and never had to give a thought to food preservatives, artificial emulsifiers and stabilizers, anti-oxidants and permitted colours. Alas, we do not live in such a world. High technology food production and elaborate chains of food distribution have created a situation in which food additives are necessary. Yet for the protection of oneself and one’s family it is also necessary to be well informed about these hundreds of additives in quite specific terms and highly aware of the possible implications of their inclusion in our daily diet.
I therefore welcome Maurice Hanssen’s E for Additives. Mr Hanssen has produced a simple-to-follow yet remarkably ambitious guide which can help people make informed decisions about the foods on their supermarket shelves even before they buy them. He carefully explains both the pros and cons of food additives, clarifies the meaning of such commonly used but little understood words as ‘stabilizers’ and ‘tenderizers’, and offers a quick-to-use guide to each specific additive, its name, where it comes from, the possible adverse effects of using it, and a list of typical products in which it is used. This book is a useful tool for anyone concerned about the health of himself and his family. I for one would not want to be without it.
LESLIE KENTON
My first encounter with food additives was in the 1950s when I was concerned with creating new products for people on special diets. It soon became clear to me that many food technologists were using a wide variety of additives simply because they were available, and that they had not really given any thought to the nutritional or health consequences of what they were doing.
I asked the question: ‘Why are we using ingredients that I would not need in the kitchen when preparing the same food?’ Sometimes there were good technical reasons, but in 90 per cent of the cases there was none. It is because I enjoy cooking at home and because I have a strong background in practical food technology on a factory scale that I began to question whether or not we had true freedom of choice whether we knew what we were eating and whether many of the additives were necessary at all.
In the 1960s, with the National Association for Health, sponsored by Joyce Butler MP, and with the help of 750,000 well-wishers, we presented a petition to Parliament asking them to ‘add all additives’. This was a plea to have a full label declaration of all the ingredients.
For the past 100 or so years there has been an artificial division in our minds between foods and medicines. Since the earliest times man has known that he can live on a wide variety of foods, and that some apparently attractive plants are dangerous whilst some help bring vibrant health and fitness. Even more sophisticated has been the use of very small quantities of otherwise dangerous herbs, such as foxglove or deadly nightshade, which are both still today very important medicines in minute doses.
To stay at the peak of fitness a Roman soldier was only allowed stoneground wholemeal flour. None of the sifted white flour, beloved of the rulers of Rome, found its way into his diet. In the Middle Ages, writers on health said that ‘the bread which had all the bran in it was a remedy for constipation caused by eating too much of the fine white bread’! It is obvious that the foods we eat are more important than any additives. But in general terms we have had personal control over our choice of food but little influence on the additives being used.
The 1984 Food Labelling Regulations gave us, for the first time, a good insight into what we were eating and gave me the chance to write E for Additives. Even if the book had not sold a single copy I would have needed it for myself and my family. But in the event it was a bestseller which has prompted fundamental changes in the food that we buy. Almost overnight, crisp manufacturers found that they could remove E320 and E321. This may have reduced the shelf-life of the crisps but, with the odd exception of Scotland where apparently food takes a long time to be delivered, the additive-free crisps lasted quite long enough for any shop with a good turnover of stock. This story was repeated, with a wide range of unnecessary and, to some sensitive people, harmful additives, being removed.
A close and careful reading of The New E for Additives will show you that there are doubts about only 1 in 5 of the additives commonly used in British food. Some of these have been the most common but, fortunately, public pressure is reducing their usage. Toxicity is dose related and at some level of intake all foods are toxic We have to keep a balance, but we also have to ensure that