Concerning preservatives...

 

Okay, the above was last night's dinner, including some nice unfrozen baked scallops. They were topped with either a Cajun spice mix or crushed dill seed. There is some rather broken home-made mayonnaise there used for a tiny bit of dipping sauce. It is completely dairy-free, as is everything else you see here. Yes that is a 1-A-Day Men's Health Vitamin laying at 11 o'clock there. The greens there are Super-green Mix, and to the far left are broccoli and cauliflower florets.

Concerning Preservatives...

People tend to blame preservatives for just about everything these days, from cancer to skin problems. Nevertheless, there has been a huge demand for the convenience foods these chemicals are used to protect from spoilage. It is probably true that living on convenience foods is problematic; However, it is also likely true that preservatives get a bad wrap as people-killers.

Preservatives are anti-oxidants. Nothing more, nothing less. Most of them are not chemically synthesized or invented chemicals, but instead they come from plants and berries that have a long shelf-life to begin with, such as cranberries, blueberries, and rowanberries (shown below).

Rowanberries, the source of sorbic acid, poisoner of Twinkies.

Now the most commonly recognized packaged food preservatives are BHA and BHT. BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene, includes a benzene ring, which is not a healthy thing for people to eat in large quantities. It is certainly better than eating rancid fats or oils, the things it is most commonly still used to preserve. It has been found that ocean plankton can generate this chemical naturally. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) is an antioxidant consisting of a mixture of two isomeric organic compounds, 2-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole and 3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole. BHA also includes a benzene ring. But this one is a little more complicated, but is used mainly in packaging for processed foods or dried fruits. It has been replacing BHT since the 1970's in many packaged foods.

Sorbic acid is a natural preservative derived originally by distilling the oil from rowanberries, back in 1859. It is the only preservative that was used in the making of Hostess Twinkies. (Note: Most of the shelf-life in a Twinky came from the refinement of all of its ingredients. Sponge cake requires a particularly highly-refined cake flour to make.) From what we can tell, sorbic acid is completely harmless in humans at preservative levels of concentration. Sorbic acid is particularly effective against botulism bacterial growth.

Cranberries and blueberries are now being considered as sources of their fine anti-oxident chemicals, all naturally occurring, of course.

So before you go off about preservatives, get your story straight at least. It is highly likely that many of us simply would not be here if they'd never existed. If what you want is fewer people in the world, please exit this blog.

{The above uses quotes and pastes from Wikipedia, and will be updated with the sources later.}