Saving Your Life Through Nutrition

Saving Your Life through Nutrition

Preserving food is a practice ingrained in our culture and was a strategy to survive hard economic times during the Great Depression. Families who preserved food during the Great Depression went to their storage area to get what they needed when fresh, healthy food was not readily available. Having readily available nutritious food prevented them from becoming ill from malnutrition.

Fresh foods preserved at the height of freshness provide the vitamins and minerals, proteins, fats and enzymes necessary to stay healthy. Think of the scurvy epidemic as an example. This epidemic killed many sailors migrating to America and was caused by a simple lack of vitamin C. Similarly, medical studies since the 1990s reveal that vitamin B17 kills cancerous tumors, and a deficiency in this may be the reason for unchecked growth of cancer cells. The benefit of educating yourself in overall nutrition facts and learning how to preserve fresh food is that you will protect yourself and your family against uncertain times by providing nutritious foods when fresh food is not readily available.

 Using Additives to Preserve Food

Foods can be artificially preserved by mixing in “additives”. Additives include chemicals, artificial flavoring, preservatives, hormones, dyes and a host of other synthetic additives. Foods are artificially preserved for economic reasons because it takes less time to prepare and costs less to transport these foods over longer distances without the threat of spoiling.

Potassium bromate, for example is an additive that speeds up bread-the making process and cuts costs. It serves as a key bulking ingredient, but it is so widely accepted as a carcinogen (cancer causing agent) that it has been banned in the European Union, Canada and even China. This artificial additive is common in breads in the United States. United States law allows the chemical to be used as an ingredient in food because it was approved by the FDA back in 1958 before modern anti-cancer legislation went into effect (www.naturalnews.com). It is linked to kidney, nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.

 How Additives Help Food

What are the benefits of using additives? Additives allow producers to preserve large quantities of food which lowers the price for the consumer. This allows consumers to pick from a large variety of food. Fresh food on the other hand takes more time and care to prepare and package and must be sold quickly thus increasing the costs.

 Risks of Additives in Foods

Food preserved naturally does not come with the risks associated with food containing additives. Consuming foods with additives has been known to cause illnesses, ailments and disorders, so avoid foods with additives to improve health.

Additives are listed under “Ingredients”, not “Nutrition Fact".

 How additives get into food unknowingly

There are many ways that food can be tainted with additives either by choice or accidentally. Chemicals can leach out from plastics because of heat during transportation in hot trucks. Food that is microwaved can have chemicals released into food. Processed, white sugar (considered an additive) is not natural and very bad for your health according to many studies and is added to foods.

 Nutritional Benefits to Preserving Food Naturally

Control the quality of the food you consume by picking fresh, additive free foods and preserving them naturally. Since additives can make us sick, it only makes since to consume fresh foods without additives and make the personal choice to preserve fresh foods naturally as a way to stay healthy.

Preserving fresh foods free of additives will provide essential minerals, vitamins, proteins, fats, and good enzymes necessary for overall good health. You can also save money when preserving food that you buy in bulk, learn to grow your own fruits and vegetables or even raise your own livestock, such as chickens for meat and eggs.

What You Need to Know

Saving Your Life through Nutrition

• Storing preserved food provides healthy choices if there is a shortage of resources.
• Preserving fresh food is an economical way to provide your family healthy food.
• Fresh, natural or organic food is the best type of food to preserve.
• Overall health is guaranteed to improve as you eat fresh foods.
• Most illnesses are caused by undiagnosed poor nutrition or effects of additives.
• Additives are listed under “Ingredients”.
• Food heated in plastics can contain high levels of chemicals from the plastic.
• Ways to economically obtain fresh foods with no additives:
a. Buy fresh foods on sale. Look for “bulk rate discounts”.
b. Grow your own fruits and vegetables. (A simple, full-proof method to successfully garden is the Mittleider Method. Nutrients come from an all-natural plant food mix allowing you to grow in any type of soil.) http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/the-mittleider-gardening-method-explained/
c. Raise animals for meat and eggs, such as chickens, lamb or beef. Animals can be brought to a local butcher for processing.