FOOD ADDITIVES THROUGH THE AGES

 

Our government, bless it, in its ongoing mission to improve public health through healthy food choices, proudly gazetted R146 - Governing the Labelling and Advertising of Foodstuffs, on the 1^st March 2010.

As is the wont of companies being forced to change the way they operate, the affected businesses struck back with fiendish wit.  Yes, the contents are labelled.  But clearly – I think not!  New world records in developing micro fonts have been set. Even taking the sauce bottle to the bright sunshine streaming through the supermarket’s door, and holding it at extended arm’s length,   specs perched upon my schnoz, a fierce squint fixed in avid concentration on the lengthy list of ingredients crammed into the 375ml bottle, leaves me no clearer as to what I’m actually buying.  Shopping now takes twice as long, because scrutinising the contents of my listed items, even the loaf of bread, makes the weekly chore a lengthy one.

I believe that scientists have a secret award for creating the longest, most syllable filled names for flavouring, colourant, preservative, thickening agents and chemicals.  They don’t make any sense at all to the layman, and give no inkling as to their actual use or reason for being included.  Even the simple ones, such as “Free Flow Agent” don’t yield a clue.

Modern living has become a migraine filled minefield of contradictory health and safety warnings, especially regarding food, beverages and medication.

However, who’d have suspected that food additives have been around longer than our great grandparents & that yesteryears “miracle” treatments and refreshments of choice, would end up as today’s banned recreational drugs?

Just over a hundred years ago, Bayer & Co happily manufactured a product called “Heroin”, especially suggested for children suffering a strong cough.

Metcalf and Mariani were just two of several brands of Coca Wine, recommended as “A Pleasant Tonic and Invigorator, for Neuralgia, Sleeplessness, Despondency, etc”.

Pope Leo XIII awarded the producer of Mariani wine a Vatican Gold Medal.  Which kind of puts our “Citrus Seal of Approval” into perspective.  (If you remember that Ad campaign, you, like me, are vintage!)

Cocaine Toothache Drops were very popular for children in 1885, and Cocaine Dragees for soothing the throat were the forerunners of today’s Vigroids, for actors, singers, teachers and preachers.  How many parents of newborns could get through the night without Stickney and Poor’s Paregoric (46% Alcohol and grains of Opium!)  Well, with no home entertainment systems, internet, iPods or fast cars, I guess you had to take your thrills where you could find them.

I wonder if in a hundred years time, our great grandchildren & scientists will shake their heads in baffled disbelief, that we gaily loaded our plates with food containing chemicals since known to be addictive or carcinogenic?  Will Sodium Benzoate or Monosodium Glutamate be the recreational drugs of choice in 2115?  Will Potassium Sorbate be the cause of Parkinson’s?  Only time will tell, but I suspect that the populace of 1885 were a lot jollier on their food additives than we are on ours!

(Written for Live Lightly Times, published May 2012)