I was shopping for coconut milk the other day. I checked the label and saw two E-numbers and, by the miracle of modern technology, was able to immediately check them on Google. I didn't like what I read and put the can back on the shelf. I finally settled for desiccated coconut.
This question of additives - and it is a serious problem for anyone interested in their long-term health, despite what food scientists tell us - is covered in Joanna Blythman's book, "Swallow This".
http://www.joannablythmanwriting.com/books.html
Taking us behind the scenes of the food industry (as far as she was allowed to go, for it is a closed world of secrets, jealously guarded), Blythman tells us about the oils, sweeteners, colours, preservatives, improvers and enhancers which give the supermarkets' "food-like substances" an edible or wholesome appearance. Many of these same chemical preparations are used in shampoos, paints, nail polishes and other industrial products.
Indeed, while the supermarket industry depends upon the food factories for their products, those food factories, in turn, depend on a complex chemical industry which specialises in providing formulations for the food industry, to give their products some resemblance to food and more critically to extend product shelf-life..
The supermarkets themselves, do not wish to sell those low-profit products found around the periphery of most stores i.e. fish and meat and especially fruits and vegetables, because these foods spoil, even when they are picked weeks before ripening. As Blythman discusses in another book, Shopped, the supermarkets much prefer to sell us "food" in boxes, tins and jars, with a long shelf-life, which keeps its appetising appearance long after the natural version has rotted.
Consider one delicious natural food - mayonnaise. This can be made using just two ingredients - egg yolks and olive oil, beaten together. For additional flavour, a little salt, pepper and vinegar or lemon juice may be added. It takes about 5 minutes to prepare and is natural and wholesome.
On the other hand, a typical processed version of mayonnaise, found in any supermarket, will contain 15 ingredients and perhaps another 10 in sub-categories. The first ingredient will usually be water. Instead of olive oil (there may be a trace - "made with real olive oil") inferior oils may be used with corresponding "enhancers" to assist the formation of an emulsion with the water. Then there has to be preservatives, flavourings and colourings, so that the finished product looks and tastes as if it is real food.
Thinking of another common product, what about the delicious, enticing smell of fresh bread that we notice as we approach the "bakery" department? Well, actually no, this is not a bakery in the usual sense of the word, as Blythman explains, because there is probably no flour present. Instead, the supermarket has frozen, pre-prepared dough with a shelf-life of months, delivered to its premises from a central depot which may supply several supermarkets. This dough is defrosted and cooked in ovens following a strict formula. There may be "hand-made", finishing touches - the sprinkling of sugar over doughnuts or some spreading of icing on top of pastries, but that is the limit of artisanship or human contact. However, this product is marketed as "fresh bread, baked on our premises".
Toward the end of her book, Blythman reminds us of the Dutch art still-life genre, tables laden with food and drink, fruit and vegetables, as well as rabbits and pheasants, game birds and huge ripe cheeses. All of these foods are recognisable to us today and would have been known by all our ancestors, going right back to the ancients.
But what do we have now? Jars, cartons, tubes, bottles, tins, plastic bags, frozen foods, processed ready-meal concoctions containing "food-like substances" which bear no relation to anything from history and which depend for their existence on a battery of chemicals to colour, "enhance", flavour, "improve" and preserve them.
Another very informative investigator of the food industry is U.S. writer Michael Pollan, who coined the best way to eat in just seven words; "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants". Forgive me, Michael, I can improve that by replacing the middle sentence with "Moderately", to give five words in total. What an excellent summation for good, healthy eating!
See Pollan's work here;
http://michaelpollan.com/books/
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