Supermarkets are filled with processed and prepackaged food. The labels are supposed to show the list of all the ingredients inside each product. However, unless one has a degree in chemistry, it is extremely difficult to understand the hidden dangers behind each chemical present in a product.
“This book’s purpose isn’t to scare you, or to enrage you…I never wrote any of these stories to ‘take down’ any product. I always approached each product with nothing but curiosity and a desire to have that curiosity satisfied” says Patrick di Justo, author of ‘This is What You Just Put in Your Mouth’.
All the products mentioned in this book are part of your world and even if you don’t use them, you are better off knowing what is in them rather than not knowing.
Coffee is a startling example of a product which most of us drink without even knowing what chemicals go inside. According to Dr. James Duke, author of a groundbreaking work on all the natural plant chemicals, coffee alone contains more than a thousand chemicals.
Caffeine is certainly the most important chemical. This white powder is the reason why the world produces more than sixteen billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It is an alkaloid plant toxin which plants use to kill bugs. Caffeine stimulates us by blocking neuroceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. When the sleep chemical is blocked by caffeine, the result is you remain awake.
Coffee also contains quinic acid which causes the burning sensation in your stomach and acetylmethylcarbinol. The latter comes in the form of a flammable yellow liquid which helps give real butter its flavor and is a component of artificial flavoring in microwave popcorn. Other chemicals present in coffee include Dymethyl Disulfide and Dicaffeoylquinic Acid, therefore it is not surprising that few coffee producers inform the public about these chemicals in their brew.
“Nescafe and Starbucks, just to choose two examples at random, nearly completely gloss over the chemicals in coffee on their websites. Their PR people are even less helpful, limiting their replies to things like ‘the finest coffee beans’ and ‘pure filtered water’” writes Patrick di Justo.
Red Bull is another popular beverage. Its high caffeine content is responsible for all the things this drink is supposed to do for you such as increase concentration and reaction speed, improve emotional state and boost metabolism. It also contains taurine, a substance originally extracted from bull bile in 1827. It is made now synthetically and its actual effects are pretty wide-ranging. It can act as a mild sedative and an age-defying antioxidant, it even has the potential to stabilize irregular heartbeats. Glucuronolactone is another chemical ingredient. To this day little research has been done on it but the people who drink Red Bull are convinced it fights fatigue and increases well-being.
Orbit white gum is made with styrene-butadiene, the same petrochemical rubber used to make automobile tires. This gum is supposed to whiten your teeth which explains the presence of Sodium Bicarbonate or baking soda, a plaque inhibitor and gentle abrasive that cleans teeth without damaging the enamel.
The author has also looked into the content of the Power Bar Protein Plus. It is interesting to know that one of the ingredients is Soy Protein Isolate which is a protein extracted from ground-up soy-beans, with the fats and sugars removed. This protein is rich with phytoestrogenes given to women during their menopause. Furthermore a high intake of soy protein has been linked to lower rates of coronary heart disease.
Another component found in these energy bars is Whey Protein Isolate which is a compound of globular proteins whose structure is similar to hemoglobin. Its main protein, beta-lastoglobulin serves essentially as a good source of amino acids for building other proteins.
The bar’s chewy texture is due to glycerin and its sweetness comes from high-fructose corn syrup and Maltitol Syrup. The latter triggers gas and bloating and can also produce a laxative effect so powerful that countries like Australia and New- Zealand require a warning label on foods that contain it. As for high-fructose corn syrup, this ingredient is found in most so-called health foods.
Other ingredients include Copper Gluconate which is supposed to fight a copper deficiency but a study has shown that it adds nothing to the diet. Calcium Phosphate which is supposed to be a performance enhancer is in fact a powdered bonelike mineral used to polish teeth and build hard tissue prosthetics.
These bars have a chocolatey coating. Chocolate coating can only be made with one type of added fat-cocoa butter but everything produced under the chocolatey label means that cocoa butter can be added to any other fat.
“PoweBars use fractionated palm kernel oil instead which is about as healthy as Elmer’s Glue- All” explains Patrick Di Justo.
The author also sheds some light on the following terms we often find on labels such as: fat free, nonfat, low fat and light or lite. According to the FDA, zero fat means anything from actually zero up to half a gram which means that four servings of zero fat food can actually contain up to two grams of fat!
“Light means that the food gets less than 50 percent of its calories from fat. If you buy a package of cookies that are one hundred calories per serving, and forty-nine of those calories come from fat, that is officially a light or lite cookie” writes Patrick Di Justo.
In the second part of the book, the author focuses on products we don’t put in our mouth. One interesting product researched by the author is April fresh Downy Fabric Softener. One of its main ingredients is Dihydrogenated Tallow Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride, a substance which is derived from rendered fat from cattle, sheep or horses! While researching this product, the author learned that old-fashioned laundry soap, being made of fats, tended to leave behind a thin film of lipids on the washed clothes whereas new laundry detergents didn’t leave that film, resulting in clothes that were marginally less soft. So detergent companies replaced laundry soap with a product designed specifically to coat your clothes with a thin layer of fat which cuts down the absorbancy of your towels precisely the reason you bought them in the first place.
Patrick Di Justo also researched a popular product we put to use on our skin. The Neutrogena Healthy Skin Face Lotion SPF 15 contains Hydroxyacetic Acid also known as “alpha-hydroxy”.
“It’s a corrosive acid that breaks apart the outer layer of skin, spurring new cell growth. While it may make you look younger, it can also make skin twice as vulnerable to sun damage, good thing Neutrogena adds SPF 15 sunscreen”.
The main sunscreen ingredient is a compound Octyl Methoxycinnamate which is a fairly recent addition to sunscreen lotions because the ozone layer used to stop UVB rays.
This lotion is also made with Benzophenone, a substance present in diesel exhaust. If inhaled or absorbed it may disrupt hormones and mess with your brain. Scientists do not recommend using it on children.
The author takes a hard look tempered with humor at fifty products which we use on a daily basis. Packed with shocking facts, this book is a must read if you want to know the truth about the content of the products we use. Its infotainment at its best and so much fun to read!

— Lisa.kaaki@arabnews.com