Green Options

Recently my husband was reading the ingredients list on the side panel of a cereal box, and he asked, “What’s BHT?”  His question got me thinking.  Would consumers gulp down that box of ready-made breakfast cereal if BHT was listed “butylated hydroxytoluene, a potential carcinogen”, instead? My mind turned to this article from last year about Polish researchers who are using raspberry seed extract as a natural alternative to BHT.  But are natural preservatives that much better? What is it with the obsession of extending shelf life through the use of additives, anyway?

Lick a gummed envelope flap to seal it, and you’ve just tasted corn.  Lather up with shampoo, and you’ve got corn seeping in to your pores.  Brush your teeth, and you’ve got corn in your mouth.  Walk past the perfume counter in any department store, and you’ve just inhaled corn into your lungs.  The madness doesn’t end here.  Corn is everywhere.

For those of us with corn allergies, it’s not just the corn-on-the-cob and the hush-puppies that are the problem, thank you very much.  No, it’s the vitamin D in fortified milk, the food-grade wax coating fresh produce, the dextrose mixed into iodized salt, the citric acid used to rinse loose greens and baby carrots, and the cornstarch filler in baking powder. A friend of mine used to joke that I couldn’t even drink water, and that’s not far-fetched.  If you’ve taken a sip from a bottle of mineral-enhanced water recently, you’ve swallowed corn.