You may never have thought much about this, but many manufacturers of processed and prepackaged foods add phosphates as a preservative and flavor enhancer. Your Thanksgiving turkey, juicy pork loin, frozen chicken breasts, egg rolls and even your gallon of milk contains phosphates. “Why is this of consequence?”, you may ask. It’s important because it could be making you sick.
A close friend of mine suffered for years with intestinal discomfort, headaches and diarrhea believing that he was merely lactose intolerant. The odd thing was even on days when he wasn’t drinking milk he was still feeling sick. It wasn’t until he and his wife looked very closely at the ingredients in their food to find a common link that they realized that phosphates were common in almost all their food. They’ve had to switch to organic chicken, turkey and pork and even organic dairy products. His discomforts and sicknesses went away.
So, if you think you are lactose intolerant you may be depriving yourself of dairy for no reason. Are you still feeling symptoms of food sensitivity even though you’ve cut out dairy? It could be the additives in your food. Pay careful attention to when you eat chain store bought chicken, turkey and pork. Do you feel ill after eating? You may need to look for local fresh sources of the meats or find a small grocery store that uses local slaughter houses for their source of meat. Don’t just go back to drinking milk right away either. Even if it’s not on the label your milk likely has phosphates. Why don’t you see it listed in the ingredients? Because it is used in such small amounts that they are not required by the FDA to list it. Check cans of evaporated milk and you’ll see that Dipotassium Phosphate is listed on every brand (every brand I’ve found anyway) because in the evaporation process the phosphate is condensed down into an amount large enough to require mention – it doesn’t evaporate out.
Firstly, I’m a mom and wife. Professionally, IT consulting is my job and blogging is the outlet for my passions. I write about things that affect the everyday life of a stay-at-home parent or any parent for that matter such as parenting, relationships, discipline, the media, product reviews, giveaways, social media, food, cooking, gardening and anything else that might come my way.
