During a recent family visit to NZ, we were horrified by some of the food and by the lack of awareness of the nasty additives.

The worst

A tie between this ice cream (“people love it, it is the favourite icecream of most children” one mother told us) with four nasty artificial colours.

Three of these would require a warning label in EU ‘MAY HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT ON ACTIVITY AND ATTENTION IN CHILDREN'.

 

And these ‘Garden spinach’ (2%!) wraps with four artificial colours, two preservatives and a nasty synthetic antioxidant.

Even worse than Australian green wraps.

 

And the best

A wrap and a pita bread

Yes, this wrap contains olive oil which is not failsafe, but only at 1.8% so tolerable for such a useful wrap, also in wholemeal. Hard to find one as good in Australian supermarkets other than Mountain Bread.

This pita bread was a real find!

It was also interesting that of 6 random loaves of sliced bread in the supermarket, only one had added propionate 280-283 bread preservative (as “fermented wheat”!) and that was the most expensive brand. The same brands in Australia all contain added bread preservative.

More information

The $2m Southhampton study on the effect of colours on children’s attention and behaviour

Scientifically referenced factsheets by symptom

Avoiding harmful food additives

Introduction to food intolerance

More scientific references