Definition
By chemical, I mean artificial chemicals or highly extracted chemical components. So, “no chemical diet” suggests no (realistically minimal) consumption of synthesized manmade chemicals or nontraditional extracted food items produced after multiple steps, such as corn syrup. It does not include foods which are a collection of thousands of biochemicals. I suggest moderations in the gray areas which include traditional extracted single chemical component, such as sodium chloride, from the sea or sugar (sucrose) from sugarcanes.
Rules
Choose food with natural ingredients (biochemicals) if possible. For instance, if I want to eat guacamole, my rule is to choose a commercial guac with no chemicals or make one myself since all it needs is mashing up an avocados. Similarly, I can always deep fry thin slices of potatoes for chips. However, I understand that I would need to use dash of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in my desserts. Eat organic to avoid things such as trace amounts of antibiotics, supplemental hormones, and pesticides/insecticides residues.
Not taking it to extremes. I believe in pragmatic rules of avoiding chemicals in diet, when realistic alternatives exist. I don’t believe in 100% compliance. For example, I still have many chemical-laden condiments that I eat because very little is added to food. Having said that, I would always buy organic ketchup (tomatoes and cane sugar) over 10 cents cheaper regular one with 50 different ingredients. Similarly, I don’t want to eat silicon dioxide (sand), which used as an anti-caking agent in spices. I would rather have clumped spices rather than eat nontraditional ingredient sand. I am also blatantly opposed to categorizing all artificial chemicals in one group. For example, I am not against iodized salt fortified with small amount iodine salts to prevent iodine deficiency. Similarly, I don’t shun milk fortified with vitamin D.
No restriction while eating out or experimenting. Really, I don’t want to be pretentious jerk when eating out or being cooked for. I also don’t want to limit my freedom to try once a new dish or a novel ingredient, even they contain chemicals. This rule also gives me flexibility to fulfill my urges for anything chemical, such as diet coke.
Posted in: No Chemical Diet |
3 comments for this post.
August 4, 2010, at 2:16 PM
As you are a chemist, I would be interested in hearing more of your opinions on chemicals and food. This is a good overview of how you approach your eating habits. But I am curious as to more specific information – what chemicals do we typically find that can be easily avoided, what are the really harmful chemicals, what are good substitutes to chemical ingredients. Don’t be affraid to get technical.
On a similar note, what then is your opinion of molecular gastronomy and eating things like xantham gum or agar agar? Or eatins something frozen with NO2?
August 4, 2010, at 2:55 PM
@jason, you are exactly right. This post is more on how I want to approach my eating habits. The logic is guided by the hypothesis that for our bodies have not evolved to healthily consume massive amounts of highly process single chemical components. I do plan on doing more specific on chemicals and food. However those topic needs more research on my part. I don’t want to state anything about a scientific fact without reading original peer reviewed articles on the subject that discussed those topics.
I am not too familiar with the health effects of xantham gum, which is basically fermentation of sugars by bacteria or agar, which is obtained from algae. Agar have been used for a while but xantham gum’s use in food (as far as I know) is recent). So agar in moderation should be okay. If you meant N2, nitrogen instead of NO2, what I can tell you that it’s safe since our environment is 70% N2 gas. Just be careful eating and handling supercold liquid N2 or anything it touch.
PS. of course there is one big exception to this, water, which is a single molecule (with trace amounts of salt)!
April 28, 2011, at 1:48 AM
[...] eight hours of sleep. I also need to stop postponing things I want to do. I posted last year about No Chemical Diet with goal of eating minimum of synthesized manmade chemicals as well as extracted food items. Yet [...]
Post a Comment!
Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *