"Enriched" & "Fortified" Foods Are Detrimental to Our Health

by Melissa Wood ND

Have you ever seen these words on a cereal box, a loaf of bread or flour? Have you stopped to think about what it means? This article is going to talk about these two words and the detrimental impact they have on our food supply.

Enriched......You'll see this most commonly on flour, breads, tortillas and pasta. What this means is that during the refining process, valuable nutrients are stripped away. Most commonly, this refining process is done with wheat and results in white flour. The wheat grain, when processed, contains the hull from the kernal and is brown. Food manufacturers strip that hull (bran) away in the refining process, resulting in white flour. In that process, valuable nutrients are lost. Then, B Vitamins are "enriched" into the flour because they were stripped away when the flour was made.

Fortified... Foods like dairy products, orange juice, cereals and juices. These foods have additional vitamins and minerals added to them to increase their nutritional value. Often food manufacturers will have on the label "fortified with essential vitamins and minerals"; but in the natural health world that is just code for trying to cover a very important fact! They are trying to hide the fact that there is a significant amount of high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar in that box. This particularly happens with cereals. Recently, some food manufacturers are going to "whole grain" cereals; don't be fooled! Just because they are using whole grain, doesn't make this a healthier option. The sugar content is simply unacceptable in most of these products.

Obviously, if your diet is consisting of a lot of packaged and processed foods, if you're shopping down the isles of the grocery store instead of on the outside of the store (where the fruits, vegetables and lean meats are located), you're missing valuable nutrition from your diet and are likely on toxic overload. Processed and packaged foods are detrimental to our health. They don't contain the necessary nutrients to keep our body in good working order. Most of the patients I see are on a mostly processed and packaged food diet, which is why they are looking for some natural health care! When these types of foods are routinely eaten, nutritional deficiencies and imbalances within the body will occur. This processed food diet can result in a lot of health symptoms: allergies, headaches, blood sugar imbalances, ADD/ADHD type of symptoms, digestion problems, fatigue, joint pain, sleep problems and stress. That's quite a list! Remember the golden rule: if it comes in a bag or a box and you got it from the isles of the grocery store, chances are that it's processed and has little value to sustain a superb level of health. Remember to shop on the outside of the grocery store and if you do need to get a few things within the isles of the grocery store, be sure to read your labels!

Nature doesn't need to have "enriched" and "fortified" foods. If you're eating the diet that nature intended that is predominantly vegetables, fruits, lean meats and nuts/seeds, you'll see that you'll have no need to purchase anything that has been "enriched" or "fortified". Nature has provided everything we need to obtain a superb level of health.

Bottom Line is: If we have to "enrich" and "fortify" vitamins and minerals in our food, then we shouldn't be eating that food at all! Stick with natural and whole foods like fruits, vegetables, lean meats and nuts/seeds. This will result in a strong and healthy body!