Seven disgusting secrets of your food

A horrifying report has revealed the kinds of food secrets that might just put you off your breakfast. It explains how some cheese isn't made from milk, some sugar comes in disguise, and crisps may not be all they seem.

The report appeared in the latest edition of Readers Digest, and these secrets were revealed through 50 interviews its researchers conducted with individuals working in the food business. While it was aimed at an American audience, many of the 50 food secrets it revealed apply here too.

Surprises

When you check a list of ingredients on your favourite foods for sugar, you may be pleased to see it quite a way down the list, but that doesn't mean it's not high in sugar - because some of it may be disguised as something else.

Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, pointed out that manufacturers also include things like high-fructose corn syrup, cane crystals, dextrose, evaporated cane juice, agave nectar and fruit juice concentrate. These are all forms of sugar.

Cheese may not be what it seems either. Melanie Warner, author of Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal, highlights that to save money some manufacturers take some of the milk out of the process and replace it with processed milk protein or whey protein concentrate. These then tend to be known as cheese products instead of cheese.

And although lower fat baked crisps feel healthier, often they don't just contain potatoes - they are made from refined potato flakes mixed with grains and powders. Katherine Tallmadge, a Washington, DC–based nutritionist and the author of Diet Simple, suggests you may be better off with proper potatoes cooked in healthy oil - and to eat fewer of them.

Not what we expect

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, meanwhile, points out that food that comes in packets and boxes will contain tiny particles of the packaging they came in, which over time can mean we consume an awful lot of cardboard and plastic particles.

It's not the first report to reveal the horrors lurking in our food. In January food writer Daniel Tapper published Food Unwrapped, which revealed - amongst other things - that legally in the UK there doesn't have to be any milk at all in your ice cream - unless it's 'dairy' ice cream.

One of the most bizarre things revealed in the book is that the very first probiotic was originally produced in Finland from the faeces of one healthy American. Since then, it has been reproduced in laboratories from this single sample, and added into products around the world.

But what do you think? Do these things come as a surprise? Does it make you think any differently about these foods? Let us know in the comments.

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