Did you know that "Caramel Color" is the most used food coloring in the whole world?
So what exactly is "Caramel"?
Well . . . the making of "caramel" is just sugar melted down to caramelize. Which right there isn't a good thing! Because as we know from previous Health tips . . . sugar feeds "bad" bacteria and "cancer"!
Okay . . . so next question . . . Then what is "caramel coloring"?
Well . . . we spoke yesterday about fat-soluble and water-soluble briefly. Caramel coloring is a water-soluble food coloring .Meaning it dissolves well in water. So for adding to other baking elements . . . this is ideal. It's made by a heat treatment of "carbohydrates" (sugar), in the presence of acids, alkalis or salts. This is the process called caramelization.
Caramel color is produced from commercially available nutritive sweeteners consisting of fructose, dextrose, invert sugar, sucrose, malt syrup, molasses and starch hydrolysates.
Oh man . . . that doesn't sound good at all!!!!!
OKay . . . hang on . . . it gets worse . . .
Caramel color is derived from the same sugar and "corn" that "high fructose corn syrup" is. And hopefully you read my Health tip about how the corn of today is almost 100% GMO food.
And as I said above . . . "caramel color" is one of the oldest and most widely used food coloring for enhancing a naturally occurring color, correcting natural variations of color and replacing color that is lost in light degradation during food processing and storage,
You got it . . . . masking what processed foods really looks like.
Okay . . . so if all that wasn't back enough . . . when caramel color is manufactured it can lead to the formation of a "carcinogen" cancer "causing" chemical called "methylimidazole (4-ME).
And caramel coloring is in EVERYTHING!!!!!
So read labels people . . . do not consume items with this cancer potential agent in it.
As always, feel free to contact me here