Understanding Foods Labeled 'Modified'; What Is Modified Food Starch and Should It Be Avoided?

Written by Thomas Corriher Wednesday, 09 December 2009 13:52

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Selecting healthy foods from grocery stores is often very difficult in this era, since so many of the products are actually toxic.  Reading the ingredients can be scary, and most people do not understand them.  This is intentional, of course.  There is one ingredient that reoccurs often: Modified Food Starch.  We avoid it, but had never researched the modification process until now.  What we found was particularly disturbing.  The only thing this label ever tells with certainty is that the 'food starch' is not really food starch anymore.  There is no definitive way to know what the stuff is, but if it were natural, then they would have no problem revealing it.

It is usually chemically treated to change it into a thickening agent, emulsifier or stabilizer, but it can be chemically treated in many ways, and for different reasons.  Consumers have no way to know, and due to the lack of labeling; we can conclude that the F.D.A. believes that people have no right to know, as in the cases of radioactive foods, genetically engineered foods, and so on.  It is obvious who exactly the F.D.A. is protecting, and it certainly is not us.  In the future, the health conscious may be taking Geiger counters and portable test labs with them for grocery shopping.

A product simply labeled 'modified starch' has been treated with an acid in order to lower its viscosity.  It seems that the chemical industry believes that acid, especially sulphuric acid, is an essential nutrient.  Perhaps it is for this reason that their synthetic (U.S.P.) vitamins, such as iron, are made with sulphuric acid.  For the record, that's not what we mean when we recommend 'sulfur proteins'.

The long term health effects of these things are completely unknown.  Once again, we are the guinea pigs, and the bio-tech experimentation is still in progress.  These modified starches are generally very hard for a body to digest, and of course, there have been no studies on the long term effects of eating these mystery substances.  The executives might not like what such studies would reveal, after all.

We found that modified corn starch often contains about 10% maltodextrin, which is a common keyword used by industry to hide the presence of Monosodium Glutamate (M.S.G.).  In addition, a huge portion of modified starches come from China.  The lead poisoning of toys and the melamine poisoning of infant formulas should have resulted in huge concerns over Chinese food supplies, but the F.D.A. treated the poisoned babies as just a public relation's problem, and even coached the companies involved about how to best deal with the media onslaught.  Modified food starch is in the great majority of processed foods, and if they were to become likewise tainted, then millions of American citizens would die horrifically before the source was discovered.

Modified food starch seems to be an all-encompassing term which allows food manufacturers free reign over what they do to their products.  There are several different foods that can be used, including corn (usually labeled as 'modified corn starch'), potatoes, tapioca, and wheat.  When most people see the term 'modified', they assume genetic modifications, but if this were the case; it would not even have to be on the label at all (and it never is).  Around 70% of all processed foods contain genetically modified ingredients, including soy, corn, canola, cottonseed, and sugar.  You would be hard-pressed to find any manufacturer who is publicly admitting it on the labels.