Are enriched/fortifying foods really enriching to your health?

Article from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/531941/is_enriched_food_really_good_for_you.html?cat=51

One would look at a food label and interpret the word enriched to mean that extra vitamins and nutrients were added to the food. In actuality, enriched means that a food that has been processed has been re-supplied with vitamins and minerals. This means that vitamins have been lost and processing and artificially added back. The label of ‘enriched' of foods would mislead most customers to think it means something other than it actually does. Let us look at this more closely. Enriched food has first lost its nutrients. In modern day food processing which includes canning, freezing, cooking, and adding preservatives, foods often end up lacking in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. While processing can be very necessary to make foods last, and to get food to areas where it would be otherwise unavailable, the recipient is not getting it in its purest and most potent form. Artificial nutrients are added back to the foods. Because regular consumption of nutrient depleted food can result in poor nutrition, companies began enriching food by adding nutrients back to the processed foods. The artificial nutrients that are added back to the foods border on toxic. For instance, to replace the mineral iron that has been lost in food processing, a metallic form of iron is returned to the food. In fact, one study shows that using a strong magnet, metallic iron fillings can be pulled from a box of breakfast cereal. (I do not remember seeing metal fillings on any food chart.) Are the toxins in enriched foods dangerous? Since toxins are fat soluble, they can accumulate in our fatty tissues and possibly over time cause cancers and other illnesses. Other toxic additives added to foods are: In addition to metal iron fillings being used to replace the edible nutrient form of iron, you will also find fluoride in grain products. Fluoride in large amounts is known to be toxic.

Can I avoid eating enriched foods? Enriched foods are hard to avoid because all processed flour is enriched. If flour is enriched, then pastas, crackers, breads, cereals, and anything with breading are also enriched.

The only way to completely avoid enriched foods is to avoid all processed food and to grind your own flour. How do enriched foods affect my weight loss efforts? Foods that have been enriched no longer contains the vitamins and minerals that were intended by nature, and instead an adulterated version. While these foods my fill your stomach in the short term, in the end you will end up malnutritioned and crave more foods. To lose weight, you will want to remove as much enriched foods as possible from your diet and eat more natural whole grain based foods instead.