Crohn's Disease Dietary Therapy

Prepared, Packaged and Bottled Foods

We know that the rising incidence of CD parallels the improvement in the Western lifestyle of living.  Diet, as outlined above with large quantities of cheap meat and fats, is one factor that is likely contributing to CD.  The second factor that may be important is that so many of the foods we eat and which are so readily available are those foods that are packaged, bottled or prepared in a food factory far away from where you purchase them.  Food manufacturers add a very wide range of chemical additives to their foods to enhance taste, smell or appearance, to provide good mouth feel and especially to ensure long shelf life.  Each of these substances by itself has long ago been approved by the federal FDA.  However, many of these substances have not had rigorous research on their long term safety, particularly when so many and/or so much of them are ingested.  There has been no or little research on what happens when they come together in the intestine.  This could be especially important to the Crohn’s patient whose intestines are exposed to so many of these food additives.  A possible very important group of additives are the food emulsifiers.