WARNING: “With Added Fiber” May Mean You’re Eating Nothing But Wood Pulp

We all want natural food. Foods grown in nature, not a test lab. Foods that start in the ground and grow up to the sun. Plants that start from seeds. Plants that grow underground, on the ground, and even in trees. But what about the trees themselves?

Well, I don’t think we’re supposed to eat those.

Sure, we eat leaves and healthy greens, but what about the wood? Would you eat powdered wood pulp? There are no nutritional values, no health benefits whatsoever (obviously), and no taste. But the FDA says it’s okay.

The FDA has long-approved using cellulose in packaged foods to help thicken foods like ice cream and syrup, keep foods like bread and cheese fresh, and “add” fiber to foods. But it isn’t really fiber.

Wood Is Not Food

See, fiber is one of the building blocks of our food. Everything we eat breaks down into either Fats, Proteins, or Carbs and Fiber is counted as a carb. However, when counting carbs we don’t count fiber. Why? Because it doesn’t turn into a sugar.

Fiber is used in our system to help remove waste more efficiently. It also helps with blood sugar control, weight loss, and heart health. Too much fiber, on the other hand, can lead to an unhealthy gut. Fiber may be the source of your inflammation, digestive problems and unexpected weight gain.

The Food Babe makes a strong point about the lasting power of fiber:

“Just think: What lasts longer? The fiber from a real apple or the fiber from a piece of wood?”

Some trees have been growing for thousands of years, whereas an apple goes bad in a couple weeks. And the FDA has put “no limit” on the amount of cellulose (aka wood pulp) that can go into processed foods. This is why your gut is getting inflamed – because the wood pulp lives in it.

Yes, we clear most of our fiber out. But the “fiber” found in cellulose isn’t like normal fiber. The FDA says:

“In humans, virtually 100 percent of orally ingested cellulose can be recovered in the feces within four days, indicating that absorption does not occur.”

We do not even use this “added fiber” that is sells as “healthy” to the unknowing consumer. That’s right, if it says “added fiber” on the box it’s because there is extra wood pulp in it. This helps it become “healthy”.

How else are they sneaking pulp onto our plates? Cellulose isn’t only known as cellulose, it goes under a few different names. Check the ingredients in the packaged goods in your kitchen for:

Cellulose AKA

• Carboxymethyl cellulose

• Microcrystalline cellulose or MCC

• Cellulose gum

Cellulose most typically used as the thickener in ice creams, canned foods, and fast food, the foam stabilizer in beer, and the binder in the jam, syrup, sherbet, and other desserts. But that’s only for the food industry.

That’s right, believe it or not wood pulp isn’t just “food.”

Where Is Cellulose Hiding?

In the textile, textile printing, and dyeing industry cellulose or wood pulp is used as a sizing agent for cottons and other blended materials. It’s also used in the paper industry as a smoothing agent, increasing the strength of the paper by 40-50%.

Cellulose is now part of our daily lives: it makes up the clothes we wear, and the foods we eat. Where else is it used? Carboxymethyl cellulose is added to detergents because it absorbs dirt. It’s also in our daily use because we brush our teeth with it.

Cellulose is used as adhesives, plasticizers, suspending agents and fixing agents. That means it binds things up. Imagine what it is doing in your intestines, as it irritates your insides it collects and sticks around as an unnecessary weight and alien object in your body.

The construction industry uses cellulose to improve a material’s water retention. So eating cellulose means your water retention will increase, and you will hold more water weight.

The only thing we can really do to avoid eating like a beaver is to check the boxes of products we buy. If you really want to cut to the chase, stop buying things in boxes – and definitely stay away from fast food. When you buy groceries for yourself and your family, make sure to keep to the fresh produce aisle; don’t buy pre-shredded cheese (as cellulose is used as an “anti-caking” agent); and don’t be happy with serving unknowns.