This is the year! No really, you’ve made a pact with yourself and this is finally the year you’re going to start exercising more and eating less. You’ll lose that extra 10 pounds before summer with the help of the diet versions of your favorite indulgences, right? Getting healthy has never been easier.

If you’re like most people, you meticulously scour the nutrition info on your chips for the fat and calorie content without giving the ingredient list so much as a glance. Our government, after all, would never allow food manufacturers or restaurants to add in things that could put our health at risk.

Well, think again.

Once upon a time, all food was considered organic so it didn’t require that little green USDA label (which actually allows up to five percent of food to be non-organic) or the often inflated price tag. Believe it or not, more than 3,000 food additives and preservatives popular today did not even exist until the latter part of the 20th century. In 1958, the government recognized the potential dangers of these compounds and established The Delaney Clause to the Food Additives Amendment. This strict regulation stated that no food additive, including pesticides, will be considered safe if it’s found to induce cancer when ingested by man or animal (yep, including lab rats).

Unfortunately, this zero cancer risk standard was removed in 1996 when President Clinton signed the Food Quality Protection Act into law. Yes, titles can be misleading. Although it sounds like progress, this dubious act lowers safety standards to a “reasonable certainty of no harm to consumers” thus allowing known cancer-causing substances to slip through new cracks.

The good news is that the FDA requires that most packaged foods divulge all of their ingredients. For many diet foods, the unpronounceable laundry list of chemicals that often reads like a science experiment should be reason enough to question the integrity of these processed products.

Let’s be honest, ice cream was not invented to be a sugar-free health food. Even your body doesn’t know what to make of the growing list of synthetic ingredients in many ice cream brands. Believe it or not, many of them are indigestible — thus revealing the mystery behind how something so tasty can be so low in calories.

“The body doesn’t have the enzymes to break down these artificial sugar compounds,” explains Dr. Nomelí Nuñez, an assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Texas. “This means you can’t metabolize them and energy (what we call calories) can’t be collected. A zero calorie product still has calories, but you’re just not able to extract them as an energy source.”

While Nuñez is hesitant to confirm cancer causation, he suspects many additives can easily cause allergic reactions and other bothersome side effects. And monitoring your Diet Coke/headache connection might become increasingly difficult with the help of Senomyx, a California-based company who has discovered taste receptor manipulation.

Senomyx has contracted with Nestle, Coca-Cola, Campbell Soup and four other leading food and beverage companies to put a chemical in their products that enhances salty, sweet and savory flavors while masking bitter taste by blocking those specific receptors.

Sound like science fiction? Well, it’s in the not-so-distant future. In fact, it’s already happening in increments and these chemical compounds are not yet required to be listed separately on food labels. So much for tracking down the culprit behind your post-lunch migraines.

As artificial ingredients become more prevalent and increasingly elusive, it’s important to become an educated consumer. We’ve tackled the truth behind 10 of America’s favorite additives. What you didn’t know might shock you into putting down that bag of chips. At the very least, it may convince you to pick up an au naturale potato.

OLEAN

Lay’s Light Original, Pringles Light Original or Pringles Light Sour Cream

Originally filed with the FDA as a drug, this man-made fat was created by Proctor & Gamble as an attempt to have your cake and eat it too. In fact, it was first promoted as a fat that would help you lose weight and even lower your risk of heart disease.

Consumers quickly realized that the former claim might be related to spending more time on the toilet. Products made with Olean are touted as fat-free simply because the body is not able to digest this synthetic fat. Giving the Pringles Light slogan “once you pop, you can’t stop” a whole new meaning, Olean is known to cause diarrhea, loose stools and painful abdominal cramps.

Olean is full of ironies. Proctor & Gamble add fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) to products containing the fat because Olean is known to inhibit the body’s ability to absorb these vitamins and other minerals.

PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL

Fat-free Kraft Singles and Special K Bars

You know it better as trans-fat and you probably have quite a negative impression of it already — for good reason. Vegetable oil is liquid at room temperature, which doesn’t make it conducive to easy packaging and a long shelf-life like fats such as butter. Simply put it through hydrogenation and presto! You solve your problem while knocking out some of the good unsaturated fats and creating a monster.

Why are these synthetic fats so dangerous?

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health estimate that trans-fat is significantly linked to more than 50,000 premature heart attack deaths each year — probably due to elevated cholesterol and considerable plaque build-up in major arteries. Other studies have also shown a strong association between high consumption of this fat and both breast and colon cancer.

Although the FDA concluded in 2004 that trans-fat is even more harmful than saturated fat, they still considered it GRAS or “generally recognized as safe.”

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS)

Snackwell's Cookie Cakes

Developed in Japan in the late 1960s, this inexpensive sweetener became America’s favorite bad boy more than two decades later. As its name implies, HFCS contains much more fructose than regular corn syrup. Unlike glucose, the body doesn’t use fructose efficiently and high amounts can disrupt metabolism partly by inhibiting the process by which the body tells us we’re full.

Adding insult to injury, a study published in the November 2000 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicated that high levels of fructose elevate triglycerides — blood fats that increase the risk of heart disease — in men.

If you’re not concerned about weight gain or heart disease, HFCS has other virulent secrets. Less than a year ago, mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested commercial HFCS samples. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) found this known toxin in products manufactured by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and even Smuckers.

Unfortunately, its long shelf-life and ability to blend well with other ingredients means food manufacturers won’t be cutting HFCS out anytime soon.

ACESULFAME-K

Nestle Fat-Free Cocoa, Eclipse Gum

Another contender in the sugar-free challenge is the sweetest of them all — except when it comes to inflicting cellular damage. Manufactured in Germany, Acesulfame-K (the K is the chemical symbol for potassium) is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. When less is more, food manufacturers will jump on the chance to dramatically cut down on sweetener costs.

Acesulfame-K is frequently used worldwide in foods such as sugar-free baked goods, chewing gum, gelatin desserts and soft drinks. With such a complicated name, it’s not surprising that this synthetic sweetener has been linked to cancer and thyroid problems in animal studies. This is partly due to the large doses of acetoacetamide, a toxic byproduct leftover after acesulfame-K is broken down by the body. Sounds delicious.

ARTIFICIAL COLORING

Gatorade G2 and Fat Free Jello

Although the Egyptians used food coloring to make their meals more appetizing, we’ve taken these chemical dyes to a whole new level. Do we really need to put Yellow no. 5 in our mustard when it’s naturally yellow?

These color additives offer no additional taste, vitamins or minerals, yet they persist in part due to claims that they boost children’s appetite. Ironically, a 2007 study published in the Lancet found that many of these food colorings have been linked to hyperactivity in kids with and without ADHD.

Dealing with an overexcited 7-year-old is one problem, but unfortunately these additives are also associated with a host of health maladies. Because most of the colors are derived from coal tar, many contain more than 10 parts per million (ppm) of lead and arsenic — both known carcinogens. Consult our brief list below to see where your most consumed color additive stands.

Red No. 3: According to a 1983 review committee report requested by the FDA, this dye caused thyroid tumors in rats.

Yellow No. 6: This third most widely used color additive is also one of the most controversial. Although it still remains approved by the FDA, many animal studies have indicated that it causes tumors of the adrenal glands and kidneys.

Blue No. 1: While not commonly used, this additive poses a risk for both cancer and neurological inflammation.

ASCORBIC ACID & SODIUM BENZOATE

Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi

Your mom was right when she said all that sweet soda would rot your teeth. Frequent consumption of either ascorbic or citric acid is known to rapidly demineralize tooth enamel. But, you guessed it; cavities are just the icing on the cake.

Sometimes additives that may appear safe individually can be deadly in certain combinations. In 2007, the toxic blend of sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid in popular soft drinks brought lawsuits against Coca-Cola and Pepsi. These two ingredients can easily react to form benzene, an industrial solvent and notorious carcinogen.

The suit alleged that Pepsi’s Diet Wild Cherry drink had benzene levels nearly four times the maximum level set by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. Both companies have reformulated their drinks by simply substituting ascorbic acid with citric or phosphoric acid — sodium benzoate still remains in almost all of their beverages.

ASPARTAME

Lipton Diet Iced Tea Mix

Once upon a time, America’s favorite artificial sweetener was low-cal saccharin. But when study after study linked it to multiple types of cancer, aspartame took its place and quickly rose to fame. This popular sweetener is not without many of its own noxious secrets.

Aspartame, a chemical combination of two amino acids and methanol, has been linked to a host of health hazards including neurological disturbances (hallucinations and dizziness), menstrual difficulties and aggressive lymphoma and leukemia.

The cancer connection was first seen in a 1970 study which suggested that aspartame caused brain tumors in rats. Since then, research has exhibited conflicting evidence. However, those studies that haven’t found a cancer risk are usually uncontrolled and/or don’t consider the longitudinal effects of consumption from childhood to adulthood.

STEVIA

Truvia or PureVia

Traveling all the way across the ocean from Brazil and Paraguay to the shelves of health food stores like Whole Foods, this natural sweetener comes from the yerba dulce shrub and is 100 times sweeter than sugar. But, as you are now well aware, just because a substance is natural doesn’t mean it’s safe.

Originally used in Japan, it came to America in the 1990s where it was promptly rejected by the FDA for use as a food ingredient. This dismissal was due to alarming results in rat studies which indicated that stevia reduced sperm production in males and was linked to smaller and fewer offspring in pregnant females. To make matters worse, derivatives of stevia such as steviol can be converted into a mutagenic compound with the potential to promote cancer.

That didn’t stop beverage empires Coca-Cola and Pepsi to develop new derivatives of this sweetener with catchy names like Truvia and PureVia, respectively. Currently, the FDA has granted both products a GRAS status despite limited studies and the knowledge that large amounts of stevia can interfere with carb absorption and disrupt the conversion of food into energy.

SORBITOL

Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches

The jury is still out when it comes to serious health hazards associated with this natural sweetener typically found in fruits and berries. Although a close relative of sugar, it’s only half as sweet. Sorbitol is also a perfect sweetener substitute for those with diabetes since it is absorbed slowly and does not spike blood sugar.

It may not cause cancer but this sweetener is not without its own unpleasant side effects. Excessive consumption of sorbitol is known to have a strong laxative effect often accompanied by diarrhea and abdominal pains. It can exacerbate problems in people who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or Crohn’s disease.

This intestinal effect is so common that the FDA requires foods containing a certain amount of the sweetener to bear the label statement: “excess consumption may have a laxative effect.” The next time you are grocery shopping, check out the nutrition info on your favorite sugar-free ice cream and you’ll see those words. You might want to pick up some toilet paper while you’re there.

MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (MSG)

Chinese Food

Once the ultimate flavor enhancer, this amino acid now has a reputation that precedes itself. Stingy companies love using MSG as it allows them to reduce the amount of real ingredients. That’s how chicken stock can be made without chicken — mind-boggling isn’t it?

The additive was initially associated with Chinese restaurants but was quickly picked up by most fast food chains and processed food manufacturers. In the 1960s, consumers became hesitant when the first animal studies indicated that large amounts of MSG were linked to nerve cell destruction.

As if brain deterioration isn’t enough cause for concern, this flavor additive is notorious for allergic reactions — some of which are severe. Even moderate consumption of MSG may likely cause headaches, nausea, reproductive disorders and high blood pressure. Asthmatics have been known to experience seemingly unprovoked attacks.

It can be difficult to avoid this additive as the FDA doesn’t yet require companies or restaurants to label foods containing it. Typically, it hides in canned soup, salad dressing, chips and frozen meals.