Real food refers to vegetables, meats and wild-caught seafood, nuts, seeds, eggs, fruits and raw grass-fed dairy; foods that are in their whole primarily unaltered form.

Such foods will not only reward you with rich concentrations of vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants, but they're also beneficial for what they do not contain — food additives.

If you eat processed foods, you're consuming a chemical cocktail with each bite. Even seemingly simple foods like bread, processed cheese, salad dressing or pasta sauce are typically loaded with preservatives, emulsifiers, flavorings, colorings and other "enhancers."

9 Top Food Additives to Avoid

Since the 1950s, the number of food additives allowed in U.S. food has grown from about 800 to more than 10,000. We're not talking only about simple natural ingredients like vinegar and table salt anymore, but countless chemical concoctions that are putting Americans' health at risk.

What little risk assessment was done on such chemicals is typically done on individual chemicals in isolation, but mounting research suggests that when you consume multiple additives in combination, the health effects may be more serious than previously imagined.