If you eat processed foods, you eat food additives. There really is no way around that fact. Some additives are benign and might even be considered beneficial, while others you might just want to avoid. I recently came across the ingredients alpha tocopherol and wanted to know which side of the line it fell on. Here's what I learned.

Alpha tocopherol is a form of vitamin E that is added to oils to increase their vitamin E content and to prevent the oil from going rancid. It is found naturally in wheat germ oil, leafy greens, and egg yolks. You will find it most commonly added to vegetable oils like sunflower, corn and soybean or in nut butters.

So, although the name sounds intimidating, alpha tocopherol is A-OK to eat.

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