Q. Some foods are labelled ‘no MSG’. What does MSG stand for and is it bad for our health?

A. Yes. It may contain small fragments of protein particles related to gluten. Maltodextrin is a starch which is used as a thickener or texture modifying agent in foods such as pasta sauces, flavoured milk drinks, puddings and cake mixes.

A. In Australia, products sold as “cornflour” were once alwaysmade from wheat, not corn or maize (its alternative name). These days, however, many of the cornflours at the supermarkets are now produced from maize.

A. Do you look at the date before you buy? I know I do! There are three types of date marking - a Use-by date, a Best-before date as well as a Baked-on date and it's worthwhile knowing the differences. Read on ...

Is your child out-of-control and hard to handle after eating junk food full of colours and preservatives?  Are they unusually restless or irritable after eating certain foods? For a small percentage of kids behavioural problems can be caused by food. Read on to find out more about kids and additives ....

Just when you think it’s safe to venture into the snack food aisle, out comes Cheese CC’s with “energy”. I feel sorry for parents trying to be vigilant about those rotten energy drinks. Now there’s caffeine being added to less-than-healthy cheese-flavoured snack foods to watch out for too.

We taste tested the Energy Cheese side by side with CC’s other two cheese flavours: Nacho cheese and Tasty cheese and rated them for taste, nutrition, caffeine content and convenience.

Are you suspicious of additives with their long, strange chemical names and code numbers? Well maybe you should be. Not just because some are considered harmful but because additives are usually indicators that a food is over-processed, cheap and manufactured. The stuff that keeps forever in your cupboard!

Don’t misunderstand me, additives don't automatically mean a food is unhealthy - excess fat, salt and sugar also do that. But additives do flag that the food is mass-produced and has a long shelf life made possible by the use of emulsifiers, stabilisers, flavour enhancers, acidity regulators and preservatives.

On food labels in Australia and New Zealand, nutrition figures are presented in a standard table format called the Nutrition Information Panel or NIP. This important panel shows the quantities per serve and per 100g of the food or 100mL if liquid. If you can understand the numbers on it, I find it's an invaluable aid to assessing any food.