Health News Update: Are Food Additives Safe?

Health News Update: Are Food Additives Safe?                                            10.19.26

Hello friends:  In late June I wrote about pesticide residues on foods and their contribution to cancer trajectories…the cumulative effects of small amounts of pesticides over years can add up to a disease. Does the same thing happen with food additives?

“Adding preservative additives to foods has become a standard practice in today’s food industry. In 2024, more than 20% of food items on the Open Food Facts World database contained at least one of these additives.1 The European parliament defines food additives as substances added to packaged products to prolong shelf life: protecting the foods against deterioration due to microorganisms, growth of pathogenic microorganisms, and deterioration as a result of oxidation, such as rancidity and color changes.

Conclusion: This large prospective cohort showed multiple positive associations between intake of widely consumed preservatives and increased incidence of overall, breast, and prostate cancers. These findings may have important public health implications given the ubiquitous use of these additives in a wide range of foods and beverages. Although replication in other epidemiological cohorts as well as additional in vivo and in vitro studies and short-term trials are needed to better understand underlying mechanisms, these results are consistent with existing experimental data suggesting adverse cancer related effects of several of these compounds… In the meantime, the findings support recommendations for consumers to favor freshly made, minimally processed foods.”

https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-084917 food additives & cancer incidence

Bottom Line: Our total toxic load can slowly erode our defenses and contribute or perhaps cause many different chronic diseases as well as raise our level of chronic inflammation and cause or aggravate or perpetuate virtually any health condition. The evidence is mounting that it is worth the effort to consume minimally processed (mostly home cooked!) and organic foods in order to keep our overall burden of toxins at a minimum. So, now that we all know…get cooking!

There is also evidence that eating a cleaner plant-based diet (PBD) plan is less costly, especially considering the long run costs associated with adverse health outcome expenses associated with processed foods and excessive animal product intake:

Cost reductions are primarily driven by eliminating expensive animal products, with savings often exceeding increased spending on fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Global modeling incorporating health and environmental externalities further demonstrates that PBDs are more cost-effective than current omnivorous diets when external costs are considered.

https://www.academia.edu/3067-1345/3/1/10.20935/AcadNutr8137 plant-based less costly