How Food Additives and Ultra-Processed Foods Affect Health

Okay. So we're going to talk a lot actually about processed foods. So this was a deep dive. I really wanted to look into this. Well, for one reason, it's been— there's been a couple of new studies that have been really well done and it's been clear that there's additives in processed foods aside from the sugar that seem to be detrimental to human health. And so James submitted a question, and James says, what substances in processed foods are the most detrimental to our health? Food colorings, preservatives, sweeteners, binders, anything that keeps stuff from separating. I am unclear on what are the bigger concerns and what qualifies food as processed. So there's more than 10,000 chemicals that are allowed in food sold in the US. 10,000. That's a lot.

So it's kind of eye-opening to keep that in the back of your mind when you go, oh, we allow 10,000 chemicals to be added to our food sold here in the United States. How are you going to keep track of 10,000 chemicals? That's a lot. Some are direct additives and others are indirect additives, like heavy metals, which contaminate food during processing and storage and packaging. So there are things like if you're buying a bar of dark chocolate, for example, maybe has high levels of cadmium, arsenic, right? It's not that those were added to the chocolate. It's just there in the processing of the cocoa plants. The cocoa plants take up these heavy metals from the soil, particularly depending on where they're grown, and processing always concentrates things, right?

A lot of times you'll get indirect additives as well. Almost 99% of food chemicals that were introduced since the year 2000 were greenlighted for use by the food and chemical companies rather than properly reviewed by the FDA. So these substances end up in what we eat, thanks to the legal loophole that allows them to be in there. So essentially what I'm saying is, 99% of the food chemicals since the year 2000 that are in our food that we can buy in the grocery store got there not because FDA directly reviewed them and found them to be safe, but because they're greenlighted for use by food and chemical companies, and they're generally recognized as safe. So it's kind of a big difference there. The FDA, when they're directly reviewing whether or not a chemical is safe.

They're looking at that food chemical and whether or not it's okay to consume. So it's a little bit different, and it's also a little bit eye-opening when you go, oh, so that's like everything— anything that's after the year 2000, more or less, was not even directly reviewed by the FDA. It was just allowed because of a legal loophole into our food. So there's things like nitrates, which are found in plants, but there's nitrites. Nitrites are preservatives used in cured meats. Nitrites can form nitrosamines, which are carcinogens. They're linked to a variety of cancers, colon cancer, stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, and possibly even thyroid and brain cancers. Potassium bromate, this is another carcinogen that's actually added to flour and it's used in packaged baked goods.

Then there's propyl polyparaben, which is a preservative that's also used in pastries. It's also found in some tortillas. It's been shown to cause developmental and reproductive harm. Then there's butylated hydroxyanisole, or BHA. So this is another preservative that you can find in some cured meats and other foods. It's also been identified as a carcinogens. Again, a lot of processed meats have been linked to cancer. It's also skewed a lot of the data when you hear about meat consumption and cancer. A large portion of that is coming from processed meats, which are different than eating a whole lean source of meat. Right. So that's also something to keep in mind. There's stuff found in kids' food like Pop-Tarts. It's called TBHQ. That's also— it harms the immune system.

Then there's titanium dioxide. So that's a color additive that's used mostly in candy, and it damages DNA. So it's a mutagen, basically. There's brominated vegetable oil. So that's called BVO, and that's used to stabilize Citrus flavors in sodas and fruity drinks. That's involved— it's been shown to cause neurological harm. Then there's the per- and polyfluoroalkyls, so that's the PFAS. These are the toxic forever chemicals. Sometimes people call them PFAS, like the PFAS. They're used in a lot of the packaging of food, so it's not in the food itself, but it's in the packaging. You know, prepackaged food because you don't have time and it looks like whatever you're buying is healthy-ish, right? But the packaging itself has these PFAS in them and they leach into foods.

Particularly, I mean, if you're getting foods that are like soups or something that's been heated, that almost is like— it goes like 100-fold higher in terms of leaching a lot of these chemicals into the actual food itself. And the PFAS, they're associated with increased risk of cancer, also associated with damaging the immune system, but really a lot of emerging evidence about damaging reproductive systems. So there's been a lot of, I would say, associative studies that have linked these forever chemicals to decreasing sperm counts and things like that. So it really seems to be affecting reproductive systems as well. There's also artificial colors. Now these are like red number 3, red number 40, yellow number 5, yellow number 6, blue number 1.

These are in a lot of different processed foods, particularly candies and pastries and things that are targeted towards cereals, like children, things that children are eating. They have been shown not only in observational studies, but randomized controlled trials to cause behavioral difficulties in children, particularly ADHD. In children that already have ADHD, it goes off the chart. They just get really— it exacerbates it. A lot of those artificial colors, they're linked to, again, behavioral difficulties. Then there's artificial sweeteners. So sucralose being one, these have been associated with affecting hormones, affecting, you know, having a negative effect on metabolism.

And I think the International Agency for Research on Cancer recently classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans. Like, this was a very, very recent thing, like within the last month or so, that that was— that made— made some headlines. Again, those aspartame, like that stuff, those are found in a lot of diet beverages and stuff like that. Then of course, there's the heavy metals. A lot of those do leach in. Those are indirect contaminants. Sometimes they end up in baby foods and slow growth and development as well. That's like— there's one class of toxins. The processed foods, right? The chemicals. Now there's also the ultra-processed foods. And there was a study that was published in 2021.

I think it was Kevin Hall's study that found— it defines ultra-processed foods as industrially manufactured, ready-to-eat, or ready-to-heat formulations of food. So they're like not whole foods. But they're snacky foods, also known as junk food, I guess. And these are even things like flavored yogurts, breakfast cereals, enriched— that are thought to be enriched with beneficial nutrients. These are all the ultra-processed foods. And there's really just a lot of studies on those that they're harmful. They're playing a role in causing metabolic dysfunction and weight gain as well, and links to cardiovascular disease risk. So everything that we talk about with too much refined sugar or saturated fat, well, these ultra-processed foods are doing similar things as well.

And so then you add, in addition, these ultra-processed foods also have You know, they have a high caloric density, so there's refined sugar and there's lots of saturated fat. It's just everything together just makes them so much more dangerous. Trans fats, those are now really banned, but like they were in foods for a very, very long time, and they really adversely affect lipoprotein profiles and the risk of coronary heart disease. And then there's a lot of effects on endocrine pathways, and these These are things like inorganic phosphate salts. So those are absorbed to a greater extent than organic phosphorus, which naturally occurs in foods.

And there's been observational data that have looked at serum phosphate and excess dietary phosphorus, basically, associated with cardiovascular disease. Also disruption of hormonal regulation. So it's disrupting hormonal properties as well, and again, affecting things like oxidative stress, arterial calcification. It's disrupting endocrine function. So another big one that most people are aware of is the BPA that also affects endocrine function. So this is in a lot of packaging materials now. You'll see a lot of materials that say BPA-free, but they have BPS as a substitute. Now BPS is being linked to endocrine dysfunction. So it's like trade one for the other, right? I mean, like take your pick.

I think you're better off avoiding the plastic water bottles and going for something like this that's not plastic. I raised up my Yeti container here, by the way. So it's like just because something says BPA-free doesn't mean it's off the hook. I think it just means you're trading one chemical for another. You know, BPA has been— it's structurally similar to 17-beta estradiol, and, you know, there's been a lot of different preclinical research showing it, you know, can promote insulin resistance, inflammation, pancreatic beta cell dysfunction. It binds to estrogen receptors, and then there's, of course, observational data as well. So there's some other compounds that are linking what are called UPFs. And UPFs have been linked to cancer. They've got also obesogenic properties.

So they can— they're in a lot of— they're like food additives. So they're in, you know, again, it's one of those things to keep the shelf life, keep the shelf life, right? But they're linked to cancer and the carcinogen compounds that are formed are formed by heat treatments. So it makes things like acrolein, acrylamide. By the way, acrolein, sulforaphane intake increases acrolein excretion through urine after like 24 hours. It increases it by like 40%. So acrolein is also something that is— it can be formed just from like cooking food really hot at high temperatures and stuff as well. But it is in this food additive, the UPF. So there's just all this stuff that's in processed foods that people eat that they're just not aware of.

And I think at the end of the day, these continual exposures to these things day in and day out, particularly for people that are eating large volumes of processed foods— I mean, once in a while it's fine, right? You're traveling, whatever. But I think day in and day out, it's really— harmful in many ways on multiple systems, endocrine system, brain function, our DNA and being a carcinogen, on metabolism, obesity, heart disease. It seems to be affecting all the systems. It goes back to that whole paleo diet concept. I know there's so many fads that have come around. There's keto, paleo. Paleo was a big one to start and then keto and carnivore. I think at the end of the day, sticking to a whole foods diet, I think if you're just sticking to a whole foods diet, you're going to be healthy.

It doesn't have to be choosing one of the fad diets, but just eating fruits, vegetables. Yes, fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, you know, nuts. Like, these are, these are healthy foods to eat.