The new American study that showed that purchase of foods with food additives on the rise in the USA!

A new American study shows that 60% of foods that Americans purchase now contain food additives. The increase has been 10% since 2001. This is not good because effects of these additives on the body are still unclear.

The new American study

There is a new American study in the journal, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that determined the amount of additives in foods that Americans consume daily. This is the first study of its kind that investigated in detail what American consumers are purchasing from the shops for consumption. The study did not rely on reported food and drink intake of consumers.

The researchers took help of the Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel data from 2001 and 2019. They could find out the proportion of foods that US households purchased that had these four technical food additives namely colors, flavors, preservatives, and non-nutritive artificial sweeteners. They compared these in 2001 to that in 2019.

The study findings

The study revealed that 60% of the foods that American households purchase contain the four food additives. And over the last two decades, this has risen 10%. Moreover, food manufacturers have increased the number of additives per product instead of reducing them. The mean food additives was 3.7 in 2001 and it is 4.5 in 2019.

Food additives can increase palatability and shelf life of foods. But their long term health consequences have not been studied. There is a concern that they could adversely affect health and lead to cancer. They also can upset gut microbiome. The lead author, Elizabeth K. Dunford from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA says:

“Our research clearly shows that the proportion of ultra-processed foods with additives in Americans’ shopping carts increased significantly between 2001 and 2019. We observed this trend across all food and additive categories,”

Moreover, there was a 22% rise in purchase of ultra processed baby foods and these had additives in them. Elizabeth added:

“These findings give us reason for concern, given the growing evidence linking high consumption of processed foods with adverse health outcomes,”

Only one positive trend was the decrease in flavors in fizzy drinks.

Expert opinion

Another author, Barry Popkin said:

“With manufacturers producing foods and beverages with an increasingly higher number of additives, it is more important than ever to understand what is in the foods that Americans are buying and eating,”

“U.S. consumers are demanding a much higher level of transparency from brands and retailers than in previous years. We hope the findings from this study will be used to inform policymakers on where Americans — especially babies — are being exposed to additives, and how the packaged food supply is changing,”

The authors hope that the policy makers take note of these findings.

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Elizabeth said:

“The findings from this study could be used to inform policymakers on where American consumers are getting an increasing number of additives and how the packaged food supply is changing. The results can also set the foundation for future work in this area and provide direction for future researchers,”

“At a minimum, I hope this work leads to further investigation into the types and amounts of ingredients being used in the manufacturing of baby food products.”