Are preservatives really bad for you? Why?
In: 0
Depends on the preservative. The oldest preservative is salt, since it pulls out the water content and things don’t really spoil without water in them. Salt isn’t exactly “healthy” per se, but it’s not unhealthy either unless consumed in excess. Other preservatives might be, depends on the specific one you’re asking about
In general, no. Preservatives keep things like bacteria (which are *much more likely* to be bad for you) away, so they’re an overall win.
Every preservative has a specific percentage that it’s intended to be used at. If someone used a crapton more than that, then it might start to get dangerous – in exactly the same way that water can theoretically be toxic if you drink a crapton too much of it. The simple solution, of course, being *don’t do that*.
A preservative is just a substance that helps preserve food, stopping it to go stale, rot, etc.
Some substances are bad for you some are not. Some may be naturally occuring, some may be artificial. There is no deciding factor as to what makes them bad, we just had to study them and see.
Food additives are some of the most studied chemicals in the world. There are vast sets of regulations that judge what are safe and appropriate levels to balance the benefit of preservation versus the potential health impact. And over time, scientific understanding can change leading to changes in regulations.
Not really, the whole thing about preservatives and such stuff being bad comes from people trying to make food appear mire healthy by claiming its “natural”, really its mostly just marketing so they can sell the stuff at higher prices, in reality many of those products do have preservatives but they’re technically not classified as such or some other such bs.
There are preservatives which are *fine* and some that are *bad*. The dose also matters of course.
For example, preservatives like salt and citric acid are fine. They prevent bacterial growth but are not dangerous to you in the quantities you’d normally eat.
Then there’s stuff like nitrates / nitrites / celery salt, which are worse for you because they can cause cancer in your digestive tract.
Latest Answers