Left Turn: When The Preservatives In Food Aren’t The Contamination. But The Article On Them Actually Is

Photo: Omkar Jadhav, Unsplash

What Happens When The Magic In The Study Is Hidden By Darker Arts?:

So people in the know here will not be surprised by this. But, short story:

Through some odd coincidence one summer, I got reactive-arthritis.

Probably the result of buying lox or prosciutto at the deli counter.

When I found out how this works and how you can’t avoid it, I was stunned to think, “But I thought if they sold it in the store, it was safe!”

We all make that assumption. On the shelf == someone vetted this! Right? -Every time we step into a store or supermarket.

Where we promptly dismiss oldey-timey nutrition wisdom. But sometimes the things grandma might say turn out to be the smartest.

And there’s a French team with 100,000+ subjects and years of data who would suggest that too; until…

The Short Answer:

• Sometimes there are worse things on food and in food than you might imagine.
• Ultra-Processed Foods are a great example.
• A U.Paris team went looking for problems with preservatives in food.
• They found one major carcinogenic concern in processed meats that previous studies also found.
• Those compounds are Nitrites and Nitrates; usually in the form of Sodium Nitrite.
• Manufacturers can also hide them with weasel-terms like Celery/Beet/Spinach/Chard Powder/Extract or even “Natural Flavorings”.
• Run away screaming from anything with that stuff in it.
• But they used their university press-room to publish a BS article with manipulated statistics about everything else.
• For their work on cancer, the result (except for Nitrates & Nitrites) showed an 89% chance of the other preservatives not being tied to increased rates.
• The difference between what the article says and the mandatory-reporting in the study shows misleading representations in the article.
• They did the same thing for their article’s claims on preservatives being tied to Diabetes.
• Those findings showed that all 17 preservatives represented at-most a 17% connection to that disease.
• Another nutrition expert said it best when he suggested that people look at the food & drink that the preservatives are in for the real links to disease.
• Most of these causes were from things like alcohol and high levels of sugar or high-glycemic carbs.
• Two preservatives in the Diabetes study were of minor concern; but the food was still the bigger problem.

Read on to find out the details…

They Sell It In Stores, So It’s Safe. -Right?…:

So we’ve all heard the recommendation over and over to get away from Ultra-Processed Foods.

Reasons? Fat, Salt, Sugar, Additives, or Omega-6 Oils like Canola or Soybean.

Just like my mistake of thinking there was nothing bad ON the food,

Supermarket shoppers of UPFs often think there’s nothing too too bad IN them.

The NutriNetSanté Study Goes Looking For Evil:

So in two large observational studies, researchers from Paris U. looked at NutriNetSanté subject data.

This went from about 2009-2023 and across more than 100,000 participants who reported just about everything.

The team then narrowed-down their list to 17 different preservatives to test.

And Now, The Very Interesting Framing Used By U.Paris Scientists:

Here’s what they found; supposedly:

“Total consumption of non-antioxidant preservatives was associated with an increased incidence of cancer overall and breast cancer specifically. […]

However, higher consumption of several preservatives (mainly non-antioxidant preservatives) was associated with a higher risk of cancer compared to lower consumption levels.” (here)

BUT…

The University Article Is Fearmongering Statistics-BS:

After that, the Paris crew accuses 6 different preservatives of being correlated with higher rates of The Big C.

In study #2, they say 12 out of the 17 are also tied to increases in Diabetes.

-Except just one little tiny thing.

Those reports are headline-mongering BS.

This Isn’t The First Time:

-Just like the post where major outlets said intermittent-fasting was dangerous and missed the healthy bits -RIGHT- in the study!

And here’s the clue: Nutrition expert Tom Sanders at KCL reminded us in some articles out there to do something rather sane.

-Look at the food & drink these things are used in!

Photo: Georg Eiermann, Unsplash

What They Got Right. Run Away Screaming From Nitrates & Nitrites!:

But first, the appropriate cautions & things the U.Paris team actually did get right.

The Terrible Two. Nitrites And Nitrates. (You usually see Sodium Nitrite) This is not a joke.

Several studies including this one, and others by Harvard[ARCHIVE] and the WHO have found that the Sodium Nitrite that’s used to cure ~all meats like lunchmeat, salamis, hams, hot dogs, and others ABSOLUTELY does cause cancer.

When it gets into your digestive tract, it forms toxic chemicals that can seriously screw you up. Like with almost 100% confidence they will increase your risk about 20%, per-dose, per-day.

Watch The Hell Out For Nitrates & “Uncured” Processed-Meats, Too!:

So do all other Nitrites and Nitrates. (the E-numbers for these are: E249, E250, E251, and E252)

Even sneakier? Any processed meat product that lies and says advertises itself as, “uncured”.

There, you should look out for:

1) Celery powder
2) Celery juice
3) Celery salt
4) “Vegetable extracts” (usu. celery-derived)
5) Swiss chard powder
6) Beet powder, juice, or extract
7) Spinach powder
8) “Natural flavorings” (weasel-word catch-all)
9) Any product whose label or PR says “uncured”, but still tastes similar to any lunchmeat or bacon you’ve had. (like that weird blood-orange+shoe-leather combo) -Trust your taste-buds!

(yes, it’s still safe to eat celery, chard, spinach and beets in their natural form, btw)

Here’s Why That’s BS. Because P Is For Phooey, Pshaw, & Poppycock!:

With that out of the way, Now here’s how they “massaged” the truth.

One Big Freaking Number: 89.

That’s the number from the study that’s not in the Uni article, but says how likely the conclusions are to be BS.

It’s called the P Number. And the closer it is to 1, the more worthless the results are.

So there’s an 89% chance that all of the preservatives they studied (except for Nitrates & Nitrites) do not cause cancer.

Not only that, but this one also means that even when subjects got more, there was still almost no effect when risk should have been going UP!

So Where Do The BIG SCARY NUMBERS All Come From?:

They come from what Tom advised us to do. Look at the food & drink.

1) Sulfates, Sulfites, And Sorbates don’t cause cancer.
1a) The alcohol and excessive sugars in the food & drink they’re added-to do that work.

2) Acetate/Acetic Acid doesn’t. It’s vinegar! Which has even been shown to be Helpful for metabolism & health!
2a) Guess what foods it’s mostly in? -Processed meats that have Nitrites and Nitrates.

3) Same thing for erythorbate. That is just a different form of Vitamin C that’s put into processed meats to REDUCE the number of harmful compounds!

So even for The Big C, almost all of the Paris team’s conclusions are like saying drinking water will give you radiation poisoning because they use it for cooling nuclear power plants!

(Guilt-by-association BS; that they know is BS.)

Photo: Elena Leya, Unsplash

BIG SCARY Stats-BS Is Also In Their Diabetes Study!:

The Irony Of Acetate Is Absolutely Acerbic!:

5) And what are acetic acid and acetates usually paired-with?

Fat-spiral-inducing bread, chips, condiments, salty crisps & snacks. -So “you can’t eat just one”!

But they actually REDUCE blood-sugar by 20% on food like salads. AND improve insulin-resistance!

So U.Paris told you the naughty effects were 31% in the article.

-When the real association is more like 0.065% (1.3% of 17% x 5% additives).

Let’s Not Tar All Articles With The Same Brush, But This One…:

So was our friend, Mr. Tom Sanders making the understatement of the century with respect to this study?

YOU BETCHA!

Maybe (except for Nitrates and Nitrites), just maybe, the unhealthy food & drink people had was the source of their problems,

And not the additives!

Photo: Felicia Buitenwerf, Unsplash

Maybe We Should Still Get Some Additives Out Of Food:

Now that being said, are there still some additives in food that should be done away with? Probably yes!

700,000 of the 3,500,000 different foods out there in the world database have some kind of additive in them. And even the EU allows about 330 different ones.

But that doesn’t excuse a study team from publishing university-source & other articles (which are otherwise silver-medal territory) that are WILDLY misleading!

Not only that, but they get normal people to FOCUS ON THE WRONG DAMN THINGS! -Like some kind of “outrage politician” or something.

–Imagine the people who actually listened to those guys and kept eating and drinking the wrong stuff,

And then blaming the results on the wrong culprit!

Dangerous Additives First! But Quality Nutrition Immediately After:

So when it comes to Health & Wellness, trust your good sense and also your taste buds.

If it tastes like cured deli meats in any way?
It’s probably “run away screaming”-bad for you.

If it looks or tastes like junk food, sugary drinks, or alcohol?
It’s also probably “waddle away sternly toward Planet Fitness”-bad for you, too!

It’s really sad to have to say this about a university article, but don’t believe the hype!

So go eat & drink something more like what your grandma would recommend.

Try to get more [yes] un-processed, but non-junk food & drinks that are much closer to home-made than they are to a factory.

Then, you will win on all fronts!

References & Links:

• Source: U. Paris
• More Coverage: The Conversation – UPFs | HT – Red Meat Risks
• Source Studies:
  • BMJ – Intake of food additive preservatives and incidence of cancer: results from the NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort
  • Nature.Com.Articles – Associations between preservative food additives and type 2 diabetes incidence in the NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort