March 25, 2025 • 23 mins
Ever wondered what's really lurking in your packaged foods? The truth about common food additives might shock you.
Food additives occupy a controversial space between scientific evidence and real-world health impacts. While traditional toxicology focuses on immediate, lethal effects, the emerging research reveals something more insidious—these substances accumulate in our bodies over decades, potentially triggering serious health problems from metabolic disorders to cancer.
I walk you through the ten most concerning additives hiding in your pantry right now. Artificial sweeteners disrupt gut health and metabolism despite being marketed as "diet-friendly." MSG acts as an excitotoxin with documented neurological effects. Red Dye 40 and other artificial colorings can transform a child's behavior within minutes—something parents can observe firsthand by comparing reactions to home-baked treats versus commercially-colored candies. Even seemingly innocent ingredients like carrageenan (in dairy alternatives) and potassium bromate (in bread products) carry significant long-term health risks.
The regulatory landscape explains why these substances remain approved despite growing evidence of harm. Food manufacturers prioritize shelf stability and palatability, while FDA guidelines focus on immediate toxicity rather than cumulative effects. The result? Americans consuming ingredients that European countries banned years ago. Fortunately, you can protect yourself and your family through simple strategies: reading labels carefully, choosing whole unprocessed foods, buying organic when possible, and preparing more meals at home with natural ingredients.
Take control of your health today by becoming an informed consumer. What additives have you discovered hiding in your favorite foods? Share your experiences and join our community dedicated to healthier eating without the chemical complexity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Living a
Full Life.
I'm Dr Enrico Del Ciccori andthis week we'll be talking about
food additives and how they canbecome toxic and what they do
to our overall health.
On one of our last episodes wegot into toxicity and dyes came
up, and that's been a hot topicrecently with RFK and the whole
(00:24):
revamping of oils used in friedfoods and in processed foods.
And then the dyes came up aswell, and Red Dye 40 has now
been pulled off of the FDAapproval list for the United
States, which is great.
It's huge and that created alot of spur One of the most
frantic episodes I've had, withthe most emails that came in
(00:45):
about that like, oh, I didn'teven know dye could do that to
behavior.
So go back to that episode andlearn more about dyes.
But let's talk about foodadditives in general, the hidden
dangers of food additives, andreally this episode is what you
need to know about them andwhich ones are the most common
ones that are out there that youshould probably avoid that the
FDA still allows.
Now, on social media, when youscroll in the doom scrolling of
(01:09):
TikTok, facebook, instagram,whatever it is that you're using
, you'll see both sides of everystory.
When we talk about health andwellness, you'll see the crunchy
side talking about howeverything's bad and then you'll
see the medical side saying howit's all phony baloney, that
really nothing's that toxic.
Because from a scientificmethod, when we talk about
(01:30):
toxicity, toxicity means toxicdose that leads to an adverse
effect or even death.
That's what toxic means.
So let's say you get into somearsenic or rat poison, you
better run to the hospitalpretty quick.
That can be toxic.
Or if you get bit by arattlesnake or a cottonmouth or
a black widow spider, thesethings can be venomous and
(01:51):
poisonous and it can create alethal dosage inside the body.
So when we think of toxicityfrom a medical and scientific
perspective, it means pathologyand adverse reaction in the
moment.
A cumulative effect of toxicityover time is not considered
scientific principle.
So that's why you get thismiddle ground of the debate
(02:12):
session on both sides sayingwell, come on, msg is not that
bad for you.
If you go out and get someextra monosodium glutamate,
what's the big deal?
It's just a salt used in mostbarbecue rubs, flavoring
seasonings, it's all in there.
What's a matter with that?
And how much are you going toconsume to really cause an
effect, an adverse reaction,where you fall down on the floor
(02:34):
and have a convulsion orpossibly die.
I mean, I understand both sidesof the story.
So when we talk aboutscientific method, it's the
toxic dose.
What's the amount that we haveto give to kill someone?
And then the the scientificdose is the toxic effect.
Then the healthy version of thisor the vitalistic version of
this is like what happens overtime, in the slow accumulation
(02:57):
of this stuff over time, andthat is becoming more and more
scientifically relevant becausewe're actually monitoring what's
happening all around the world.
Europe got rid of most dyes along time ago.
They didn't even introduce someof the dyes that we have here,
like the yellows ever.
They never, ever passed Euroclearance into their food system
(03:17):
and then they had to pull blueand red 40 out of there very
quickly because they werefinding it linked to behavioral
issues and lighting up the brainin negative ways.
So here we are now in 2025 andrelooking at this stuff, as we
always should, and seeing whatis healthy and what is not.
So when we talk about the worstfood additives out there, I'm
(03:38):
going to list these in noparticular order, but we're
going to go through them.
I got about 10 that we reallyneed to consider for yourself
and your family when you'relooking at additives and to
avoid on all causes, becausethese are ones that accumulate
over time to cause pathologicalchange in the body which may not
lead to imminent death, but itwill lead to disease,
(04:00):
inflammation, obesity, diabetes,cancer.
It can lead to all of thesethings, so let's talk about them
.
Artificial sweeteners has got tobe on the top of the list.
We got to talk about this.
We try to avoid sugar becausewe know sugar makes us fat and
we can see fat when we look inthe mirror.
I find american culture is veryvanity, very mirror-esque,
where, when we look in themirror and it starts to change
(04:21):
our skin or if we start losinghair or if our teeth become
yellow, well, holy smokes, arewe going to jump to to change
our skin?
Or if we start losing hair orif our teeth become yellow, well
, holy smokes, are we going tojump to changing our lives very
quickly?
Or if we start gaining weightbut we don't see the inside?
So we smoke cigarettes andcigars and vape and do marijuana
and do all this stuff becausewe can't see our lungs right.
We can't see what's happeningon the inside.
But if God designed us with awindow on our chest, trust me
(04:42):
people would not be.
They'd be wondering.
Sexy lungs would be, you know,nice and pink and healthy, and
black lungs would not be.
You wouldn't marry somebodywith black lungs.
So that's, that's unfortunatetruth of our society.
So when it comes to artificialsweeters, we've replaced sugar,
fructose, glucose and highfructose corn syrup with
(05:04):
artificial aspartame, sucralose,saccharin, all these other ones
that are directly linked tometabolic issues.
So they also can causemetabolic issues.
It may not be weight gain, butit can really skew the metabolic
system in how they efficientlybreak down amino acids, build up
fatty chains and break downcarbohydrates.
(05:25):
So this can cause havoc on ourmetabolism.
And another thing it does is itwrecks havoc on the microbiome,
the gut health, because thebacteria and viruses in your gut
don't even know what theseartificial things are.
They don't know how to breakthem down, they don't know how
to utilize them and they reallycause dysbiosis in the gut and
some of them even have apotential carcinogenic effect.
(05:45):
Aspartame in the 90s was shownand proven to be linked to not
calcification but mildewing ofthe brain where a film and a
layer was building up onpeople's brains, linked to type
3 diabetes or dementia andAlzheimer's.
So these studies are out thereso that what they did is renamed
aspartame, but they stillcontinue to use derivatives of
(06:08):
it.
Danger, danger.
So artificial sweeteners in.
You know, every now and then,if you're grabbing a diet soda,
that's okay.
Having two diet sodas every daybecause you're replacing the
two sugary sodas you used to do10 years ago, not a good idea.
The accumulative effect has aneffect.
That's it.
So I would say artificialsweeteners number one.
(06:28):
Number two MSG.
I brought it up earlier.
It's an excitotoxin that cancause headaches, fatigue and
neurological issues.
Now you're going to say howcome?
Why would salt cause this anddoes eating it once at a buffet
really going to affect me?
No, you may have some cravings,you may have some lucid dreams
that night.
Those are common side effectsand then they go away.
(06:50):
But I had the opportunity ofworking in a bio and an animal
tech facility at the Universityof Calgary, in the medical lab
where we worked with mice, ratsand small animals for diabetes
research, parkinson's research,and each each doctor managed
different labs and differentthings, and I was more of a tech
(07:11):
, and there was one with themonosodium glutamate and what
ended up happening is you cancause instant seizures in infant
mice immediately, depending onthe dose that you give them.
So you give them, you know,0.01 gram didn't really know
much.
They become hungrier, they atemore and they were fatter
long-term.
But the short-term one is whathappened?
If you give them 0.02 or 0.03,they would go into convulsions,
(07:35):
0.04, they would die.
So if you can do that toxiceffect in a small 16 gram mouse
tiny little gram mouse, comparedto 160 pound adult human, 0.04
will do nothing for you, but thecumulative effect of having
this all the time.
Imagine if you use seasoningsalt with celery or celery salt
(07:57):
with MSG in it and it was yourmain seasoning that you used
every day, two, three times aday for cooking.
Well, what happens after 20years?
What's the effect there?
Are we going to have chronicheadaches?
Are we going to haveneurological issues long-term?
That's where research is goingright now and the answer is yes.
High fructose corn syrup thisone's being pulled off the shelf
(08:17):
as well, which is great.
We're going to lose the highfructose corn syrup in America.
Finally, that makes sense.
Increased risks of obesity,insulin resistance and fatty
liver disease We've known this.
It's high concentrated sugar.
Of course it's never good.
I don't think we have to preachto the choir.
You all agree with me on thisone.
Eating high fructose corn syrupprobably not a great idea of
(08:40):
concentrating sugar compoundedon itself as a good thing.
Might as well just use somecane sugar or some natural sugar
to sweeten whatever you'rebaking naturally there.
Cane, whatever it is, coconutsugar, whatever you're going to
use.
Trans fats and hydrogenated oils.
We have to be careful in ourprocessed foods and how we cook
them.
These contribute directly toheart disease, inflammation and
(09:02):
weight gain, and using good fatsis always a better decision
than using bad fats.
We won't dive into that.
We have other episodes aboutfats.
You can go back and search itand watch those videos those are
great.
Or listen to those podcasts.
We dive right into those.
Those are great.
Sodium nitrates and nitritesthese ones are used usually to
(09:23):
cure processed meats that's themost common utilization in them
used in deli meats and they'redirectly linked to cancer.
This hits home for me immigrantparents.
My dad from Italy, big fan ofsalami, mortadella, capicolo,
(09:43):
all the good stuff, and it was astaple almost daily in his diet
by the time he was 67, he didget colon cancer.
Now, now you're going to say,well, it could have been for
many different reasons and itabsolutely is.
Stress, everything but thenitrate concentration and being
linked directly to colon cancer.
I was like dad, you know, youknow, maybe do you think that
may have done it.
He's like, yeah, maybe he, youknow, and so that hits home for
me it doesn't mean that's,that's a correlative thing.
(10:04):
It's not a direct scientificthing that if you eat nitrates
you're going to get colon cancer.
But for me it hit home and itwas very close to home.
So these things can add up.
So be mindful about nitratesand processed meats.
Eat them temporarily orintermittently, but don't make
them part of your diet daily.
That's, I think, a good advicefor that.
Potassium bromate and brominatedvegetable oils or BVOs they're
(10:29):
used in bread and sodas mainly.
Potential carcinogens andendocrine disruptors in the body
is the side effect.
So be careful with that.
Flip those bread packages overand make sure you don't see that
potassium bromate in there.
You may want to switch breadsjust to minimize this specific
toxin.
Over time.
Hopefully that gets off of theFDA list as well.
(10:53):
Carrageenan you may have seenthis.
It's found in dairyalternatives and you'll see this
on social media too.
Carrageenan it's used in this,in this healthy thing, and you
eat this all the time and it'sin gum and it's all this fine
stuff and it's fine.
But cumulative effects of thiscan cause digestive distress and
inflammation.
So, even though it's safe toeat and it doesn't have a toxic
(11:14):
effect or a deadly effect, thelong-term usage of carrageenan
is that it can distress thedigestive system.
This can lead to IBS, irritablebowel syndrome, gut issues,
dysbiosis, floral issues in thegut as well.
So, carrageenan, add that toyour list and just keeping an
eye out of it.
(11:34):
And when we say add it to yourlist, it's not to go to the
grocery store and do this everytime you go shopping.
It's to go through your fridgeand your pantry at home right
now and say, hey, what are thecommon things we buy week in and
week out?
The same eggs, the same almondmilk, the same bread, the same
deli turkey, the same chicken.
(11:58):
And then looking at thosepackages right there in your
fridge and just quickly goingover them and saying is there
any MSG in here, is there anycarrageenan in here, is there
any nitrates in here?
And just reading it and then,if there are maybe being like
man, we buy this every singleweek.
Maybe we should change thebrand of chicken that we're
buying or the brand of deliturkey that we're buying,
whatever it is, or bacon, orwhatever it is that you're
eating.
That's logistic ways of makingpermanent changes for you and
your family.
(12:19):
Artificial food dyes.
We talked about it Red 40,yellow 5 and 6, blue 1 and 2,
linked to hyperactivity,behavioral issues and potential
carcinogens.
Activity, behavioral issues andpotential carcinogens.
The United Kingdom has been aleader on the dye studies with
behavioral issues in childrenand you can do this study from
(12:39):
the comfort of your own home.
Give your kids Skittles, choosejust red, give them all the red
ones.
Actually, don't do this.
If we know this information,why would we do this to our kids
?
But don't bounce off the walls.
You're going to have immediatebehavioral disruptor issues.
It's not just the sugar, becauseif you bake something at home,
(13:00):
you make homemade cupcakes andyou give them a small portion of
a cupcake, they may get alittle active, a little bit
hyper.
But if you give them Skittlesor you give them something with
high absorbent amounts of dye init, where their mouths are
turning colors, watch thedifference between having a
handful of Skittles and having ahomemade cupcake, the
difference in behavior thathappens with your children.
Immediately Under the age offive, you will see this within
(13:20):
30 minutes.
Five to 10 years old, you'llget it within the hour.
Over 10 years old, it may takean hour or two to notice the
mood swings that they go through, and that's directly linked
with most children.
So what does that do to you andI as adults?
Being heavier, taller andbigger allows us to consume some
of this.
But even you will get irritableif you pay attention to how you
(13:41):
feel after eating these things.
Oh, that's a big one.
So dyes.
If it's too bright and it lookstoo good, don't eat it.
There's the natural colors thatcome from the world.
When you dye things I don'tknow if you've ever done Easter
egg dyeing with white eggs itnever ends up looking like the
commercial right?
That bright orange and thebright blue.
I'm sitting there dyeing theseeggs the whole time.
(14:02):
I'm like how do I get thisvibrant blue color?
And I just can't get it.
It's like this dull pastel blue.
That like this dull pastel blue.
That's normal.
That's how things work in thereal world.
You won't get that huge colorright.
You can get red red beets.
And if you ever use them byhand, what happens to your hands
?
They turn red right and youcould use that to dye things
(14:22):
like beet juice to get a nicered.
And even that won't get to abright skittle red, make sense.
To get that vibrant color youneed these chemical dyes to go
in there to do this.
There you go.
Artificial dyes.
Go back to that last episode ontoxins, which was two episodes
ago, and we dived right intotoxins and dyes came up quite a
(14:49):
bit.
Propylparaben is a preservativein baking goods and it disrupts
hormones and fertility.
This one, luckily, I don't seeanymore on packaging that much,
but it doesn't mean it's not outthere.
It's still FDA approved.
But it disrupts hormones andfertility and we can have a
whole episode about fertilityand why around the world
fertility is going down.
(15:09):
We've ultra-processed our foodaround the world.
Fertility rates are not goingdown in Africa like they are in
North America and there's areason for that and it's
definitely the processing offood and how we're consuming it.
And then butylatedhydroxyanisole or BHA and BHT
(15:30):
these ones are preservativesthat are used in chips, cereals
and their potential endocrinedisruptors and carcinogens in
themselves B-H-A-B-H-T.
You'll see these on the side asbutylated hydroxyl anisole and
hydroxytulene.
These are the two that are onthere.
(15:50):
Again, when I'm keeping an eyeout on ingredients, I don't see
it that much.
But me I'm going to the healthysections anyways, I'm not going
down the Wonder Bread aisle,right.
So for those of you that maypurchase those things, check
those things out, see if they'rein there.
They're endocrine disruptorswhich cause metabolic disorder,
hormone issues and are directlylinked to cancers.
(16:11):
They're found in teratomas fromhuman tissue, that where
they're built up, like the daysof the parabens, the polyphenols
, the estradiols, ddt you knowall these pesticides and
herbicides that are actuallyfound in teratomas in the body
and breast cancer, prostatecancer, liver cancer they're all
linked with potential effectsthere.
(16:33):
So again, toxicity, medicalright Versus vitalistic
viewership of toxic buildup overtime.
There are two differentmicroscopic lenses that we're
looking at this from, and thesethings are not venomous bites
from a rattlesnake right.
They're not going toimmediately have an effect where
(16:53):
you have to rush to thehospital, but the cumulative
effect is being shown in theresearch and the literature to
have a cumulative pathologicalchange in the bodies, and we
need to be on top of this,especially as parents, we've got
to protect our kids and whatgoes in their bodies.
Now you may ask things like whyare these additives allowed?
Well, hopefully there's achange, starting with the whole
(17:14):
change in government and theirstance on making America healthy
Again.
I guess that was their wholething.
I'm not going to hold my breath.
They're still government,they're still politicians.
I don't trust a single one ofthem.
But if change happens, that'sabsolutely wonderful.
The FDA creates guidelines, butthere's just too many loopholes
(17:35):
for the food manufacturers tojump through.
Super easy for them to get itin there.
If it is on the FDA notapproved list, they can say,
well, what's the amount that'snot allowed?
And they'll say, well, 0.02grams.
And then they're like, okay,great, we use 0.01.
They're still adding it inthere to make sure that the food
stays addictive and palatable.
Processed food's not good.
(17:55):
I don't know if you've everbeen in factories where they've
done this.
They're all made the same way.
They're all dried out, so theyall taste pretty much bland and
what you have to add to them islots of salt and lots of sugar
to make them taste good.
Then, to hold them on the shelfand hold the ingredients
together.
You have to have binders andpreservatives so that they don't
spoil on the shelf, so they canlast there for a few weeks four
(18:18):
weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks sothey can sell the product.
Make sense?
That's the loophole.
So these manufacturers are goingto the FDA saying, listen, it's
not logistically possible forus to create this Twinkie or
this Oreo or this cookie and putit on the shelf by your
guidelines, because if we do,it's going to be bad in eight
days.
It won't last.
We need to use hydrogenatedoils, we need to use so what's
(18:40):
the allowable dose?
Then they go to medicine andresearch and they're like listen
, this is the toxic dose, don'tever cross this point, we'll
allow this much.
And then it passes.
That's in a nutshell how thisgoes.
It's not evil corporationstrying to kill people.
It's literally them sayinglisten, we found out a way
through chemistry on how to makethese foods last on the shelf
(19:03):
so the consumers can buy them ina reputable time, in an
allowable time.
And then the FDA is like thatmakes sense.
Then the food companies givethe FDA and the politicians lots
of money called lobbying, andthey're convinced.
They're like oh yeah, this isgood and follow these guidelines
and we won't change them forthe next four years, and that's
(19:24):
how it really works.
I'm not being a conspiracytheorist here.
That's how government works.
So big food companiesprioritize shelf life over
health.
That's just the bottom line.
And the countries that havebanned certain additives have
put people really first on topof that, saying listen, there's
other ways to do this.
We don't need our Froot Loopsto be that bright.
(19:44):
You can still sell Froot Loops,but we're not going to allow
you to use Red 40.
Use a different one, and whatdo they do?
They use a different one andit's more of an orangey red one.
And whether they do, they use adifferent one and it's more of
an orangey red.
Fine, and it's more pale andpastel.
It's not as bright as it is inAmerica, and that's great.
And they can still sell FrootLoops in Ireland.
Make sense?
That's how that all works.
How to avoid food additives Readingredient labels.
(20:08):
What to look for.
You have to read the labels.
If you can't pronounce it, lookit up.
Shop for whole, unprocessedfoods.
This will keep you out oftrouble all the time.
You can pretty much buy organiccucumbers and organic lettuce
and organic grapes and not evenhave to read the label because
it's pretty simple.
That's one ingredient on thelabel grapes.
(20:29):
Pretty simple to buy thosekeeps you out of trouble.
But once you get into packagedand boxed stuff, read the label,
flip it over.
Read the label.
Choose organic when possible.
Organic just automaticallyminimizes the amount of
pesticides and herbicides thatcan possibly be in the food.
It's wonderful.
It's a wonderful way to shopand then use natural
(20:50):
alternatives for flavor andpreservation.
So salt at home, himalayan salt, Celtic salt, sea salt, and
using these things to seasonyour own meats at home helps you
preserve them and keep them inthe fridge longer, so that you
can cook them three days downthe road on the grill or
whatever it is that you want todo.
So there's ways to do this inthe house.
My dad used to cure his ownmeats and used to call it a cool
(21:13):
room up in Canada in thebasement.
He had a corner there in thelaundry room.
It was in the corner of thehouse and no drywall on it, it
was just concrete and he closedthe door and because it's Canada
, this thing would get down tolike 32 degrees, 36 degrees at
night in the winter and then inthe summer it'd be like 40, 36,
(21:33):
40 degrees during the summerdays, and so you could leave
meats in there and leavepreservatives and pickled olives
or pickled vegetables, jarredstuff, jams.
He'd keep everything in therebecause it was nice and cool.
It was almost like arefrigerator.
It doing Italian things all theway up in the Northern parts of
(21:57):
North America, which is prettycool.
So he did at home.
He had a little bit of a greenthumb and that spilled on over
to me.
So I just encourage you guysfrom this episode to read the
labels, you know, use cleanerfood brands and prep your own
meals.
It's it's how you're going toget away from these things.
And then, if you have any ideasfor the next episode, just keep
(22:19):
sending those emails.
I love them.
It keeps us on top of contentfor you and we know what you're
into and what you want to listento, what you want to learn more
of.
But yeah, there you go the topadditives to avoid.
Go out there, read them,empower yourself and protect
your family.
Have a great and healthy week.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Living a
Full Life.
I'm Dr Enrico Del Ciccori andthis week we'll be talking about
food additives and how they canbecome toxic and what they do
to our overall health.
On one of our last episodes wegot into toxicity and dyes came
up, and that's been a hot topicrecently with RFK and the whole
(00:24):
revamping of oils used in friedfoods and in processed foods.
And then the dyes came up aswell, and Red Dye 40 has now
been pulled off of the FDAapproval list for the United
States, which is great.
It's huge and that created alot of spur One of the most
frantic episodes I've had, withthe most emails that came in
(00:45):
about that like, oh, I didn'teven know dye could do that to
behavior.
So go back to that episode andlearn more about dyes.
But let's talk about foodadditives in general, the hidden
dangers of food additives, andreally this episode is what you
need to know about them andwhich ones are the most common
ones that are out there that youshould probably avoid that the
FDA still allows.
Now, on social media, when youscroll in the doom scrolling of
(01:09):
TikTok, facebook, instagram,whatever it is that you're using
, you'll see both sides of everystory.
When we talk about health andwellness, you'll see the crunchy
side talking about howeverything's bad and then you'll
see the medical side saying howit's all phony baloney, that
really nothing's that toxic.
Because from a scientificmethod, when we talk about
(01:30):
toxicity, toxicity means toxicdose that leads to an adverse
effect or even death.
That's what toxic means.
So let's say you get into somearsenic or rat poison, you
better run to the hospitalpretty quick.
That can be toxic.
Or if you get bit by arattlesnake or a cottonmouth or
a black widow spider, thesethings can be venomous and
(01:51):
poisonous and it can create alethal dosage inside the body.
So when we think of toxicityfrom a medical and scientific
perspective, it means pathologyand adverse reaction in the
moment.
A cumulative effect of toxicityover time is not considered
scientific principle.
So that's why you get thismiddle ground of the debate
(02:12):
session on both sides sayingwell, come on, msg is not that
bad for you.
If you go out and get someextra monosodium glutamate,
what's the big deal?
It's just a salt used in mostbarbecue rubs, flavoring
seasonings, it's all in there.
What's a matter with that?
And how much are you going toconsume to really cause an
effect, an adverse reaction,where you fall down on the floor
(02:34):
and have a convulsion orpossibly die.
I mean, I understand both sidesof the story.
So when we talk aboutscientific method, it's the
toxic dose.
What's the amount that we haveto give to kill someone?
And then the the scientificdose is the toxic effect.
Then the healthy version of thisor the vitalistic version of
this is like what happens overtime, in the slow accumulation
(02:57):
of this stuff over time, andthat is becoming more and more
scientifically relevant becausewe're actually monitoring what's
happening all around the world.
Europe got rid of most dyes along time ago.
They didn't even introduce someof the dyes that we have here,
like the yellows ever.
They never, ever passed Euroclearance into their food system
(03:17):
and then they had to pull blueand red 40 out of there very
quickly because they werefinding it linked to behavioral
issues and lighting up the brainin negative ways.
So here we are now in 2025 andrelooking at this stuff, as we
always should, and seeing whatis healthy and what is not.
So when we talk about the worstfood additives out there, I'm
(03:38):
going to list these in noparticular order, but we're
going to go through them.
I got about 10 that we reallyneed to consider for yourself
and your family when you'relooking at additives and to
avoid on all causes, becausethese are ones that accumulate
over time to cause pathologicalchange in the body which may not
lead to imminent death, but itwill lead to disease,
(04:00):
inflammation, obesity, diabetes,cancer.
It can lead to all of thesethings, so let's talk about them
.
Artificial sweeteners has got tobe on the top of the list.
We got to talk about this.
We try to avoid sugar becausewe know sugar makes us fat and
we can see fat when we look inthe mirror.
I find american culture is veryvanity, very mirror-esque,
where, when we look in themirror and it starts to change
(04:21):
our skin or if we start losinghair or if our teeth become
yellow, well, holy smokes, arewe going to jump to to change
our skin?
Or if we start losing hair orif our teeth become yellow, well
, holy smokes, are we going tojump to changing our lives very
quickly?
Or if we start gaining weightbut we don't see the inside?
So we smoke cigarettes andcigars and vape and do marijuana
and do all this stuff becausewe can't see our lungs right.
We can't see what's happeningon the inside.
But if God designed us with awindow on our chest, trust me
(04:42):
people would not be.
They'd be wondering.
Sexy lungs would be, you know,nice and pink and healthy, and
black lungs would not be.
You wouldn't marry somebodywith black lungs.
So that's, that's unfortunatetruth of our society.
So when it comes to artificialsweeters, we've replaced sugar,
fructose, glucose and highfructose corn syrup with
(05:04):
artificial aspartame, sucralose,saccharin, all these other ones
that are directly linked tometabolic issues.
So they also can causemetabolic issues.
It may not be weight gain, butit can really skew the metabolic
system in how they efficientlybreak down amino acids, build up
fatty chains and break downcarbohydrates.
(05:25):
So this can cause havoc on ourmetabolism.
And another thing it does is itwrecks havoc on the microbiome,
the gut health, because thebacteria and viruses in your gut
don't even know what theseartificial things are.
They don't know how to breakthem down, they don't know how
to utilize them and they reallycause dysbiosis in the gut and
some of them even have apotential carcinogenic effect.
(05:45):
Aspartame in the 90s was shownand proven to be linked to not
calcification but mildewing ofthe brain where a film and a
layer was building up onpeople's brains, linked to type
3 diabetes or dementia andAlzheimer's.
So these studies are out thereso that what they did is renamed
aspartame, but they stillcontinue to use derivatives of
(06:08):
it.
Danger, danger.
So artificial sweeteners in.
You know, every now and then,if you're grabbing a diet soda,
that's okay.
Having two diet sodas every daybecause you're replacing the
two sugary sodas you used to do10 years ago, not a good idea.
The accumulative effect has aneffect.
That's it.
So I would say artificialsweeteners number one.
(06:28):
Number two MSG.
I brought it up earlier.
It's an excitotoxin that cancause headaches, fatigue and
neurological issues.
Now you're going to say howcome?
Why would salt cause this anddoes eating it once at a buffet
really going to affect me?
No, you may have some cravings,you may have some lucid dreams
that night.
Those are common side effectsand then they go away.
(06:50):
But I had the opportunity ofworking in a bio and an animal
tech facility at the Universityof Calgary, in the medical lab
where we worked with mice, ratsand small animals for diabetes
research, parkinson's research,and each each doctor managed
different labs and differentthings, and I was more of a tech
(07:11):
, and there was one with themonosodium glutamate and what
ended up happening is you cancause instant seizures in infant
mice immediately, depending onthe dose that you give them.
So you give them, you know,0.01 gram didn't really know
much.
They become hungrier, they atemore and they were fatter
long-term.
But the short-term one is whathappened?
If you give them 0.02 or 0.03,they would go into convulsions,
(07:35):
0.04, they would die.
So if you can do that toxiceffect in a small 16 gram mouse
tiny little gram mouse, comparedto 160 pound adult human, 0.04
will do nothing for you, but thecumulative effect of having
this all the time.
Imagine if you use seasoningsalt with celery or celery salt
(07:57):
with MSG in it and it was yourmain seasoning that you used
every day, two, three times aday for cooking.
Well, what happens after 20years?
What's the effect there?
Are we going to have chronicheadaches?
Are we going to haveneurological issues long-term?
That's where research is goingright now and the answer is yes.
High fructose corn syrup thisone's being pulled off the shelf
(08:17):
as well, which is great.
We're going to lose the highfructose corn syrup in America.
Finally, that makes sense.
Increased risks of obesity,insulin resistance and fatty
liver disease We've known this.
It's high concentrated sugar.
Of course it's never good.
I don't think we have to preachto the choir.
You all agree with me on thisone.
Eating high fructose corn syrupprobably not a great idea of
(08:40):
concentrating sugar compoundedon itself as a good thing.
Might as well just use somecane sugar or some natural sugar
to sweeten whatever you'rebaking naturally there.
Cane, whatever it is, coconutsugar, whatever you're going to
use.
Trans fats and hydrogenated oils.
We have to be careful in ourprocessed foods and how we cook
them.
These contribute directly toheart disease, inflammation and
(09:02):
weight gain, and using good fatsis always a better decision
than using bad fats.
We won't dive into that.
We have other episodes aboutfats.
You can go back and search itand watch those videos those are
great.
Or listen to those podcasts.
We dive right into those.
Those are great.
Sodium nitrates and nitritesthese ones are used usually to
(09:23):
cure processed meats that's themost common utilization in them
used in deli meats and they'redirectly linked to cancer.
This hits home for me immigrantparents.
My dad from Italy, big fan ofsalami, mortadella, capicolo,
(09:43):
all the good stuff, and it was astaple almost daily in his diet
by the time he was 67, he didget colon cancer.
Now, now you're going to say,well, it could have been for
many different reasons and itabsolutely is.
Stress, everything but thenitrate concentration and being
linked directly to colon cancer.
I was like dad, you know, youknow, maybe do you think that
may have done it.
He's like, yeah, maybe he, youknow, and so that hits home for
me it doesn't mean that's,that's a correlative thing.
(10:04):
It's not a direct scientificthing that if you eat nitrates
you're going to get colon cancer.
But for me it hit home and itwas very close to home.
So these things can add up.
So be mindful about nitratesand processed meats.
Eat them temporarily orintermittently, but don't make
them part of your diet daily.
That's, I think, a good advicefor that.
Potassium bromate and brominatedvegetable oils or BVOs they're
(10:29):
used in bread and sodas mainly.
Potential carcinogens andendocrine disruptors in the body
is the side effect.
So be careful with that.
Flip those bread packages overand make sure you don't see that
potassium bromate in there.
You may want to switch breadsjust to minimize this specific
toxin.
Over time.
Hopefully that gets off of theFDA list as well.
(10:53):
Carrageenan you may have seenthis.
It's found in dairyalternatives and you'll see this
on social media too.
Carrageenan it's used in this,in this healthy thing, and you
eat this all the time and it'sin gum and it's all this fine
stuff and it's fine.
But cumulative effects of thiscan cause digestive distress and
inflammation.
So, even though it's safe toeat and it doesn't have a toxic
(11:14):
effect or a deadly effect, thelong-term usage of carrageenan
is that it can distress thedigestive system.
This can lead to IBS, irritablebowel syndrome, gut issues,
dysbiosis, floral issues in thegut as well.
So, carrageenan, add that toyour list and just keeping an
eye out of it.
(11:34):
And when we say add it to yourlist, it's not to go to the
grocery store and do this everytime you go shopping.
It's to go through your fridgeand your pantry at home right
now and say, hey, what are thecommon things we buy week in and
week out?
The same eggs, the same almondmilk, the same bread, the same
deli turkey, the same chicken.
(11:58):
And then looking at thosepackages right there in your
fridge and just quickly goingover them and saying is there
any MSG in here, is there anycarrageenan in here, is there
any nitrates in here?
And just reading it and then,if there are maybe being like
man, we buy this every singleweek.
Maybe we should change thebrand of chicken that we're
buying or the brand of deliturkey that we're buying,
whatever it is, or bacon, orwhatever it is that you're
eating.
That's logistic ways of makingpermanent changes for you and
your family.
(12:19):
Artificial food dyes.
We talked about it Red 40,yellow 5 and 6, blue 1 and 2,
linked to hyperactivity,behavioral issues and potential
carcinogens.
Activity, behavioral issues andpotential carcinogens.
The United Kingdom has been aleader on the dye studies with
behavioral issues in childrenand you can do this study from
(12:39):
the comfort of your own home.
Give your kids Skittles, choosejust red, give them all the red
ones.
Actually, don't do this.
If we know this information,why would we do this to our kids
?
But don't bounce off the walls.
You're going to have immediatebehavioral disruptor issues.
It's not just the sugar, becauseif you bake something at home,
(13:00):
you make homemade cupcakes andyou give them a small portion of
a cupcake, they may get alittle active, a little bit
hyper.
But if you give them Skittlesor you give them something with
high absorbent amounts of dye init, where their mouths are
turning colors, watch thedifference between having a
handful of Skittles and having ahomemade cupcake, the
difference in behavior thathappens with your children.
Immediately Under the age offive, you will see this within
(13:20):
30 minutes.
Five to 10 years old, you'llget it within the hour.
Over 10 years old, it may takean hour or two to notice the
mood swings that they go through, and that's directly linked
with most children.
So what does that do to you andI as adults?
Being heavier, taller andbigger allows us to consume some
of this.
But even you will get irritableif you pay attention to how you
(13:41):
feel after eating these things.
Oh, that's a big one.
So dyes.
If it's too bright and it lookstoo good, don't eat it.
There's the natural colors thatcome from the world.
When you dye things I don'tknow if you've ever done Easter
egg dyeing with white eggs itnever ends up looking like the
commercial right?
That bright orange and thebright blue.
I'm sitting there dyeing theseeggs the whole time.
(14:02):
I'm like how do I get thisvibrant blue color?
And I just can't get it.
It's like this dull pastel blue.
That like this dull pastel blue.
That's normal.
That's how things work in thereal world.
You won't get that huge colorright.
You can get red red beets.
And if you ever use them byhand, what happens to your hands
?
They turn red right and youcould use that to dye things
(14:22):
like beet juice to get a nicered.
And even that won't get to abright skittle red, make sense.
To get that vibrant color youneed these chemical dyes to go
in there to do this.
There you go.
Artificial dyes.
Go back to that last episode ontoxins, which was two episodes
ago, and we dived right intotoxins and dyes came up quite a
(14:49):
bit.
Propylparaben is a preservativein baking goods and it disrupts
hormones and fertility.
This one, luckily, I don't seeanymore on packaging that much,
but it doesn't mean it's not outthere.
It's still FDA approved.
But it disrupts hormones andfertility and we can have a
whole episode about fertilityand why around the world
fertility is going down.
(15:09):
We've ultra-processed our foodaround the world.
Fertility rates are not goingdown in Africa like they are in
North America and there's areason for that and it's
definitely the processing offood and how we're consuming it.
And then butylatedhydroxyanisole or BHA and BHT
(15:30):
these ones are preservativesthat are used in chips, cereals
and their potential endocrinedisruptors and carcinogens in
themselves B-H-A-B-H-T.
You'll see these on the side asbutylated hydroxyl anisole and
hydroxytulene.
These are the two that are onthere.
(15:50):
Again, when I'm keeping an eyeout on ingredients, I don't see
it that much.
But me I'm going to the healthysections anyways, I'm not going
down the Wonder Bread aisle,right.
So for those of you that maypurchase those things, check
those things out, see if they'rein there.
They're endocrine disruptorswhich cause metabolic disorder,
hormone issues and are directlylinked to cancers.
(16:11):
They're found in teratomas fromhuman tissue, that where
they're built up, like the daysof the parabens, the polyphenols
, the estradiols, ddt you knowall these pesticides and
herbicides that are actuallyfound in teratomas in the body
and breast cancer, prostatecancer, liver cancer they're all
linked with potential effectsthere.
(16:33):
So again, toxicity, medicalright Versus vitalistic
viewership of toxic buildup overtime.
There are two differentmicroscopic lenses that we're
looking at this from, and thesethings are not venomous bites
from a rattlesnake right.
They're not going toimmediately have an effect where
(16:53):
you have to rush to thehospital, but the cumulative
effect is being shown in theresearch and the literature to
have a cumulative pathologicalchange in the bodies, and we
need to be on top of this,especially as parents, we've got
to protect our kids and whatgoes in their bodies.
Now you may ask things like whyare these additives allowed?
Well, hopefully there's achange, starting with the whole
(17:14):
change in government and theirstance on making America healthy
Again.
I guess that was their wholething.
I'm not going to hold my breath.
They're still government,they're still politicians.
I don't trust a single one ofthem.
But if change happens, that'sabsolutely wonderful.
The FDA creates guidelines, butthere's just too many loopholes
(17:35):
for the food manufacturers tojump through.
Super easy for them to get itin there.
If it is on the FDA notapproved list, they can say,
well, what's the amount that'snot allowed?
And they'll say, well, 0.02grams.
And then they're like, okay,great, we use 0.01.
They're still adding it inthere to make sure that the food
stays addictive and palatable.
Processed food's not good.
(17:55):
I don't know if you've everbeen in factories where they've
done this.
They're all made the same way.
They're all dried out, so theyall taste pretty much bland and
what you have to add to them islots of salt and lots of sugar
to make them taste good.
Then, to hold them on the shelfand hold the ingredients
together.
You have to have binders andpreservatives so that they don't
spoil on the shelf, so they canlast there for a few weeks four
(18:18):
weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks sothey can sell the product.
Make sense?
That's the loophole.
So these manufacturers are goingto the FDA saying, listen, it's
not logistically possible forus to create this Twinkie or
this Oreo or this cookie and putit on the shelf by your
guidelines, because if we do,it's going to be bad in eight
days.
It won't last.
We need to use hydrogenatedoils, we need to use so what's
(18:40):
the allowable dose?
Then they go to medicine andresearch and they're like listen
, this is the toxic dose, don'tever cross this point, we'll
allow this much.
And then it passes.
That's in a nutshell how thisgoes.
It's not evil corporationstrying to kill people.
It's literally them sayinglisten, we found out a way
through chemistry on how to makethese foods last on the shelf
(19:03):
so the consumers can buy them ina reputable time, in an
allowable time.
And then the FDA is like thatmakes sense.
Then the food companies givethe FDA and the politicians lots
of money called lobbying, andthey're convinced.
They're like oh yeah, this isgood and follow these guidelines
and we won't change them forthe next four years, and that's
(19:24):
how it really works.
I'm not being a conspiracytheorist here.
That's how government works.
So big food companiesprioritize shelf life over
health.
That's just the bottom line.
And the countries that havebanned certain additives have
put people really first on topof that, saying listen, there's
other ways to do this.
We don't need our Froot Loopsto be that bright.
(19:44):
You can still sell Froot Loops,but we're not going to allow
you to use Red 40.
Use a different one, and whatdo they do?
They use a different one andit's more of an orangey red one.
And whether they do, they use adifferent one and it's more of
an orangey red.
Fine, and it's more pale andpastel.
It's not as bright as it is inAmerica, and that's great.
And they can still sell FrootLoops in Ireland.
Make sense?
That's how that all works.
How to avoid food additives Readingredient labels.
(20:08):
What to look for.
You have to read the labels.
If you can't pronounce it, lookit up.
Shop for whole, unprocessedfoods.
This will keep you out oftrouble all the time.
You can pretty much buy organiccucumbers and organic lettuce
and organic grapes and not evenhave to read the label because
it's pretty simple.
That's one ingredient on thelabel grapes.
(20:29):
Pretty simple to buy thosekeeps you out of trouble.
But once you get into packagedand boxed stuff, read the label,
flip it over.
Read the label.
Choose organic when possible.
Organic just automaticallyminimizes the amount of
pesticides and herbicides thatcan possibly be in the food.
It's wonderful.
It's a wonderful way to shopand then use natural
(20:50):
alternatives for flavor andpreservation.
So salt at home, himalayan salt, Celtic salt, sea salt, and
using these things to seasonyour own meats at home helps you
preserve them and keep them inthe fridge longer, so that you
can cook them three days downthe road on the grill or
whatever it is that you want todo.
So there's ways to do this inthe house.
My dad used to cure his ownmeats and used to call it a cool
(21:13):
room up in Canada in thebasement.
He had a corner there in thelaundry room.
It was in the corner of thehouse and no drywall on it, it
was just concrete and he closedthe door and because it's Canada
, this thing would get down tolike 32 degrees, 36 degrees at
night in the winter and then inthe summer it'd be like 40, 36,
(21:33):
40 degrees during the summerdays, and so you could leave
meats in there and leavepreservatives and pickled olives
or pickled vegetables, jarredstuff, jams.
He'd keep everything in therebecause it was nice and cool.
It was almost like arefrigerator.
It doing Italian things all theway up in the Northern parts of
(21:57):
North America, which is prettycool.
So he did at home.
He had a little bit of a greenthumb and that spilled on over
to me.
So I just encourage you guysfrom this episode to read the
labels, you know, use cleanerfood brands and prep your own
meals.
It's it's how you're going toget away from these things.
And then, if you have any ideasfor the next episode, just keep
(22:19):
sending those emails.
I love them.
It keeps us on top of contentfor you and we know what you're
into and what you want to listento, what you want to learn more
of.
But yeah, there you go the topadditives to avoid.
Go out there, read them,empower yourself and protect
your family.
Have a great and healthy week.
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