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Why Do People Think Everyday Ingredients Are Dangerous? · So That's Why

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Jen Oliver: Welcome to the So That's Why Podcast, where we unpack the
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science behind everyday questions.
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I'm Jen.
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Chris Smith: I'm Chris.
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Matt Edmundson: And I'm Matt.
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Jen Oliver: Right.
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Today we're asking something that probably affects how you shop, cook,
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and even stress about what you eat.
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Why do people think everyday ingredients are dangerous?
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We've all seen it.
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Someone flipping over a packet, squinting at the label, and declaring,
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I can't even pronounce half of these.
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Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I know that person because I am that person.
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Uh, I'm the guy that stands in the supermarket aisle for 10 minutes trying
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to decide if ingredients like sodium benzoate is gonna be my downfall, while
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simultaneously ignoring the fact that I'm buying a sharing size bag of crisps,
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which I have no intention of sharing.
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Chris Smith: I'm sure you'd share a little bit.
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Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no,
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Chris Smith: the interesting thing is that you could hand someone a list of
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chemicals, so ascorbic acid, sodium chloride, dye, hydrogen monoxide, and
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they'd probably want to avoid all of them, but if you looked at another way, ascorbic
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acid is vitamin C. Sodium chloride is table salt and dihydrogen monoxide is
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just another description for water.
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Jen Oliver: What's fascinating is this fiat is actually growing.
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It's not shrinking.
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Recent surveys show that 67% of consumers don't like foods containing
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ingredients they don't recognize.
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In the UK alone, 19 million adults now actively avoid ultra processed foods.
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That's a 15% jump.
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From the previous year
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Chris Smith: and what's behind this is known as camm phobia,
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so it's defined as an irrational fear or aversion to chemicals.
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And the irony is that everything's made of chemical.
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Mm-hmm.
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So water, oxygen, even your own body.
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So this idea of chemical free is completely impossible and the word
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chemical has become almost synonymous with dangerous in everyday languages.
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Matt Edmundson: That's so true.
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It's so true.
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We're all walking around.
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I guess like we're afraid of everything, aren't we?
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Including ourselves then I guess if biochemical definition.
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Is that comforting?
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I dunno.
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I think it's probably deeply unsettling in many ways.
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Jen Oliver: And what drives this is something with a name called
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the Appeal to Nature Fallacy.
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And this deeply held belief that natural equals safe and synthetic equals harmful,
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but that's not how chemistry works.
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Chris Smith: Exactly.
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Right.
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And we could look at it this way.
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So.
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Arsenic is natural.
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Sinai is natural.
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Botulinum toxin, one of the most lethal substances known is completely
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natural and potentially deadly.
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Meanwhile, synthetic vitamin C made in a laboratory is molecularly
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identical to vitamin C from an orange.
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Your body literally cannot tell the difference.
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Matt Edmundson: So my body then doesn't care whether my vitamins grow on a tree
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or were made by someone in a lab coat.
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It's just looking at the molecular structure
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Chris Smith: Exactly.
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From a scientific perspective.
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That is exactly right.
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Jen Oliver: So let's look at what people are actually worried about.
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Research from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment found 84%
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of respondents avoid flavor enhancers.
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69% avoid sweetness, and 64% avoid food dyes.
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These are huge numbers.
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Matt Edmundson: They really are.
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And unless your uncle Roger, I suppose MSG is gonna be on top of that list, isn't it?
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Um, 'cause I remember that whole thing that MSG, you know, is basically a poison.
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Been told that ever since I was a kid.
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Chris Smith: Yeah.
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And MSG, so, well, it's monosodium glutamate.
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It's a perfect example of fear outlasting evidence.
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So the whole panic actually started when a doctor wrote a. Not a study.
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He just wrote a letter to a medical journal claiming that he felt
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unwell after eating Chinese food.
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And from that single anecdote back in the late 1960s, decades of fear were born.
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Jen Oliver: What's remarkable is how thoroughly this has been debunked.
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Since multiple well-designed double blind studies have consistently failed
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to trigger reactions in people who claim MSG sensitivity when it's consumed
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with food, the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority and global
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regulatory bodies all classify MS.
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MSG as generally safe,
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Matt Edmundson: which is good news, but it means for the last.
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Well, I'm not gonna go into how long, but a, a while I've been sort of thinking
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about my takeaways with a little bit of, you know, uh, all based on one
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man's letter about feeling a bit off.
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Mm-hmm.
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Meanwhile, glutamate though, 'cause naturally isn't it, in things like
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tomatoes, mushrooms, parmesan, cheese, all the foods that I would
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consider healthy and sophisticated,
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Jen Oliver: and breast milk glutamate is naturally present in breast milk.
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Chris Smith: And if we look at what happened with MSG.
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It's a pattern that we see repeatedly.
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So a single poorly evidenced claim gets amplified, creates this cultural
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fear, and then it persists long after the science has moved on.
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In another podcast we've done, we talk about maltodextrin, carrageenan, and
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other similar harmless compounds that get talked down through irrelevant
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data and kind of scare mung.
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Jen Oliver: I mentioned artificial sweeteners before, but they present a
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more nuanced picture while regulatory agencies maintain their safe within
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acceptable daily intake limits, some recent large scale studies, they've raised
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legitimate concerns with monitoring.
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Chris Smith: Yeah.
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And one such study was a, a French Cohort study of over a hundred thousand adults,
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and it found associations between.
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Artificial sweetener consumption and slightly increased
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cardiovascular disease risk.
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But it's really important to know that these are observational associations.
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They're not proven causal links and the absolute risk increases were small.
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Matt Edmundson: So sweeteners then are more of a sort of keep your
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eye on the research rather than.
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Panic immediately.
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Chris Smith: Absolutely.
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And that's a sensible way to look at it.
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So the key is always proportionality, understanding the difference
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between a potential area of ongoing research and a confirmed danger.
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And that's the approach that everyone should take.
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But unfortunately, the internet takes over and doesn't take that approach at all.
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Jen Oliver: And, so food dyes are actually an area where consumer concerns align
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more closely with scientific evidence.
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So red 40, yellow five and yellow six have been found to contain
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trace contaminants and some studies support links between certain dyes
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and hyperactivity in children.
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Chris Smith: Yep, that's right.
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And this is why the European Union requires warning labels on
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products contain a certain dyes, and California recently banned red 40.
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Um, in school foods.
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But the thing is, different regulators have taken different approaches
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based on the same evidence, which understandably causes consumer confusion.
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Mm-hmm.
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Matt Edmundson: Well, it does for me because, you know, sometimes
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the fear is justified, sometimes it's overblown, sometimes it's.
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Somewhere in between.
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And this is why nutrition is actually quite confusing for me and I really want
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sort of simple rules, but the science just sort of seems to keep saying, well, Matt,
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it, it sort of really depends really.
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Chris Smith: Yeah.
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And the fundamental principle of it being the dose that makes the
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poison helps or, or it should help, uh, to cut through that confusion.
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But any substance, even water can be harmful, um, when
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consumed in excessive amounts.
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While many substances considered dangerous are perfectly safe in low quantities.
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Jen Oliver: This is how regulatory agencies establish safety, isn't it?
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They identify the highest dose at which no adverse effects occur in studies.
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Then they divide it by a hundred to create a massive safety margin.
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The acceptable daily intake already accounts for being extra cautious.
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Matt Edmundson: So when I read then the scary headlines about some ingredient, the
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amount being stud is probably well wildly different from what's actually in my food.
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Chris Smith: Yeah, absolutely.
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Almost always.
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And if you take caffeine, for example, so the lethal dose of
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caffeine is just under 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
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So if you take a like 160 pound person that's about 72 to 73 kilograms, that
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would be well over 100 cups of coffee.
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And with that amount, you're more likely to have problems with, you
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know, water poisoning than before the caffeine issues kick in.
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Jen Oliver: Wow.
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Matt Edmundson: I'm safe.
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Then I only drink 90,
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Jen Oliver: 99.
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Yeah.
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Well this is why occasionally exceeding guidelines on a given
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day isn't cause for alarm.
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You know, these limits are designed around a lifetime exposure, not single occasions.
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Matt Edmundson: So speaking then of things that people worry unnecessarily
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about, can I ask you guys about seed oils?
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Like.
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So my social media feed man is just full of people claiming
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they're toxic and inflammatory.
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Mm-hmm.
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Chris Smith: Yeah.
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Seed oils are a textbook case of misinformation spreading
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despite solid evidence.
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The contrary.
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So critics claim the Omega six fatty acids cause inflammation, but multiple systemic
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reviews of randomized controlled trials have found virtually no evidence for this.
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Jen Oliver: So a 2017 meta-analysis actually found that in many studies,
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participants consuming the most linoleic acid, like the main Omega six in seed oils
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had the lowest levels of inflammation.
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The America Heart Foundation and the British Heart Foundation both maintain
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seed oils are actually healthy when used to replace saturated fats.
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Matt Edmundson: So I can stop feeling guilty about my rape seed oil, uh,
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which is genuinely good news because I was running out of things to.
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Actually cook with, you know, that I'm allowed to cook with.
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Jen Oliver: What's particularly telling is that many of the loudest voices
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against seed oils are influencers with no scientific training.
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Matt Edmundson: What a surprise.
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Jen Oliver: Yeah.
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While actual nutrition researchers and cardiologists aren't worried.
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The claims spread because they sound plausible and they tap into the
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broader fear of processed anything.
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Chris Smith: That's it, and no surprises at all.
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But marketing is capitalized heavily on these fears, so products
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claiming to be chemical free, which is literally impossible or clean,
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which has no regulated definition.
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They command premium prices and entire product categories have
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emerged based on exploiting homophobia rather than genuine safety concerns.
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I mean, I've seen.
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Clean beauty and clean label aisles in retailers, which
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are just absolute nonsense.
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Jen Oliver: What's interesting is why this resonates so strongly, I mean, research
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suggests it connects to broad and mistrust corporate scandals involving everything
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from pesticides to pharmaceuticals.
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They've created a legitimate skepticism about industry claims,
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and that reasonable concern then morphs into a blanket rejection of
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anything that sounds scientific.
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Matt Edmundson: So the good news is we're not being irrational.
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Mm-hmm.
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Uh, we've just been burned before and now we're suspicious of anything with a
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long, complicated sounding name, right?
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Jen Oliver: Yeah.
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Chris Smith: That's it.
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And there is logic to it.
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So even if the application sometimes misses the mark, the challenge
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is distinguishing between healthy skepticism and unfounded fear driven
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by people and companies with agendas.
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So the notions that natural means safer, or if you can't pronounce the
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cameral, can't, can't be good for you.
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It's nonsense.
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They're both nonsense.
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So if there's one good thing that's come from clean beauty and clean label
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retail trends, it's this driving of demand for transparency, albeit with
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a fair amount of nonsense thrown in.
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Jen Oliver: One genuinely concerning trend is that people focused on
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avoiding specific additives, sometimes overlook real food safety risks.
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Studies show that individuals who fear chemical additives often practice
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risky behaviors like improper storage or ignoring use by dates, things
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that can actually cause illness.
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Matt Edmundson: So while I'm worrying then about whether some additive
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I can't pronounce is gonna be by downfall, I'm leaving food out on the
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counter way too long, which is gonna be a spectacular own goal, isn't it?
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Chris Smith: Yeah, I've seen your team score a few own goals.
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Um, but no, you're right.
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And the, the bigger picture matters more than individual ingredients
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and extensive research links ultra process food consumption to
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various adverse health outcomes.
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But this likely stems from the overall dietary patterns
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rather than specific additives.
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So, high calories, high sugar, high salt, low fiber, low vitamins.
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These patterns matter more than any individual single ingredient.
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Jen Oliver: And this connects to what we know about healthy eating,
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generally focusing on whole foods, fruits, vegetables, and minimally
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processed items while limiting calorie dense nutrient poor foods.
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You know, that approach works regardless of your position on specific additives.
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Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
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So rather than obsessing over individual ingredients, I can't pronounce what
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you're saying is I should zoom out, zoom out, uh, and look at my overall diet.
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Right?
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Mm.
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Chris Smith: That's
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it.
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It's the, uh, evidence-based approach.
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So the forest matters more than any individual tree,
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Jen Oliver: and it's worth remembering that our regulatory systems,
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while imperfect do provide genuine protection, the safety margins built
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into acceptable daily intakes are specifically designed to be conservative.
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So when agencies say something is safe at a certain level, they've
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already factored in extra caution,
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Matt Edmundson: which is actually quite reassuring, isn't it?
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Like I, I'd assume them food regulations.
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And not being written by the same people who approved
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asbestos in the 1950s these days.
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Jen Oliver: Mm.
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Chris Smith: No.
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It's fair to say regulatory science has come quite a long way since then.
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So these days before any additive is approved, it undergoes extensive testing
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across multiple exposure scenarios.
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Jen Oliver: You know, what strikes me is how this connects to everything
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else we've discussed on this podcast.
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Just like with sleep, hydration, and exercise, the fundamentals
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matter most and perfectionism.
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Often gets in the way of good enough.
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Chris Smith: That's it.
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Because the human body is remarkably resilient.
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It has sophisticated systems for processing and eliminating
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things it doesn't need.
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So occasional exposure to substances within established
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safety limits isn't the threat.
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Our anxiety suggests it's gonna be,
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Matt Edmundson: which is actually good, isn't it?
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And I suppose the reassuring takeaway, uh, in this is our
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bodies to start these fragile glass ornaments that sort of shatter.
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If we encounter something more with more than two syllables, right?
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Chris Smith: No, that's it.
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And your body is more like a highly efficient processing plant.
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It sounds a bit weird, but um, it's basically dealt with far worse than
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an additive with a complicated name.
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Jen Oliver: I mean, your liver alone processes thousands of comp
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compounds daily, and that's literally what your liver's built to do.
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Matt Edmundson: So my body then has been quietly handling business, uh, this whole
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time maybe while I've been over obsessing and panicking about ingredients lists.
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Um, that sounds about right, doesn't it?
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I suppose.
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Jen Oliver: So to bring this together, why do people think
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everyday ingredients are dangerous?
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Chris Smith: It's because we've conflated chemical with dangerous,
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despite everything being chemicals.
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Because we've tuned, we are tuned to assume natural automatically means safer
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because legitimate corporate scandals have created generalized distrust.
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And because marketing has learned to profit from our fears,
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Matt Edmundson: that's unlike marketing, isn't it really?
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Um.
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Uh, very unlike marketing.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So we're not being stupid for being worried.
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We're just applying reasonable caution to wrong targets while potentially
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ignoring things that actually matter, like whether I'm eating vegetables and
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not leaving the mayo out in the sun.
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Jen Oliver: So the key is proportionality.
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Some concerns have scientific backing.
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Many don't.
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And understanding the dose that makes the poison principle helps,
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and it helps us distinguish between real risks and amplified fears.
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Chris Smith: Yeah, and focusing on overall dietary patterns rather
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than individual ingredients.
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Serves you far better than trying to memorize the list of things to avoid.
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Jen Oliver: So that's why we fear everyday ingredients and why understanding the
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actual science can free you from your anxiety that isn't serving your health.
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Anyway, that's it for this week.
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Make sure you hit that subscribe button.
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Join us as we're unpacking the science behind everyday questions each week.
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Tell us in the comments what you'd like us to explore.
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Thanks for geeking out with us, but for now, that's it from me.
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Matt Edmundson: That's it from me,
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Chris Smith: and
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that's it from me.
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Jen Oliver: Bye for now.