Are Preservatives Harmful to Human Body? - (Mar/20/2010 )

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if food preservatives are harmful to human body? Will they accumulate in human body? What are the side effects on us?

Some websites said yes and some said no as to whether they have harmful to our bodies, which is why I'm pretty confused. Thank you for your help =)

it probably depends on the type preservative compound in use and the quantity and duration that the preservative was ingested.

perneseblue on Mar 20 2010, 09:07 PM said:

Do preservatives (such as calcium propionate) accumulate in the body? If it does and it's a lifetime long, that means it's harmful?

All preservatives (this time and age) are tested very rigoursly and you can be sure that they are safe.

calcium propionate however is something that has been used since "ages" and it was not tested in depth when they started to use it.
However they have tested it now (recent years) and stated it is safe so I can not believe it would accumulate.

And I found this: "Calcium propionate does not build up in any body tissues; after you eat food with calcium propionate, the body splits the calcium apart from the propionic acid, which is easily absorbed and metabolized like all other fatty"

You might wanne check: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/...sting&id=62 and http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/40abcj13.htm



And something that accumulates doenst need to be harmfull: its only harmfull when it has a direct effect on you during the accumulation (eg: veins getting closed due to Cholesterol build up) or when it can have an effect in certaim circumstances like when a substance is build in your body fat and due to a rigours dieet your body would start to burn the fat and thus release the substance in that bodyfat...

If it only accumulates and never gets free or has no direct negative effect then I do not see a problem.

Is there then any preservatives which are harmful to the body?

Foo. WX on Mar 28 2010, 01:50 PM said:

Ethanol.
But to be more serious, I'd avoid especially nitrites and nitrates for children, but because of possible formation of nitrosamines (carcinogenic) also for adults.
Formaldehyde I'd also avoid.

PS. I said that they are safe, but offcourse, a lot depends on how you define "safe". But newer ones are tested more then back in the old days.. so the new ones are normally 99% sure, the old ones... other story.
Thats also why we now have the REACH story these days.