If emulsifiers are potentially harmful, why are they in most of our food? Part Two

Draft regulations on unhealthy foods in South Africa include a proposed warning label on all packaged foods containing high levels of ‘nutrients of concern’, such as sugar, unhealthy fats, salt and artificial sweeteners. The regulations also propose restrictions on ‘health’ claims and the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. (Source: Government Gazette No. 47965, 31 January 2023)

By Adèle Sulcas

21 Aug 2024

Already, the European Food Safety Authority recognizes emulsifiers as “an emerging risk”, and the growing volume of scientific evidence on this topic reveals more and more numerous ways in which our health is at the mercy of the ultra-processed foods we eat, because of the chemicals are added to make foods taste ‘better’, last longer, and cost less.

Though nutrition science is now waking up to the potential harms emulsifiers may cause, the reason they are still so widely used is that the definition of “food safety” by most national authorities has not yet caught up to the new research. The emulsifiers so far approved by governments and food-safety authorities for ‘safe’ consumption have been exonerated from causing directly toxic effects in humans.

South Africa’s health department confirmed this in a response to Daily Maverick’s question about the emerging research on emulsifiers’ potential harms: “The additives used in food are permitted based on international standards and the use thereof has undergone risk assessment for food safety in order to arrive at permissible levels or acceptable daily intakes,” the NDOH wrote in an email, citing the Joint World Health and Food and Agricultural Organizations (WHO/FAO) Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and its focus on “toxicological” effects.

The NDOH response confirms that the level of toxicological ‘safety’ JECFA has defined does not take into account the potential longer-term harms that scientists have just started to explore.

Already, the European Food Safety Authority recognizes emulsifiers as “an emerging risk”, and the growing volume of scientific evidence on this topic reveals more and more numerous ways in which our health is at the mercy of the ultra-processed foods we eat, because of the chemicals are added to make foods taste ‘better’, last longer, and cost less.

More scientific studies needed to confirm suspected harms

Zoe’s Dr Amati, who is also a lecturer at King’s College, London, and author of Sunday Times (UK) bestseller Everybody Should Know This, said that human studies so far (including NutriNet Santé) tend to be “observational”, meaning that researchers have analysed what they have observed in participants eating as they would normally, rather than influencing participants’ food intake one way or another to test the consequences. Laboratory studies in mice, however, have shown more conclusively that emulsifiers cause an imbalance in the gut microbes, which leads to metabolic syndrome and inflammation. Amati said that carboxylmethyl cellulose (CMC), the most widely used added emulsifier in the U.S., “is an ideal suspect to account for the rise of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the 20th century”.

Daily Maverick asked the NDOH whether they would consider that emulsifiers such as carboxylmethyl cellulose, xanthan gum, polysorbate 80, mono- and diglycerides (among more than the 100 currently approved for use in South Africa) be added to the front-of-pack warning label legislation, called R3337, that has been under review in South Africa since September 2023. The proposed legislation is based on a nutrient profiling model that determines safe upper limits for added sugars, added salt, saturated fats, and non-nutritive sweeteners. Any foods that contain more than those upper limits must carry a warning label.

emulsifiers regulations Draft regulations on unhealthy foods in South Africa include a proposed warning label on all packaged foods containing high levels of ‘nutrients of concern’, such as sugar, unhealthy fats, salt and artificial sweeteners. The regulations also propose restrictions on ‘health’ claims and the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. (Source: Government Gazette No. 47965, 31 January 2023)

The NDOH response effectively said “not yet”, explaining that “[t]he warning labels which are provisions of the FOPL [front-of-pack labelling] in the Draft Regulations only deal with products that are high in negative nutrients of concern (added sugar, added saturated fats and added salt). Additionally, the warning label for foodstuffs with artificial sweeteners was based on the need for consumers to be made aware of foods with artificial sweeteners so as to not feed [them to] children 0-3 years.” At this stage, therefore, the NDOH said, the labelling of the approved emulsifiers mentioned […] as a food additive category is provided for under the general labelling requirements for food additives.”

This means that nutrition information panels on food need to state that a certain food additive is one of the ingredients, but no further specifications – such as the quantity contained relative to a maximum amount permitted for human consumption, as is done for the energy content of foods – are required.

There is currently no indication of when the proposed FOPL legislation, which is designed to help South Africans eat more healthily, will be passed into law.

“We are deep in the thorough review of all the International comments [sic] received and need to identify if there are any valid trade concerns that have been raised and to indicate this to our Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, for engagement as the need may be,” the NDOH wrote to Daily Maverick.

“If there is guidance from the WHO on health effects of emulsifiers, we will not be able to include it into these Regulations,” the NDOH comment continued, “We would still need to allow for consultation through a draft Regulation as this was not catered for in R3337/2023 at all, i.e. it is a totally new matter and our trading partners and the affected industry, as well as consumers and other stakeholders would then have an opportunity to engage and comment on the new proposals as is required in terms of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act, 1972 (Act No. 54 of 1972) as well as the Constitution.”DM

Read Part One of this article here.

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