# what's wrong with preservatives? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2000, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013 "2000-08-20T02:19:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![curwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@curwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curwin)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/1 "2000-08-20T02:19:12Z")
What exactly is wrong with preservatives in food? If they’re really poisonous or harmful, why are they legal in food? Otherwise, why is it a bad thing that food lasts longer? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/2 "2000-08-20T02:30:44Z")
Some people have a problem with chemicals of any sort being added to food–they think it isn’t “natural.” On the other hand, many people find it most un-natural when their food spoils or otherwise turns icky. Therefore, we have preservatives. In some cases, chemicals like preservatives or ‘flavor enhancers’ can cause health problems. For example, monosodium glutamate (MSG) causes many people to experience severe migraine headaches for days after ingestion. As for why such chemicals aren’t illegal if they cause health problems– (1) lack of lobbying, which is due to (2) lack of information available to the public, which might be related to (3) small numbers of the population that experience/report such problems. There may be more to the legal side of it though. ---
**Author:** ![curwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@curwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curwin)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/3 "2000-08-20T02:35:10Z")
I don’t think MSG qualifies as a preservative. But in case it wasn’t clear, the real reason for my question is that so many foods have labels that say “no preservatives”. Obviously there is some public awareness of this issue, otherwise why would the manufacturers write that? ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/4 "2000-08-20T02:46:28Z")
Trivia- Did you know that it takes longer for a human to decompose than it did 100 years ago. The cause is all the preservatives we ingest. …seriously ok, no link. But I heard it from Beackmam! And if Cecil is God, Beackman is a profit at least. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/5 "2000-08-20T03:14:15Z")
Bear, there are preservatives involved, but not the ones the stiff ate. It’s called embalming, and it’s come a long way in recent times. Most bodies are embalmed these days, as opposed to 100 years ago, so they don’t reek during the funeral and the rule of thumb seems to be ‘better too much than too little’. So plenty get used and the corpse resists decay for a long, long time. ---
**Author:** ![Poto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ab992/32.png) [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/6 "2000-08-20T04:22:59Z")
Pretty good preservatives: vinegar, benzoic acid.both exist in nature. In whisky, ethanol is a preservative, even in unpasturized beer. ---
**Author:** ![Yeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/dbc845/32.png) [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2000, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-preservatives/30013/7 "2000-08-20T21:23:27Z")
Other chemical preservatives often found in supermarket food: sodium chloride (e.g., olives, pickles, sausages) and sucrose (e.g., jams, jellies, preserves). I suspect the average American diet today contains a lesser mass of preservatives than it did 100 years ago because of better transportation, refrigeration and canning.