Despite strong trends in health and wellness and a renewed focus on fresh and sustainable food, American food and beverage products are more processed than ever before and laden with additives like colouring or flavouring agents, preservatives, and sweeteners.

In a recent article published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, researchers found that the mean number of additives in purchased foods and beverages increased from 3.7 in 2001 to 4.5 in 2019.

“These findings give us reason for concern, given the growing evidence linking high consumption of processed foods with adverse health outcomes,” said Elizabeth K. Dunford, lead investigator of the study.

A concerning increase in baby products

According to the report, US consumers purchase more than 400,000 different packaged food and beverage products every year at grocery stores. And by 2019, more than half of those products contained three or more additives.

Some additives are harmless and used to prolong shelf life and food safety, but others are added simply for colouring, flavouring, thickening, and emulsifying a product.

“Assessing food-additive exposure over time is a vital step in understanding its role in increased body weight, negative changes to the gut microbiome, and other adverse health outcomes associated with ultra-processed foods,” read a statement accompanying the study.

In addition to the increase in additives for all food and drink categories, the study found that baby foods showed a 20% increase in additives and a more than 15% increase in products containing three or more additives.

The authors said this finding is “crucial in informing future research in this area and warrants further investigation.”

“US consumers are demanding a much higher level of transparency from brands and retailers than in previous years. We hope the findings from this study will be used to inform policymakers on wher Americans – especially babies – are being exposed to additives, and how the packaged food supply is changing,” said Barry Popkin, senior investigator of the study.

Sweets, snacks and soft drinks are major culprits

The subcategory with the highest mean number of additives in both 2001 and 2019 was frozen entrées, appetisers, and pizza, followed by carbonated soft drinks. Almost every subcategory under sweets and snacks and beverages also saw an increase in the mean number of additives.

One positive trend observed in the data was that the use of added flavours in carbonated soft drinks decreased from 40% to 36%.

For their research, investigators used Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel data from 2001 and 2019, which they note only tracks additives in food products purchased from supermarkets and does not include food purchased from restaurants or fast food chains.

“Given the importance of understanding what components make up [ultra processed foods] in the US diet, this study found convincing evidence that US household purchases of packaged foods containing food additives is increasing,” the authors said.

They recommended that the findings could be used to inform policymakers on American consumers’ diets and how the packaged food supply is changing. It can potentially supplement future work in this area and lead to further investigation into the ingredients being used in the manufacturing of food and beverages, particularly baby food products.