Researchers like me have long suspected that food additives can have a negative impact on your heart. I work as the research director at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and in our largest-ever study of 112,000 people, recently published in the European Heart Journal of the Society of Cardiology, we found that eating foods containing common preservatives may be linked to a higher risk of high blood pressure and heart-related diseases.
It’s true that in the current market, it’s not easy to get away from ultra-processed foods (UPFs). But the picture is much worse in the UK, where almost 60 per cent of adults’ calorie intake comes from UPFs – whereas in France, that figure is close to half that, at 34 per cent. Death rates for circulatory diseases, as you might expect, are around half as common in France compared to the UK.
Why is France more heart-healthy?
Our food offering in France is of better nutritional quality overall, and we have a clearer system of communicating what’s in the food on our supermarket shelves.
In 2017, I co-created the Nutri-Score, which grades foods according to their nutritional quality on the front of packaging. It is now used in France and seven other countries in Europe (but not the UK) to help people make quick, informed decisions about what to eat.
We hope that our recent paper, along with the 15 we have published on food additives over the last five years, will be used by the European Food Safety Authority to revise the safety evaluation of the additives we found to be most harmful, and be factored into labelling regulations, too, potentially leading certain substances to be removed from sale completely.
While French people have a reputation for good food and relatively limited rates of obesity, there is still progress to be made. We need better regulation of the marketing of these products, particularly for our children and teenagers, who are overexposed to adverts for UPFs and products filled with preservatives. There are far too many of these compared to ones for fresh fruits, vegetables and minimally processed foods with a good nutritional profile. The UK Government’s ban on such adverts before 9pm is a courageous one that I wish we would follow here.
Dining and Cooking