Every day, I get asked questions like these:
- What do you think about food dyes?
- And seed oils?
- And artificial sweeteners?
- And these 50 other scary things I heard about?
- Are they safe?
- Are they dangerous?
- Are they toxic?
- Are they making us fat?
- Are they killing us?
- I’m very concerned and I’m doing everything I can to eliminate them from my diet but it’s very hard and inconvenient and it’s causing me a lot of stress and please dear god help me I’m so scared!!!!!!
Okay, that last one might be slightly exaggerated.
But I think you get the idea, which is this…
There is some supposedly evil substance the person is concerned about.
This could be anything from artificial sweeteners, food dyes, and seed oils, to “toxins,” “chemicals,” and my personal favorite: “ingredients I can’t even pronounce.”
Usually it’s whatever happens to be in the news or on social media at the time.
But whatever it may be, the person has heard all kinds of terrible things about it — e.g. it causes cancer, it causes obesity, it makes your head explode upon making eye contact with it — and they’re very worried about it.
And now… they want to know what I think.
Okay, I’ll tell you.
Here’s the answer I give to everyone who asks me these kinds of questions…
How often do you drink alcohol?
That’s right, I answer their question with a question of my own.
People LOVE that. 🙄
After some initial confusion (“umm, but I asked about food dyes not alcohol???”), they typically respond back to me with something like:
- X times a week.
- X glasses a day.
- X bottles a week.
And that’s when I swoop in and make my overly dramatic point.
9 times out of 10, the supposedly scary, dangerous, toxic thing I’m being asked about is something that isn’t scary, dangerous, or toxic.
It’s almost always something that falls into one of the following categories:
- Small but limited evidence showing negative effects.
- No evidence showing negative effects.
- Lots of evidence showing it’s largely safe when consumed in typical amounts.
- Not enough evidence one way or the other and we don’t know enough to say for sure.
But…
BUT…
BUT…
You know that alcohol you’re drinking regularly?
IT’S A LEGITIMATE F**KING TOXIN!
I’m not talking about some idiot on TikTok holding a pack of M&M’s and yelling “toxin!!” at it.
I’m talking about a real, actual thing that’s really, actually toxic.
That’s what alcohol is.
It’s a Group 1 carcinogen with significant evidence showing it’s a cause of cancer in humans (source).
That means you’re out here happily consuming a substance that is officially deemed to have “no safe level of consumption” while being worried about something like aspartame (an artificial sweetener) which studies show is unsafe only when a mouse consumes more than any human ever could.
Now listen…
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be cautious about what you put into your body.
You absolutely should.
I sure as hell am.
It’s why I don’t drink alcohol.
And I’m not saying all of these supposedly bad things are actually good for you.
They’re usually not.
I mean, they’re more… neutral.
Not exactly good, but nowhere even close to as bad as people claim they are. In some cases, maybe not even bad at all.
But hey, if you want to play it extra safe and avoid certain things just in case, that’s totally fine by me as long as it doesn’t drive you insane in the process or make your diet impossible for you to stick to.
What I am saying is that if you’re more concerned and cautious about food dyes, seed oils, artificial sweeteners, and other “toxins” that aren’t actually toxins and have (at best) limited evidence showing negative effects than you are about alcohol — a legitimate toxin and known cause of cancer in humans — then your priorities are out of whack and you’re focusing on the wrong things.
It’s kinda like someone telling me they’re trying to live a long and healthy life, so they’re very worried about a piano falling on their head.
But at the same time, they enjoy walking into oncoming traffic while blindfolded a few times a week and aren’t worried about that at all.
It’s like, yeah, I agree… let’s try to avoid pianos falling on our heads.
I’m totally with you.
But um, at the same time, let’s maybe focus more on the things you’re doing that are way more likely to kill you.
