I heard about this on the radio and had to look up more info, I find this kind of thing very interesting! Calcium propionate, a common preservative in many foods, seem to increase the glucose response to foods, leading to higher insulin levels and insulin resistance. This increases the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Here's a recent study:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/st...es-and-obesity/

A good reason to avoid processed foods as much as possible!
Here's a (incomplete) list of foods that might contain it--breads, pizza dough, breakfast cereals, pasta, dried or condensed milk, flavored milk, yogurts and puddings, processed cheese (also some unprocessed cheese), processed meats, sausage casings, beer, cider and distilled spirits, potato salad and condiments, soups and sauces, beans, seaweed and nut butters.

I made this list from this website:
https://getfit.jillianmichaels.com/...onate-1437.html

Unfortunately it is also in a lot of livestock feed. I believe the feed for what we eat matters. Hopefully there will be more research along this line, I doubt this is the last food additive that could cause problems!

There are a lot of Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) food additives that the food industry uses which no one has tested to see if they are really safe, especially when consumed over many years.

There are other studies showing apparent benefit from propionate, but administered differently. Propionate is one of the major short chain fatty acids produced by gut bacteria--but of course, where sugars etc. are absorbed soon after consumption, production of the short chain fatty acids in the colon has an hours-long lag time for fermentable carbohydrate etc. to make it to that stage of digestion. Propionate is a 3-carbon fatty acid, so unlike most fats, it can increase net substrate for gluconeogenesis, so the upregulation of gluconeogenesis here sort of makes sense, with the possibility that there's a mismatch when carbs and larger amounts of propionate are taken together.

Scary stuff!!

Looking up info on GRAS, it seems that the list was initially established in 1958. GRAS ingredients were already being used decades before that date though (which is why, with the many decades of previous use, they were considered GRAS), including calcium propionate, which was used as a preservative in the bread industry in the 1930's.

So why didn't it cause an epidemic of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity back then?

Perhaps it's the fact that people weren't being told to eat a dozen servings of bread daily back then. Or perhaps if calcium propionate has much of a role in obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, it's minor compared to the massive increase in the quantities of carbs being consumed as compared to back in the 30's.

Still, I wanted to see just how prevalent it was in the mentioned foods:

So I looked at several of the items on that list while I was at work (they have a lot of tastee cake, little debbie type stuff at checkouts), and although there are plenty of GRAS additives in them, I only found a couple of things that contained calcium propionate - just the really soft cinnamon bun type things in each brand. Amazingly enough, twinkies did NOT have it, and neither did any of the donuts, or cake type items, even though those are soft products.

Checked some bread items - most (but not all) of the ones I checked have it, but didn't find any crackers at all that contained it.

I fully expected the Jimmy Dean pre-heated, ready to eat breakfast sandwiches (biscuits, english muffins or croissants with some combination of sausage, egg, bacon, and cheese in them) to have it, but nope, none in those.

Checked a few cereals and some pop tarts - didn't find any of it in those either.

Checked several different types of cheeses, mostly block cheese (cheddar, jack, swiss, etc), but also checked pre-sliced, pre-shredded, American, and cream cheese - none of them had it. Didn't happen across any cheese spreads when I was reading ingredient labels, so maybe some of those would have had it.

Checked plain yogurt and there was none in that - didn't see any in the basic flavored yogurts I looked at either, but that doesn't mean that the ones which are highly processed couldn't have it.

Checked some canned soups - none in the ones I checked, but perhaps some of the refrigerated soups have it.

Happened upon a container of refrigerated potato salad - none in that either.

I didn't see any in dry pasta, but it's possible that canned or refrigerated pasta could have it.

I know there's other things on the above list that I didn't check (didn't happen to have the list of suspects with me when I was at the store), but the only things I saw with it were those which (without preservatives) are highly likely to mold within a couple days at room temperature, such as soft bread type foods.

Having said that, there's loads of GRAS ingredients in most of the highly processed foods I checked - TBHQ, monosodium phosphate, and on and on.

Of course we're aware that most highly processed foods are generally very high in carbs - breads, crackers, canned soups, so as always, we're better off sticking to food which is as minimally processed as possible, meaning meat, cheese, eggs, and veggies.

Calianna, thank you for posting that. I have actually never noticed this ingredient and I am an inveterate label reader. My mind immediately went to grated cheese because that is something that I buy but it's not in the ones I have. Maybe it's in stuff like Spaghetti-Os? Or just super rare anymore?