Yuka study on food additive usage restrictions in the European Union and the United States

Authors

Gabriela Mourad Vicenssuto, Nutrition Engineer at Yuka.
Zoé Kerlo, Toxicologist at Yuka.

Abstract

Of the 50 most common additives presenting a certain level of danger according to Yuka, 38% are not subject to any restrictions on use in the USA, compared to just 14% in the European Union.

In other words, the United States imposes nearly three times fewer restrictions than Europe.

Methodology

• The data comes from the analysis of European Union and United States regulations as of February 11, 2025.
• The European food additives regulations were consulted on the website: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02008R1333-20241216
• The United States food additives regulations were consulted on the websites: https://www.hfpappexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/index.cfm?set=FoodSubstances ; https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B
• The additives considered in this study are the 50 most scanned food additives on Yuka at the time of the study, which present a certain level of health risk according to Yuka’s rating system. The number of scans corresponds to the number of times a product containing an additive was scanned by the Yuka app over the past 30 days. The risk levels correspond to the rating assigned to each additive based on the toxicological evaluation of their effects on human health according to Yuka.
• The additives included in this study have the following risk levels: “limited risk” (number 3 in the table) “moderate risk” (number 2 in the table) or “high-risk” (number 1 in the table) according to Yuka’s rating. Additives that do not present a health risk according to Yuka’s rating were excluded from the study.

Results