IMO (I'm one of these Europeans) there's good reasons to avoid additives and there's bad ones. There seems to be a relationship between additives and the preval

IMO (I'm one of these Europeans) there's good reasons to avoid additives and there's bad ones. There seems to be a relationship between additives and the prevalence of obesity. That may not be causal, but at least when it comes to Artificial Flavours the mechanism of that happening seems pretty clear to me. Preservatives is something that seems to be much less needed in a typical European urban lifestyle (shopping for food at least 2 times a week). I like to differentiate additives in different groups: Citric Acid. Should be just fine, apart from citrus allergy. Other preservatives and nitrates. I'm weary about those, i.e. I try not to eat much. As an example, so far I haven't seen a good counterproof against the Hawaiian nitrate study [1]. If alternatives without such preservatives are available I will choose those (and instead take care to eat it quickly). Artificial Flavouring. I try to limit these since it tricks me into eating more. Vitamins. Don't care if they're in there, but I won't buy a product just because of added Vitamins - I'm eating enough fresh produce. Things that make the product look/sell better but give me no benefit, e.g. food colouring. I'm trying to avoid those, it's probably fine but I don't see why I should eat something my body hasn't been exposed to during human evolution that doesn't have any benefit. [1] http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/19/1458.full.pdf http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/19/1458.full.pdf