Is Gum Arabic Harmful?

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM · August 21, 2009 · Volume 3

4.8/5 - (10 votes)

The verdict on this common food additive.

Discuss

Gum arabic—found in paints, marshmallows, M&Ms, Diet Coke, and as the lickable adhesive on the backs of stamps. Harmful, harmless, or helpful? Completely harmless.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

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World Health Organization; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Evaluation of certain food additives. Seventy-first report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser. 2010;(956):1-80

Image thanks to Tarig A. Eltom via Wikimedia Commons.

Doctor's Note

For more on gum arabic:
Update on Gum Arabic

And check out the other “HHH” videos (Harmful, Harmless, or Helpful?) – listed below the post.

Also see my associated blog posts: Is Caffeinated Tea Really Dehydrating? and Soy milk: shake it up!

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here. Read our important information about translations here.

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