By Steven Paul, registered dietitian, The Whole You Dietitian
On social media I keep seeing the same kind of video: someone holds up a packet, reads out an ingredient with a long name and tells you to avoid it. Picture a supplement label with “cyanocobalamin” on it, and a voice saying that it contains cyanide. The fear that builds has a name, chemophobia.
Are chemicals in food bad for you?
Not as a category. Everything you eat is made of chemicals, so the word alone can’t separate safe from harmful. Whether a substance harms you depends on what testing shows about that substance at the amounts people eat. The elements in its name, how clinical it sounds and whether it’s natural or synthetic don’t settle the question.
What is chemophobia, and how do people judge chemicals?
Chemophobia is not a recognised diagnosis in psychiatry or psychology. It is a term used by researchers who study how people judge chemicals, and it describes fear of chemical substances. They measure it as an attitude, using survey questions.
In a survey of 5,631 people across eight European countries, researchers found large gaps in knowledge of toxicology principles, and lower knowledge went with higher chemophobia. A mixed-methods study in German-speaking Switzerland found that most people were unaware of the similarities between natural and synthetic chemicals in certain toxicological principles, and that their associations with the phrase “chemical substances” were mostly negative.
People also tend to prefer natural food. In studies with undergraduate students and representative American adults, Paul Rozin and colleagues found that this preference is substantial. When the natural and artificial versions were described as chemically identical, a majority of the people who preferred natural still did. The authors concluded that part of the motivation is moral or aesthetic rather than about health.
A study of how the public appraises food additives and contaminants found that respondents were less disturbed by a possible health risk than by the mere presence of the chemical in food. A majority understood that exposure determines whether a chemical is a risk, yet many also thought all chemicals are equally harmful.
How does a named compound get used to sell a fear?
Some influencers use a chemical’s name to steer people away from a product: it contains a named compound, so it must be bad for you. In the posts I’ve seen, the claim stops there, with no amount, no regulator’s limit and no sign of whether the finding came from cells, animals or people. Technical vocabulary can also make the speaker sound authoritative without showing anything about the claim itself.
Sometimes the post sells a product as well. Someone who presents an ingredient as dangerous and then sells an alternative without it has a financial interest in the fear.
Before accepting a claim like that, check:
- whether the named compound is in the product, and how much
- how that amount compares with what people eat and with the regulator’s limit
- whether the finding came from cells, animals or people
- who is making the claim, and what they are selling
- whether independent regulators agree
Why can’t a list of elements, or a natural label, tell you what’s safe?
Compounds don’t behave like their elements
Water shows how a chemical name, or a list of elements, can be made to sound alarming. Dihydrogen monoxide is a systematic chemical name for water. A leaflet warning that it turns up in your food, your drink and your own body would be accurate about where it’s found, and it would be about water. Break it into its elements and it can sound worse. Someone could say water should never be used on a fire because it contains hydrogen, which is flammable, and oxygen, which supports combustion.
That reasoning fails because a compound doesn’t behave like the elements it’s made from. Joined as water, hydrogen and oxygen put out ordinary fires. Sodium chloride works the same way. Sodium is a highly reactive metal, and chlorine is a toxic gas, yet sodium chloride is in kitchens everywhere as table salt. A claim that a compound is hazardous because of the elements it contains treats the hazard of the free elements as if it applied to the compound itself.
Where a compound comes from doesn’t decide its safety
Arsenic, death cap mushrooms and cyanide are all natural substances, and all can kill at high enough amounts. Some foods people eat, such as bitter almonds, linseed and cassava, contain cyanogenic glycosides, natural compounds that can release cyanide when the food is crushed or chewed. Having a compound in a food is different from being exposed to a harmful amount of it. Exposure depends on how much is in what you eat, how much the body absorbs and how quickly it clears what it absorbs. Cyanide that is absorbed is converted to thiocyanate by an enzyme, and the kidneys excrete the thiocyanate in urine. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) sets an acute reference dose for cyanide, the amount that can be eaten in one go without appreciable risk, of 20 micrograms per kg of body weight, which is 1.4 milligrams for a 70 kg adult.
Linseed, also called flaxseed, shows what this means in a real food. EFSA reports that Linseed can release about 192 milligrams of cyanide per kg on average. EFSA’s calculations assume only about a third of that cyanide reaches the blood, based on a study in which volunteers ate linseed. By my calculation, reaching the reference dose would take about 22 grams of linseed eaten in one go by a 70 kg adult, at the average level. For comparison, Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment puts a level tablespoon of ground linseed at about 6 grams. A serving of one to two level tablespoons is roughly 6 to 12 grams, about a quarter to a half of that amount. The reference dose is also a cautious safety threshold, not a toxic dose: EFSA allowed for conservatism when it set it and exceeding it does not necessarily cause harm. EFSA also said a risk for younger age groups could not be excluded if ground linseed is consumed, based on a worst-case scenario using the highest measured level, which is why the amount and the person eating it both matter.
Cyanocobalamin, the form of vitamin B12 usually found in supplements, is the contrasting case: it contains a cyanide group. A post might say to avoid it for that reason. The arithmetic shows why that claim misleads. The cyanide group makes up about 1.9% of the molecule by mass, so a 1000 microgram tablet carries about 19 micrograms of cyanide. Even if all of it were released, that is about 1.4% of the 1.4 milligram reference dose (19 micrograms against 1400 micrograms). The claim is true about the molecule and says nothing about risk until the amount is set against a limit. A natural food that releases cyanide and a supplement that contains a cyanide group make the same point: origin tells you nothing reliable about safety in either direction.
What to take from this
A name or a list of elements is enough to trigger a fear of chemicals, but a frightening name does not show that a substance is harmful. What decides is the form the substance takes, how much is in the food and how much reaches your body. Testing at realistic amounts is how regulators find out.
Some substances do cause harm at some amounts, so a claim deserves checking rather than dismissing. When you meet an unfamiliar name, look it up, then ask the questions in the checklist above.
If you’re looking to improve your diet and lifestyle, that’s exactly what a registered dietitian specialises in.
Save this for the next time a video names an ingredient, and you want to check it.
This content is for educational and informational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
References
- Abraham, K., Buhrke, T. and Lampen, A. (2016) ‘Bioavailability of cyanide after consumption of a single meal of foods containing high levels of cyanogenic glycosides’, Archives of Toxicology, 90(3), pp. 559-574. doi:10.1007/s00204-015-1479-8.
- Bearth, A., Saleh, R. and Siegrist, M. (2019) ‘Lay-people’s knowledge about toxicology and its principles in eight European countries’, Food and Chemical Toxicology, 131, 110560. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2019.06.007.
- Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR) (2026) Hydrocyanic acid and cadmium in linseeds, Communication No. 034/2026, 16 June. Available at: bfr.bund.de/en/notification/hydrocyanic-acid-and-cadmium-in-linseeds.
- EFSA CONTAM Panel (2019) ‘Evaluation of the health risks related to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides in foods other than raw apricot kernels’, EFSA Journal, 17(4), e05662. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2019.5662.
- Fisher Scientific (no date) Water product listing (synonym: dihydrogen monoxide).
- Jansen, T., Claassen, L., van Kamp, I. and Timmermans, D.R.M. (2020) ‘”All chemical substances are harmful.” Public appraisal of uncertain risks of food additives and contaminants’, Food and Chemical Toxicology, 136, 110959. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2019.110959.
- LGC Standards (no date) Cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12) product listing (molecular formula and weight). Available at: lgcstandards.com.
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements (no date) Vitamin B12: fact sheet for health professionals. Available at: ods.od.nih.gov.
- Rozin, P. et al. (2004) ‘Preference for natural: instrumental and ideational/moral motivations, and the contrast between foods and medicines’, Appetite, 43(2), pp. 147-154. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2004.03.005.
- Saleh, R., Bearth, A. and Siegrist, M. (2019) ‘”Chemophobia” today: consumers’ knowledge and perceptions of chemicals’, Risk Analysis, 39(12), pp. 2668-2682. doi:10.1111/risa.13375.
- Sigma-Aldrich (no date) Cyanocobalamin product listing (formula weight). Available at: sigmaaldrich.com.
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