Frozen Pizza, Plant-Based Sausage & Co: How Many Additives Are Really in There?

Continuing on how important clean, natural food is for us as humans, we researched three convenience products here that contain between 14 and 29 ingredients.

What stands out most: the interactions between additives and the daily upper intake limits are incredibly hard to keep track of. Recent studies point to links between microbiome damage, insulin resistance, and elevated inflammation markers on one hand, and a high concentration of additives in the diet on the other. But nobody knows this for certain yet.

So why take the risk and not eat naturally?

First, the experience is far better; second, your digestion will thank you; and third, you're left with nothing but a good feeling — from preparing the meal, to the aromas, to the enjoyment right through to the end of the meal.

If you want to take the time, keep reading below. If you already get the point, check out our shop — you'll find natural foods there that are "normal" again. Our "old normal" is premium-premium quality nowadays, which we're bringing back to life for you today.

A look at three common convenience products — and what the actual research says about their additives.

The products compared

Full ingredient lists

Dr. Oetker Ristorante Pizza Salame (320 g) Wheat flour, 21% tomato purée, 12% mozzarella cheese, 12% salami (pork, pork fat, salt, spices, dextrose, onion powder, garlic powder, spice extracts, stabiliser: sodium nitrite (E250), antioxidant: rosemary extract, sodium ascorbate (E301), smoke), water, rapeseed oil, 4.6% Edam cheese, baker's yeast, salt, sugar, dextrose, oregano, basil, spices, parsley.

Rügenwalder Vegan Grilling Sausages Water, rapeseed oil, wheat gluten, onions, starch, thickeners: methylcellulose (E461), carrageenan (E407), natural flavouring, spice extracts, iodised salt, wine vinegar, wheat flour, spices, potato protein, oat fibre, glucose (dextrose).

Meine Metzgerei Ready-to-Cook Cordon Bleu, Pork (500 g) — the convenience product with the highest ingredient count in this comparison

61% pork with liquid seasoning (pork, water, salt, glucose syrup, stabilisers: sodium citrates (E331), sodium acetates (E262), antioxidant: ascorbic acid (E300), pepper extract), 20% breading (breadcrumbs: wheat flour, salt, yeast, spices, spice extracts, lemon peel, dextrose; plus water, starch, wheat flour, rice flour), 10% cooked ham (pork, water, iodised salt: salt, potassium iodate; dextrose, antioxidant: sodium ascorbate (E301), preservative: sodium nitrite (E250)), 9% Emmental cheese.

Open Food Facts' automatic ingredient counter lists 50 ingredients for this product — though some of those aren't actually ingredients at all, but preparation instructions from the label that the automated text-recognition system mistakenly read in as ingredients (e.g. "Heat a little oil in the pan" or "Enjoy your meal!"). Counting only the actual food ingredients and additives gets you to roughly 29 individual entries — spread across four main components (seasoned pork, breading, cooked ham, cheese), each of which brings its own set of sub-ingredients. Even so, it's still by far the most ingredient-heavy product in this comparison — and it's also classified as an "ultra-processed food" (NOVA group 4) with an E-grade Green-Score.

Quick takeaway

All three product categories only carry two to six additives that require declaration. The real difference lies elsewhere: in the pizza salami, the additives are classic curing chemistry (nitrite + antioxidant). In the plant-based sausage, it's about recreating texture — water and wheat gluten need to be bound together in a way that produces "sausage feel," which requires thickening and gelling agents. In the cordon bleu, the additive packages from four separate components (meat, breading, ham, cheese) add up to a noticeably longer list.

Sugar check: what "sugar" and "dextrose" actually mean here

Two forms of sugar show up in the lists above:

• Sugar (sucrose) — ordinary table sugar

• Dextrose/glucose — in the pizza salami, both as an ingredient of the salami itself and separately in the dough; in the grilling sausages, listed as "glucose (dextrose)"; in the cordon bleu, present in the breading, the ham, and the liquid seasoning (there sometimes as glucose syrup)

What does the research actually say about each substance?

Sodium nitrite (E250) — in the pizza salami

• EFSA's ADI: 0.07 mg nitrite ions/kg body weight/day — for a 70 kg person, that's roughly 4.9 mg/day.

• During digestion or high-heat cooking, nitrite can react with protein components to form nitrosamines, which have shown carcinogenic effects in animal studies; the IARC classifies the effect in humans as "possibly carcinogenic."

• A 2022 study from the University of Paris found a link between regular consumption of nitrite-cured meat products and an increased risk of prostate cancer.

• Counterpoint: the measurably higher cancer rate from nitrate/nitrite via nitrosamines that was once feared has not been clearly confirmed when looking at the evidence as a whole.

• A critical point raised by the EU Commission itself: in children at the highest consumption percentile, the ADI is already being slightly exceeded, with additives like E250 accounting for around 17% of total nitrite intake.

Carrageenan (E407) — in the grilling sausages

• EFSA assessment (2018): rated as safe, with no ADI set, since intake levels are considered non-critical.

• A more recent human study found that in young, healthy men, a carrageenan intake (2–3 times the typical US daily dose) over two weeks increased small intestine permeability, likely due to gut inflammation. In participants with higher body weight, it also showed reduced insulin action in the liver and elevated inflammation markers.

• The EFSA itself acknowledges that heavy consumers of convenience products could exceed the acceptable dose by up to tenfold — risk groups identified by the EFSA include children, people with high intake of processed food, and vegans, since many meat-substitute products contain carrageenan.

Methylcellulose (E461) — in the grilling sausages

• Classified by the EFSA as non-toxic.

• Possible side effects, per the EFSA's own assessment: changes to the gut flora (microbiome), which could promote chronic gut inflammation, as well as a possible worsening of blood sugar levels.

• Laxative effect in larger amounts.

Sodium citrates (E331), sodium acetates (E262), ascorbic acid/sodium ascorbate (E300/E301) — in the cordon bleu

• All four substances are classified by the EFSA as safe, with no numerical ADI set — meaning there's no known harmful effect at normal consumption levels.

• Chemical background: citrate and acetate are natural intermediate products of human metabolism (the citric acid cycle and acetic acid metabolism, respectively) and are broken down by the body without issue.

• The only relevant caveat: people on a low-sodium diet (e.g. for high blood pressure or kidney disease) should factor in the sodium contributed by such additives, even though the contribution to total sodium intake is usually small.

• Takeaway: based on current research, these four additives are the least problematic in this entire comparison — unlike nitrite or carrageenan, there are no controversial human studies here.

Dextrose/glucose — in the pizza salami and the grilling sausages

• Dextrose is chemically identical to glucose and is absorbed by the body without any digestive breakdown — the first molecules enter the bloodstream via the mouth's mucous membranes. That makes it the fastest-available carbohydrate.

• That's exactly the point of concern: because dextrose is absorbed without delay, it causes blood sugar to spike quickly and steeply — faster than table sugar (sucrose), which has to be broken down first. As one industry article puts it bluntly: "Glucose helps, but it's still not healthy."

• These sharp blood sugar swings can promote cravings — an effect that's relevant in convenience foods, since dextrose is often used there in addition to "regular" sugar (as in the pizza salami, where sugar and dextrose are listed as two separate ingredients).

• In its isolated form, dextrose brings along no vitamins, minerals, or plant compounds — unlike glucose in its natural, bound form (e.g. in whole grains or potatoes), which the body has to break down more slowly and which comes packaged with fibre and micronutrients.

• Larger amounts of glucose/dextrose also promote weight gain: whatever the body doesn't use immediately for energy gets converted to fat — and with a fast-absorbing sugar like dextrose, that happens without the braking effect that longer-chain carbohydrates go through during digestion.

• Takeaway: for diabetics dealing with an acute low-blood-sugar episode, this fast action is exactly what's wanted and can be life-saving — but in the context of a convenience product that already contains isolated sugar, adding a second fast-acting sugar source on top drives blood sugar up further without providing much sense of fullness.

Conclusion: the real risk is the combination

Looked at individually, the additives in all three products stay within the levels rated as safe by the EFSA and other authorities — as long as you're only looking at one product in isolation. The cordon bleu already shows how quickly that changes once several components come together in a single product: meat, breading, ham, and cheese each bring their own additive package, and four fairly harmless-looking individual components add up to six E-numbers and around 29 ingredients by the end. So the problem isn't primarily any single additive — it's everyday reality:

A frozen pizza alone rarely fills you up. In practice, what typically comes with it:

• a soft drink (usually sweetened with sugar or glucose-fructose syrup — another fast-absorbing sugar source on top of the sugar and dextrose already in the pizza)

• a "convenient" snack or dip before or after (often also containing carrageenan, nitrite, or thickeners)

• possibly a slice of sausage, cold cuts, or cordon bleu on bread afterward — bringing along another dose of nitrite, ascorbates, and citrates

That means several additive sources stack up on the same day — and that's where the real crux lies: ADI values are calculated per substance, across the entire day and all food sources combined, not per product. Anyone who regularly combines several nitrite- or carrageenan-containing convenience products on the same day can, according to the authorities' own figures, genuinely end up in a critical range — the EU Commission confirms this explicitly for nitrite in children at the upper consumption percentile, and the EFSA confirms it for carrageenan among heavy consumers generally.

The amount in a single product is usually not a problem. It's the repetition and combination over the course of a day — and over years — that turns "theoretically safe" into a real point of discussion. And that's exactly where the difference to unprocessed, natural food becomes relevant: there, this kind of additive accumulation never gets the chance to build up in the first place.

Sources

• Dr. Oetker: Ristorante Salame – https://www.oetker.de/produkte/p/ristorante-salame

• Open Food Facts: Pizza Ristorante Salame – https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/4001724038900/ristorante-pizza-salame-dr-oetker

• Rügenwalder Mühle: Vegan grilling sausages – https://www.ruegenwalder.de/de/produkte/vegane-produkte/vegane-pfannen-grillprodukte/vegane-wuerste/rostbratwuerstchen

• EFSA: Maximum intake levels for nitrites and nitrates – https://www.efsa.europa.eu/de/press/news/170615

• EU Regulation (EU) 2023/2108 on nitrite/nitrate – https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ%3AL_202302108

• University of Paris, study on nitrite and prostate cancer risk (2022), cited via food-detektiv.de – https://food-detektiv.de/zusatzstoffe/?enummer=Natriumnitrit

• Zusatzstoffauskunft.de: Sodium nitrite – https://www.zusatzstoffauskunft.de/2025/05/08/natriumnitrit-wie-gefaehrlich-ist-es-wirklich/

• Zusatzstoffmuseum: E250 sodium nitrite – https://www.zusatzstoffmuseum.de/lexikon-der-zusatzstoffe/natriumnitrit.html

• artgerecht.com: E407 carrageenan – https://artgerecht.com/glossar/e407/

• DZD (German Center for Diabetes Research): carrageenan human study – https://www.dzd-ev.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilungen-2024/lebensmittelzusatzstoff-carrageen-e407-koennte-die-d/

• food-detektiv.de: E407 carrageenan – https://food-detektiv.de/zusatzstoffe/?enummer=Carrageen

• food-detektiv.de: E461 methylcellulose – https://food-detektiv.de/zusatzstoffe/?enummer=Methylcellulose

• Open Food Facts: Ready-to-cook cordon bleu, pork (Meine Metzgerei) – https://de.openfoodfacts.org/produkt/4061458025232/küchenfertige-cordon-bleu-vom-schwein-meine-metzgerei

• artgerecht.com: E331 sodium citrates – https://artgerecht.com/glossar/e331/

• artgerecht.com: E262 sodium acetate – https://artgerecht.com/glossar/e262/

• PTAheute: Glucose — concentrated energy – https://www.ptaheute.de/serien/zuckersuesses-beratungswissen/traubenzucker-geballte-energie

• AOK: Dextrose — how glucose works in the body – https://www.aok.de/pk/magazin/ernaehrung/lebensmittel/dextrose-wie-traubenzucker-im-koerper-wirkt/

• EatSmarter: Glucose — healthy or harmful? – https://eatsmarter.de/ernaehrung/dextrose

• REWE.de: Glucose — facts and background – https://www.rewe.de/ernaehrung/wissen/traubenzucker/

• diabetesDE – German Diabetes Aid: Glucose – https://www.diabetesde.org/ueber_diabetes/was_ist_diabetes_/diabetes_lexikon/traubenzucker