Edible evolution: the significance of food additives in shaping human health

Human diets have transitioned through distinct stages, from foraging to agriculture, domestication, and industrialization, that progressively altered food composition, availability, and ecological context. While these shifts enhanced food security and shelf life, they also narrowed dietary diversity and layered non-nutritive components ranging from salt and fermentation by-products to synthetic dyes, preservatives, artificial flavors, and non-caloric sweeteners onto ancestral nutritional frameworks. This review traces the historical integration of such compounds, situating them within broader dietary transitions to highlight how technological innovations gradually distanced human diets from their evolutionary origins. Drawing on nutritional anthropology, archaeogenomics, and ecological perspectives, we examine how these changes reshaped gut health, microbial diversity, and long-term disease risk. By framing non-nutritive additives within the long arc of dietary evolution, this perspective provides context for understanding the rise of modern, ultra-processed food systems and underscores the importance of integrating evolutionary and ecological evidence into contemporary nutrition and gastrointestinal research.