Sulfites and Pregnancy: Safety, Risks, and Recommendations
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Can You Eat Sulfites When Pregnant?

Can You Eat Sulfites When Pregnant?
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Updated on August 7, 2025
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Concerns over food additives and chemicals take on new significance when you’re pregnant. You weigh everything that you ingest against its potential risk to your developing baby.

Sulfites are preservatives used in many processed foods. They’re also found in wine and beer. Sulfites can cause allergic reactions in some people but haven’t been proven harmful in pregnancy.

Sources

Several chemical compounds used in food production fall into the category of sulfites. Sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfite, potassium bisulfite, potassium metabisulfite, and sodium metabisulfite are all classified as sulfites.

Sulfites keep meats, fruits, and vegetables from turning brown when exposed to air, which is why they were commonly used on salad bars to keep foods looking fresh. Sulfites can no longer be used on fruits, meats, and vegetables, except for potatoes.

In processed foods, sulfites act as preservatives and bleaching agents. Foods containing more than 10 parts per million must be labeled as containing sulfites.

Fermentation in beer and wine also produces sulfites.

Pregnancy Warnings

Foods containing sulfites don’t carry warning labels for people who are pregnant. Alcoholic beverages carry warning labels for pregnancy because the alcohol content can cause birth defects, not because the sulfites pose a risk in pregnancy.

Effects

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), around 1 percent of Americans have a sulfite sensitivity.

If you have a sulfite sensitivity, you may develop symptoms such as wheezing, trouble breathing, chest tightness, hives, facial swelling known as angioedema, vomiting, and diarrhea.

About 4 to 5 percent of people with asthma have a sulfite sensitivity, reports Cleveland Clinic.

Cautions

If you’re pregnant and have a sulfite sensitivity, a reaction that causes difficulty breathing could affect the amount of oxygen your baby receives through the placenta.

Read labels carefully to avoid sulfites if you have ever had a reaction. If you have asthma, eat foods high in sulfites cautiously, since having asthma increases your risk of developing sulfite sensitivity.

Sulfite sensitivity can appear at any age, even if you’ve consumed sulfites before without a problem.

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Kayli Anderson, RDN

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Member of American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Kayli Anderson has over a decade of experience in nutrition, culinary education, and lifestyle medicine. She believes that eating well should be simple, pleasurable, and sustainable. Anderson has worked with clients from all walks of life, but she currently specializes in nutrition therapy and lifestyle medicine for women. She’s the founder of PlantBasedMavens.com, a hub for women to get evidence-based, practical, and woman-centered guidance on nutrition and cooking, hormone health, fertility, pregnancy, movement, mental well-being, nontoxic living, and more.

Anderson is board-certified in lifestyle medicine and serves as lead faculty of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s (ACLM) "Food as Medicine" course. She is past chair of the ACLM's registered dietitian member interest group, secretary of the women's health member interest group, and nutrition faculty for many of ACLM's other course offerings. She is the coauthor of the Plant-Based Nutrition Quick Start Guide and works with many of the leading organizations in nutrition and lifestyle medicine to develop nutrition content, recipes, and educational programs.

Anderson frequently speaks on the topics of women’s health and plant-based nutrition and has coauthored two lifestyle medicine textbooks, including the first one on women’s health, Improving Women's Health Across the Lifespan.

She received a master's degree in nutrition and physical performance and is certified as an exercise physiologist and intuitive eating counselor. She's a student of herbal medicine and women's integrative and functional medicine. She lives with her husband in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where you’ll find her out on a trail or in her garden.

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Sharon Perkins

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A registered nurse with more than 25 years of experience in oncology, labor/delivery, neonatal intensive care, infertility and ophthalmology, Sharon Perkins has also coauthored and edited numerous health books for the Wiley "Dummies" series. Perkins also has extensive experience working in home health with medically fragile pediatric patients.

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