“…As a sustainable technology, anaerobic digestion can effectively reduce the volume of food waste, stabilize organics, and eliminate pathogens . In addition, anaerobic digestion is considered to have the potential to reduce the risk of transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in food waste. , However, anaerobic digestion of food waste easily encounters technical issues such as the accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and ammonia inhibition owing to the unbalanced C/N ratio and trace metal deficiency of food waste. − Among the four stages of anaerobic digestion (i.e., hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis), hydrolysis is the main rate-limiting step while methanogensis is the decisive step that is directly related to final methane production and sensitive to adverse factors such as temperature, pH, and toxicants. − Researchers have devised a number of physical, chemical, and biological techniques to accelerate hydrolysis and optimize the methanogensis to increase the production of methane from food waste. − However, most of them mainly focused on improving the biotransformations of proteins, polysaccharide, and lipids in food waste. − None of the previous reviews addressed the interaction between anaerobic digestion and food additives that often accumulate in large quantities in food waste, mainly including salt, capsaicin, allicin, allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), monosodium glutamate (MSG), and nonnutritive sweeteners (NNS). − This situation hides the details of what is happening in the anaerobic digestion of food waste in the real world, which is not conducive to the deep control and regulation of the anaerobic digestion system.…”