Health risks of artificial food colourings
Different food colourings have different effects.
Case Study 1- Cancerous Colouring in Sausages
One food colouring in the news at the moment is the food colouring E128 (Red 2g), which is contained in sausages.
An expert food panel has recommended that the food dye should no longer be available for humans to eat.
In the body Red 2g is converted into an oily substance called aniline, recent tests on mice and rats have suggested that Aniline is a trigger to cancer, as the animals injected with the Aniline developed cancerous tumours. In a statement the EFSA panel said "Given new scientific evidence, it cannot be excluded that aniline's carcinogenic potential is due to damage to the genetic material of the cells.” They came to the verdict that Red 2g is a safety concern and are looking to get it banned from foods in the UK as it is in many countries like Japan.
Case Study 2 - No more Blue Smarties?
The well known sweets “smarties” have recently changed the blue smarties to white ones why?
Due to the new healthy eating craze and media coverage on things such as obesity and food colourings smarties took it as an opportunity to make their colourings natural, also as tests showed that the artificial colourings in smarties were making children hyperactive. With this new idea they could no longer have blue smarties as there is no natural alternative to the blue colouring.
Case study 3- colourful curries
Curries in surrey have been found to have dangerous levels of food colouring in them, people have been adding the colours to them to make them more vivid colours especially chicken tikka masala. The colourings have been linked to migraines hyperactivity and allergies. The survey in surrey showed that 58 out of 102 curries they sampled contained dangerous amounts of food colourings. One restaurant was using 4 times the amount of the legal limits of the colouring in their curries. The two colourings being used are sunset yellow and tartrazine, scientists believe that tartrazine can cause blurry vision, purple skin patches and is particularly dangerous for people with asthma or with allergies to aspirin high levels of this was contained in the curries and the consumers were unaware what they were eating. Sunset yellow is linked with hives chromosome damage, abdominal pain kidney tumours and nausea/vomiting. Lots of these things are very serious but still people put them into their curries to make them a more “vibrant yellow”.
Hyperactivity in children
Many food colourings are thought to cause hyperactivity in children. A study conducted in may by a team of researchers from Southampton University on 300 three year old children, they stopped the children receiving any colourings or additives in their food for 4 weeks but unknown some children were given additives in their juice by the researchers to use as a comparison. Their mothers were asked to keep a diary of the 4 weeks and how their children behaved. Overall the parents who’s children had no colourings said their child’s behaviour improved within the 4 week period but the children with colourings in their juice did not. This indicates that food colourings and additives are a cause of hyperactivity in young children, although this is not enough evidence yet to make a definite conclusion because the trial is too small.
Should food colourings be used at all?
Are there enough benefits to outweigh all the risks of using food colourings?
Benefits
- Makes food more appealing
- Masks discolouration in food
- Decoration purposes
- Protect food from light damage
Risks
- Possible threat of cancer
- Possible cause of hyperactivity
- Other health risks
In my view food colourings are used by manufacturers so they can sell their product more and make more money with no concern with the consumer’s health, they are to capture peoples eye and make the food look appetising but have no real benefit to the consumer, and the risks outweigh the benefits by far.
Conclusion
In conclusion to this I think that artificial food colourings should be substituted by natural ones in as many cases as possible to make the risk ALARA ( As Low As Reasonably Achievable). There is not a benefit that is big enough to take the risk of things like cancer just for the image of your food, as the world is becoming more conscious to things like this I believe the market for artificial food colourings will disintegrate as it mainly used by producer to try and get as much profit as possible. It depends what you value more money or health, if our country has come to a state where money is more important than the health of our youths then I think it needs to change quickly before the effects of the food colourings and other aspects of diet today start putting the life expectancy of people in the UK down instead of growing like it previously has.
Bibliography
The sources I used to get my information were,
This website was last updated 21:51, 9 July 2007; this means it is very up to date. It is a well known information sight funded by the government and is a non profitable charity this means it is likely to be reliable and has no reason for putting incorrect information in it.
BBC is the best known news sight and because it is used so much if they had errors on it, it would soon be realised. It was Last Updated Tuesday, 10 July 2007, 06:57 GMT 07:57 UK which is very recent meaning the information is very recent and up to date.
BBC is the best known news sight and because it is used so much if they had errors on it, it would soon be realised. It was created on the 5th January 2005 which is not recent but not too old and the information I used from it should still be the same.
This information is from wikipedia a government funded non profit information site this means the information would be reliable, but it has no reference to when the site was last updated, meaning it could be very old information.
BBC is the best known news sight and because it is used so much if they had errors on it, it would soon be realised. It was Last Updated Tuesday, 25 May, 2004 which is fairly recent meaning the information would be up to date.
BBC is the best known news sight and because it is used so much if they had errors on it, it would soon be realised. It was last updated Tuesday 26th march 2004 which is when the report came out.
Pictures are from,
(picture of cakes, front page)
(picture of sausages, in cancerous colourings in sausages)
(picture of natural food colouring, in the two main kinds of food colouring)
(picture of smarties natural/artificial, in No more blue smarties?)
(picture of child, in hyperactivity in children)
(Picture of curry, in colourful curries)
