E for Additives
Maurice Hanssen
The award-winning million copy seller, now available as an ebook.The book shows you how to tell the difference between the additives you need in food and wine and those you don’t (after all, by no means the majority of additives are bad for you).• when preservatives, colourings and flavourings have a place in our food• GM foods – which issues should cause concern• Additives in unexpected places – even in a glass of wine• facts on pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones
E FOR ADDITIVES
THE BEST-SELLING, AWARD WINNING DEFINITIVE E NUMBER GUIDE
Maurice Hanssen
with Jill Marsden
B.Sc., Dip.Ecol., Dip.Ed.
Copyright (#ulink_d41b00f0-b57b-5e7c-8990-8fdffd7ef8e3)
Thorsons Element
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
The website address is: www.thorsonselement.com (http://www.thorsonselement.com)
First published October 1984
Twentieth Impression December 1986
Second edition (completely revised and substantially expanded) September 1988
© Maurice Hansen 1987
Maurice Hansen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780722515624
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN 9780007381562
Version: 2016-01-05
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Dedication (#ulink_b4aa3425-3a23-5190-9848-dc4d43b7bac2)
This new edition is dedicated to:
All those consumers and manufacturers who use the E code wisely to improve the quality of food and of health;
the many scientists, manufacturers and consumers who have provided invaluable technical information;
all those journalists and broadcasters who helped begin a food buying revolution with the first edition;
my patient and dedicated publishers;
my Research Assistant, Jill Marsden, B.Sc, who continues to triumph over the problems of organizing ever increasing quantities of often contradictory scientific information;
the distinguished and still crusading former Minister of Health, David Ennals, for his perceptive and kind foreword;
Leslie Kenton for her foreword to the first edition;
Elizabeth Brown and Angela Beazley for their word-processing skills, often under great pressure;
my family for their support.
Contents
Cover (#ue1fdf853-0ad0-5a06-a7c5-a44e61c62dde)
Title Page (#uf04daa52-8461-5c16-b47c-bf95de0ab169)
Copyright (#uaf70bf8f-cea7-51e8-8f24-8a231b0d7d50)
Dedication (#u24b0ccc1-0058-59f0-8b4b-804086bcc5f0)
Foreword by Lord Enrols (#u1215593c-0c19-5474-8bf3-7d0731cc6d7d)
Foreword to First Edition by Leslie Kenton (#ud936bb59-b843-5943-961a-2953a2b6c87a)
Introduction (#u8187c592-35eb-5a9b-9767-9da2f4acd065)
1. How to Read the Label (#u13d9b6c3-303a-59a2-9600-8a75e97da532)
2. Why Are There Still Secret Ingredients? (#ueed6eac1-95f3-54c4-99c1-0b03795cccd7)
3. Golden Eggs and Pink-Fleshed Fish (#u65abc5a7-22d9-5dc7-b411-20ce69991fd4)
4. The Colour Problem (#ud78d46db-c64f-5cbe-9c88-38e6d1570588)
5. Flavourings (#u8be8ad5a-0b1d-5279-b6dd-69e8203177d7)
6. P for Pesticides (#u65fac0da-82d6-5ca7-a7a3-678bd43b7cf2)
7. Is It Kosher? (#u661d6bba-94c8-5e27-90d0-22580a1eacc6)
8. Do Additives Affect Ability? (#ue8f8bd74-dfdd-5941-9c33-2087d1847c0b)
9. Hyperactivity in Children (#uc27b7a24-fee1-50e7-af47-492ce3292e63)
10. The Avoidable 57 Additives (#ue2148259-d405-5266-8644-58060f7356be)
11. The Natural Opportunity for Profit (#u3bfa4264-b52c-5c77-8898-2d2ffd9f66b7)
12. The E Number Categories (#u48ce1402-06ad-506c-a7d5-dc3cef5bfb3d)
Appendix I An Introduction to the Safety Assessment (Toxicity) of Additives by R. D. Combes, Ph.D. (Lond.), M.I.Biol. (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix II Warning: Dangerous Food Additives—The Villejuif List (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix III The Regulation of Food Additives (#litres_trial_promo)
References (#litres_trial_promo)
Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)
Useful Addresses (#litres_trial_promo)
Index (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Foreword (#ulink_92853da3-204b-5aa4-bd5e-5bd967286a47)
There has been a revolution in the approach to what we eat. A series of reports have clearly established the link between food intake and health. It has been supported by doctors, pharmacists, dietitians and politicians. In 1985 a decision was made to establish an all-party Parliamentary Food and Health Forum, of which I am Chairman, and this has become one of the most active Parliamentary groups. Across the country there is concern at the fat and sugar content of food and a growing awareness that 30 per cent of adults in Britain are overweight. There is also a growing interest in colourings and artificial flavourings—in fact, in every type of additive. With Britain’s appalling record of avoidable diseases, there is now a major campaign linking diet and disease.
This growth in interest has led to a public demand for more information, and since 1962 the EEC has been issuing Directives on additives. Since the beginning of January 1986, most foods have carried a full list of additives, apart from flavourings, described by their E numbers on the package. A great step forward—providing you can fully understand the implication of the E number! For instance, I have aspirin sensitivity, and my wife is asthmatic. So we need to know, for both those conditions tend to bring in their wake sensitivities to certain common food preservatives and colours. The book describes these relationships fully, and in addition makes a convincing case for the full disclosure of ingredients and additives on products where they are not yet required to appear by law, such as in many types of confectionery, alcoholic drinks and medicines.
In 1984, following a great deal of research, Maurice Hanssen’s first edition of E for Additives was published. It was a tremendous success and was a bestseller for many months, along with Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer. It is still in great demand. It contains just enough essential information about the contents and effects (including adverse effects) of each product to enable the shopper to know just what they are being asked to buy.
But since 1984, research has provided a mass of additional information about E-numbered additives and about the wider implications of the need for certain additives in foods where many manufacturers are able to produce excellent foods without their use. Key issues such as the nutritional consequences of the overuse of additives are explored for the first time in this new edition of E for Additives.
To me, the great merit of Maurice Hanssen’s book is that his explanations are clear to all. It is cram full of essential information for the careful shopper. Every essential term, like preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, tenderizers and flavouring, is clearly spelt out.
This book is not just for those who did not buy the first edition. It contains so much that parents need to know. Do additives affect ability, and what about hyperactivity in children? The fact is that more and more is now known about the effects of what we eat—and we all need to know.
We know that there is a close link between what we eat and our physical—and maybe our mental—health. I doubt whether anyone else in Britain has done more to cut through the commercials and bring out the facts. Maurice Hanssen has been at the forefront of this food and health revolution. For me, it is a real pleasure to commend this new edition. I hope that it, too, will be a bestseller.
THE RT. HON. LORD ENNALS
HOUSE OF LORDS
Foreword to First Edition (#ulink_e1a76f84-0a72-5b07-91d6-5bf7c1bdc463)
This comprehensive book is one which in a sense I wish need never have been written. I would prefer to live in a world where we harvested our foods fresh from the earth, ate them immediately and never had to give a thought to food preservatives, artificial emulsifiers and stabilizers, anti-oxidants and permitted colours. Alas, we do not live in such a world. High technology food production and elaborate chains of food distribution have created a situation in which food additives are necessary. Yet for the protection of oneself and one’s family it is also necessary to be well informed about these hundreds of additives in quite specific terms and highly aware of the possible implications of their inclusion in our daily diet.
I therefore welcome Maurice Hanssen’s E for Additives. Mr Hanssen has produced a simple-to-follow yet remarkably ambitious guide which can help people make informed decisions about the foods on their supermarket shelves even before they buy them. He carefully explains both the pros and cons of food additives, clarifies the meaning of such commonly used but little understood words as ‘stabilizers’ and ‘tenderizers’, and offers a quick-to-use guide to each specific additive, its name, where it comes from, the possible adverse effects of using it, and a list of typical products in which it is used. This book is a useful tool for anyone concerned about the health of himself and his family. I for one would not want to be without it.
LESLIE KENTON
Introduction (#ulink_b0fdc101-7ce2-54a1-9c98-464969b40d90)
My first encounter with food additives was in the 1950s when I was concerned with creating new products for people on special diets. It soon became clear to me that many food technologists were using a wide variety of additives simply because they were available, and that they had not really given any thought to the nutritional or health consequences of what they were doing.
I asked the question: ‘Why are we using ingredients that I would not need in the kitchen when preparing the same food?’ Sometimes there were good technical reasons, but in 90 per cent of the cases there was none. It is because I enjoy cooking at home and because I have a strong background in practical food technology on a factory scale that I began to question whether or not we had true freedom of choice whether we knew what we were eating and whether many of the additives were necessary at all.
In the 1960s, with the National Association for Health, sponsored by Joyce Butler MP, and with the help of 750,000 well-wishers, we presented a petition to Parliament asking them to ‘add all additives’. This was a plea to have a full label declaration of all the ingredients.
For the past 100 or so years there has been an artificial division in our minds between foods and medicines. Since the earliest times man has known that he can live on a wide variety of foods, and that some apparently attractive plants are dangerous whilst some help bring vibrant health and fitness. Even more sophisticated has been the use of very small quantities of otherwise dangerous herbs, such as foxglove or deadly nightshade, which are both still today very important medicines in minute doses.
To stay at the peak of fitness a Roman soldier was only allowed stoneground wholemeal flour. None of the sifted white flour, beloved of the rulers of Rome, found its way into his diet. In the Middle Ages, writers on health said that ‘the bread which had all the bran in it was a remedy for constipation caused by eating too much of the fine white bread’! It is obvious that the foods we eat are more important than any additives. But in general terms we have had personal control over our choice of food but little influence on the additives being used.
The 1984 Food Labelling Regulations gave us, for the first time, a good insight into what we were eating and gave me the chance to write E for Additives. Even if the book had not sold a single copy I would have needed it for myself and my family. But in the event it was a bestseller which has prompted fundamental changes in the food that we buy. Almost overnight, crisp manufacturers found that they could remove E320 and E321. This may have reduced the shelf-life of the crisps but, with the odd exception of Scotland where apparently food takes a long time to be delivered, the additive-free crisps lasted quite long enough for any shop with a good turnover of stock. This story was repeated, with a wide range of unnecessary and, to some sensitive people, harmful additives, being removed.
A close and careful reading of The New E for Additives will show you that there are doubts about only 1 in 5 of the additives commonly used in British food. Some of these have been the most common but, fortunately, public pressure is reducing their usage. Toxicity is dose related and at some level of intake all foods are toxic We have to keep a balance, but we also have to ensure that we are not being misled with our senses distorted by the use of additives so that high fat and high sugar foods with a very low essential nutrient content give the feeling, appearance, and taste that they are good balanced nutrition. They may be, but an informed look at the label can in most cases give the true picture.
E for Additives provoked a huge correspondence from both consumers and manufacturers, a lot of which was extremely useful in preparing this new edition. It reflects the vast amount of new knowledge that has become available during the intervening three years and its purpose is to increase understanding and to encourage the enjoyment of good, well-prepared foods whether they be in the home, restaurant, health store, or supermarket.
1. How to Read the Label (#ulink_643d63a2-6e04-5b62-9551-55480eea1c05)
Since 1 January 1986 most foods have had to carry a relatively complete list of ingredients. Flavourings do not have to be declared, except by the word ‘flavourings’, but all the other ingredients, including water, have to be listed in descending order by weight, determined as at the time of their use in the preparation of the food. Water, when there is more than 5 per cent, and other volatile products which are added as ingredients of the food, are listed in order of their weight in the finished product, the weight being calculated in the case of water by deducting from the total weight of the finished product the total weight of the other ingredients used.
If an ingredient used in food is in a concentrated or dried form and becomes reconstituted during the preparation of the food then the weight, in determining the order of the list of ingredients, can be the weight of the ingredient before it has been concentrated or dried. If the food is itself a mixture of concentrated or dried ingredients which have to be reconstituted by adding water, then it is allowable to list the ingredients in descending order of their weight when reconstituted provided that, instead of just saying ingredients’, the list is preceded by the words ‘ingredients of the reconstituted product’, or something similar.
If a food consists of, or contains, mixed fruits, nuts, vegetables, spices, or herbs and no particular fruit, nut, vegetable, spice, or herb predominates significantly by weight, the ingredients can be listed in no particular order if the list is headed by a phrase such as ‘in variable proportion’, and if the variable proportion mix is just a part of the list of ingredients, then the producer can state that that part of the ingredients list is in variable proportion.
Therefore, with a few exceptions, ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. It is very important to take this into account when reading the label. Many soup or dessert mixes have remarkably similar lists of ingredients in which sugar, starch or flour of some sort, and hydrogenated vegetable fat are high up on the list of ingredients, and sometimes the designated variety of the product such as tomato or strawberry is present in small amounts, or maybe altogether absent.
Food has to be described in a way which is not misleading, using, where there is one, the name prescribed by law, and if there is not, then a customary name, and failing that a precise enough description to inform the purchaser of its true nature and, if needed, a description of its use A made-up name cannot be used instead of the proper name of the food.
‘Flavour’ is a word that does not mean quite what it seems to because if a product is, for example, ‘strawberry flavour’ then it need not contain any strawberry at all. If it is ‘strawberry flavoured’ then a significant part of its flavour must be from strawberries, and if it is ‘strawberry’ then it is made with whole strawberries. This is a rule of thumb which is not enshrined in law, and a number of manufacturers and Local Authorities are of the view that both words ‘flavour’ and ‘flavoured’ are themselves misleading, and a proper description of the product which does not contain any of the designated substance would be ‘artificially flavoured’. Until this is tested in the High Court, or a new regulation is made, the consumer is left with an uncertain and misleading situation.
‘No added sugar’ is another area of potential misinformation. Because many people are worried that too much sugar will cause them to put on excess weight they look out for products which are sugar-free or contain no added sugar. This description is applied even when the food contains a very large quantity of naturally occurring sugars. An example is jam made without added sugar but with concentrated apple or pear juice containing a naturally high level of sugar. Sugar is being interpreted by certain manufacturers as being just the use of sucrose (table sugar). Other sugars, such as lactose and fructose, are sometimes also included in products which are said to have no added sugar.
Certain diet products are equally misleading; for example, there is a diet bar on sale which has sugar as its second largest ingredient. There is also a tendency for manufacturers to say ‘no added colour’ or ‘no preservatives’ or ‘no artificial ingredients’, all of which may be true but does not alter the fact that the food itself is of low nutritional worth. There is no substitute for reading the ingredient list.
Date Marking
Date marking is now required on most pre-packed foods (with a few exceptions, such as frozen foods, wine and vinegar) unless they have a shelf-life of at least 18 months. Even products with a very long shelf-life may be marked, but this is not mandatory. This is expressed as either:
• A best before date (day, month, year) plus storage conditions (if necessary).
Or:
• If the food has a ‘life’ of between 3 months and 19 months, a best before end date (month, year).
• If the food has a ‘life’ of between 6 weeks and 3 months, a best before date (day, month) plus storage conditions (if necessary).
• If the food is perishable and is intended for consumption within 6 weeks of being packed, a sell by date (day, month) plus storage conditions and a storage period after purchase.
There is no reason why you should not buy overdue products, especially if they are reduced in price, because the onus is on the shopkeeper to provide goods which live up to the quality of their description, in other words they must not be bad or ‘off’. With the longer time datings you are safe in buying goods that are near the end of their expiry date if the shop is clean and well maintained. However if such a product has deteriorated, even if bought at a special price, your legal rights are not affected and you should complain first of all to the shop manager then, if no satisfaction is obtained, to your local Trading Standards Officer, whom you can locate through the Town Hall. It is often preferable, though, to write a nice letter, fully documented, with a sample, to the Managing Director of the company concerned who will often, for the sake of goodwill (and most of the food companies are very jealous of their good reputation), refund your cost and may even give you something extra besides. However, if you are on the make, beware, because most manufacturers keep very accurate records of complainants and get wise to the person who frequently finds a dead mouse in a meat pie.
Foods for special nutritional purposes are subject to the provisions of an EEC Directive which strictly controls all claims and declarations in respec of infant, diabetic, slimming and other foods which purport to be for a group of people with special nutritional needs. There is a problem in that some excellent foods which have a nutritional purpose may not, in the future, be able to declare it without a Medicines Licence! For example, a bran based breakfast cereal may not be able to say that it ‘helps constipation’, but it can say ‘helps to keep you regular’ as that is not a medical claim. Too often we are seeing legislation which is designed for consumer protection which effectively shields the consumer from the information needed to make an informed decision. It should surely be sufficient with regard to most claims that labels and advertising are decent, honest and truthful.
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Claims
The COMA and NACNE reports on what we should eat for a healthy diet include in their recommendations the view that we should cut down on our total fat intake, have a relatively high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (which are the sort of fats that you have in oils like sunflower, safflower, soya and corn) and consume less animal and dairy fat. This is because such a dietary change is thought to be good for the heart. However, the manufacturer is not allowed by law to tell you that! Before any claims relating to polyunsaturated fatty acids can be made the food has to contain at least 35 per cent of fat by weight. In that fat at least 45 per cent of the fatty acids must be polyunsaturated and not more than 25 per cent saturated.
The claim has to be accompanied by the words ‘low in saturates’ or ‘low in saturated fatty acids’ and the food must be marked with a declaration in grammes per 100 grammes or millilitres of the food stating the amount of fat or oil and the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (which are cis, cis-methylene interrupted polyunsaturated fatty acids) and also the amount of saturated fatty acids. Each pan of the declaration has to be given equal prominence.
If, in addition, the claim is made that it is low in cholesterol, then the food must not contain more than 0.005 per cent of cholesterol and it must be possible to make polyunsaturated fatty acid claims. As in the former case there can be no expressed or implied suggestion that such products are beneficial to health. You have to read the label carefully to see that such a claim is being made if you want to choose truly polyunsaturated margarines such as Flora or, from health stores, the very desirable Vitaquell which contains no animal or dairy ingredients and which has not been hardened by the hydrogenation process.
In the USA sensible and accurate claims for reduced cholesterol foods are allowed as are true statements about the advantages of polyunsaturates. So long as such claims are well controlled they could help many people to change their diet for the better and lessen the risk of heart disease.
Vitamins and Minerals
The Labelling of Food Regulations specify in two schedules the vitamins and minerals for which claims can be made. The word ‘claim’ has a specific meaning. Vitamins and minerals which are not in the schedule cannot be mentioned at all on a food product except in the nutritional declaration, the name of the product (if it is a food supplement) and the list of ingredients. Anything additional to these three places becomes a claim.
Where it is claimed that the food is a rich or excellent source of vitamins or minerals the quantity of food that can reasonably be expected to be consumed in one day must contain at least one half of the recommended daily amount of two or more of the vitamins or minerals in the schedule. Otherwise the claim that the food contains the vitamins and minerals can only be made if the quantity of food that can reasonably be expected to be consumed in one day contains at least one sixth of the recommended daily amount of two or more of the vitamins or minerals in the list.
If the claim is confined to named vitamins or minerals then every vitamin or mineral named must be specified in one of the schedules and is then subject to the same requirements as before. The names used in declaring the vitamins must be the names in the first column of the schedules, with or without the words that appear in three cases in brackets.
The names for other vitamins are also specified by law, and are: vitamin B
, pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin E and vitamin K. The purpose of this is to prevent people making claims for the existence of vitamins that are not recognized by science, such as vitamin B
and vitamin F.
The following are the two schedules:
Table AVitamins in respect of which claims may be made
Table BMinerals in respect of which claims may be made
Notes
1. Each vitamin and mineral specified in Tables A and B above includes its biologically active derivative.
2. The quantity of any vitamin or mineral specified in Table A or B above (as extended by note 1 above) shall be calculated in accordance with column 2 of the appropriate Table.
From Labelling of Food Regulations No. 1305, 1984.
The idea behind these two schedules was to prevent manufacturers from making claims for vitamins and minerals for which there is no evidence of a shortage. So the schedules represent vitamins and minerals which may be short in the diet and, therefore, all other vitamins and minerals are thought to be present in sufficient quantities in any likely diet. Unfortunately this has led to a very confusing situation, especially with regard to the sale of food supplements such as vitamin, mineral and trace element tablets and capsules which contain either a mixture of scheduled and non-scheduled substances or even exclusively non-scheduled substances. It means that neither in advertising nor on the pack can the manufacturer tell the consumer why the ingredient is there and what it does unless it is on the schedule. A mixture of vitamins A, C and E would therefore have a product description telling you all about vitamins A and C but not saying a single word about vitamin E.
There is much doubt as to whether the list is by any means appropriate to modern day living, and there is increasing evidence that there are substantial groups of people who do not have enough zinc, selenium, magnesium, or vitamins B
and E. Groups at risk include children and adolescents on a sugary, fatty diet, and women who take the birth control pill and may need far more B
than can be obtained in a likely diet. Unless vegetarians are careful they can be short of zinc, and there is a general shortage of selenium in British soil which used to be supplemented by the use of selenium rich Manitoba wheat for bread making, but now that we make most of our bread from British flour, we could have too little in the diet.
A Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food has been convened under the chairmanship of Dr Roger Whitehead to look at this whole question and suggest a new list of Recommended Daily Amounts, but it is not unreasonable to hope that the position of vitamin and mineral pill manufacturers can be regularized before the Committee reports and that regulations can be made so that they are not prevented by law from giving accurate nutritional and biological information about the ingredients to the public—surely an absurd and unnecessary restraint upon our freedom.
What is an Additive?
According to the Codex Alimentarius, a food additive is: ‘Any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself and not normally used as a typical ingredient of food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results in, or may be reasonably expected to result (directly or indirectly) in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such. The term does not include “contaminants” or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities.’ (‘Organoleptic’ means sight, taste, smell and texture as perceived by the senses.)
Because manufacturers can use either the E number or the proper name of the additive as an alternative, they often choose to use the name on the premise that it is less ‘frightening’ than the E number. On the other hand, some ingredients which have valuable nutritional properties can cause confusion because they have names that look very much like additives, whereas in fact they are not in that class.
A good example is soya protein isolate, which is the valuable protein part of the soya bean in a very pure state and is an extraordinarily good source of very nutritious protein. It can make meat products in particular, such as sausages and pies, as well as a number of other dishes and drinks, more nutritious than they would be without it, and also has useful technical properties in giving the product a better appearance and texture.
Again, if you use an egg yolk because of the emulsifying properties of its natural lecithin then it is declared as the ingredient ‘egg-yolk’ and not as ‘E322’, lecithin.
Meat Products
Regulations governing meat products and spreadable fish products were laid before Parliament in October 1984. Like the E-numbering provisions, these came into full operation in July 1986.
Polyphosphates (E450) allow the manufacturer to add water to meat products without it becoming obvious to the consumer. If the meat is cooked or raw and contains added water, then the producer will have to declare: ‘with not more than x per cent added water.’ X is the maximum added water content of the food. On the other hand, if the meat is uncooked and cured, such as bacon, of which more than 10 per cent is added water, then the declaration has to say ‘with not more than y per cent added water’; but that does not mean that this figure represents the amount of added water—y represents a multiple of 5 by which the percentage of water in the product exceeds 10 per cent! Finally, to make matters clear to our (presumably computer owning!) consumer—if it is cooked pure meat then the declaration has to say ‘with not more than z per cent added water’, z being an indication in multiples of 5 of the percentage of water added.
There is a list of parts of the carcass which may not be used in uncooked meat products—and may therefore be used in cooked meat products. You will be glad to know what comprehensive use manufacturers of cooked meat products can make of the slaughtered animal; they can use the brains, foot, large intestine, small intestine lungs, oesophagus, rectum, spinal cord, spleen, stomach, testicles, and udder. There has to be an argument for manufacturers to tell us just what parts of the animal are used and how much, not just to use the blanket description ‘offal’.
A meat pie weighing between 100g and 200g must have a meat content of not less than 21 per cent of the total. If the pie weighs less than 100g the meat content can shrink to 19 per cent of the food, otherwise the meat content can soar to the dizzy heights of 25 per cent as a minimum; but, of these percentages, the lean meat content need only be half so, at the worst, a quarter of a pound pork pie may contain just over a third of an ounce of lean meat—and it may include unexpected parts of the beast.
The true nature of the contents are then disguised in taste and appearance by the use of flavour enhancers, such as monosodium glutamate (number 621). It can then be coloured, flavoured and, after the addition of the appropriate amount of water, you can have at the worst, a very fatty pie but one which looks and tastes good. Though of course there are many pie manufacturers who certainly do use the finest ingredients, it would be worth their while making clear claims. The fat content of burgers and sausages is also controlled, in general so that the fat content of the meat pan of burgers does not exceed 35 per cent and of sausages, 50 per cent.
Many German meat products are labelled with their fat content. In order to be able to eat sensibly we should demand that such information be available throughout the EEC.
The British government wants to introduce fat content labelling but are being opposed by the EEC. Many responsible food manufacturers are now labelling the fat content voluntarily and this is to be encouraged.
2. Why Are There Still Secret Ingredients? (#ulink_d90c72c6-8b28-5674-a750-882572c158f4)
The Food Labelling Regulations of 1984 introduced the E-code which made it much easier to identify at least some of the additives in our food. But did they go far enough? There is, in fact, a wide range of foods and other things we swallow where we are not told what the ingredients are.
Alcoholic Drinks
Any drink with an alcoholic strength by volume of more than 1.2 per cent does not have to list the ingredients. This means that if you are, for example an asthmatic and are particularly sensitive to sulphur dioxide (E220), which is a commonly used preservative in wines, beers and ciders, then you have no way of telling whether it is present or not, let alone whether the content is near the permitted maximum or very low. If you are sensitive then you have to look out for the whole range of sulphites—E220 to 227—but when the Dutch Consumer Organization tested a selection of wines in 1985, they found that some of them had higher than the permitted limits of sulphur dioxide.
A test published in Which? magazine in May 1986 found that a number of the nineteen wines tested were near the maximum and that, if you regularly drank just a quarter litre (2 glasses) of most of the white wines, or one third of a litre (2
/
glasses) of some of the reds, you could exceed the Acceptable Daily Intake.
The EEC permits aeration, which is usually done with carbon dioxide (E290), to make cheap sparkling ‘bubbly’. To encourage the growth of yeasts during fermentation there is permission for an addition of diammonium phosphate or ammonium sulphate (no E numbers) up to a level of 0.3g/l either separately or combined. You can also feed the yeast by the addition of thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B,) up to 0.6mg/l.
The sulphites that may be used include not only sulphur dioxide but also potassium bisulphite and potassium metabisulphite. White wines can be treated during fermentation with charcoal to a maximum of 100g of dry charcoal per hectolitre to remove impurities.
Wine has to be clarified, or cleared, after fermentation. However, some of the ingredients and processing aids that might be used provide significant moral problems for certain sections of the population who surely have the right to know if such items are being included in the process. The full list is:
—edible gelatines (made from bones)
—isinglass (made from the swim-bladders of fish)
—casein and potassium caseinate (milk proteins)
—animal albumin (egg albumin and dried blood powder)
—bentonite (clay) (558)
—silicon dioxide as a gel or colloidal solution (551)
—kaolin (a clay) (559)
—tannin (from wood)
—pectinolytic enzymes.
The use of sorbic acid (E200) or potassium sorbate (E202) is permitted. This stops the growth of yeasts and moulds. The final sorbic acid content of the treated product on its release to the market for human consumption must not exceed 200mg/l.
Tartaric acid (E334) for acidification purposes is permitted, but if there is too much acid, the following may be added under certain conditions:
—neutral potassium tartrate (E336)
—potassium bicarbonate (no E number)
—calcium carbonate (E170) which may contain small quantities of the double calcium salt of L(+)tartaric (E334) and L( – )malic acids (296).
The addition of Aleppo pine resin is permitted, the purpose being to turn wine into retsina, the typical Greek wine.
L-ascorbic acid (E300) can be added up to 150mg/l and as well as the vitamin C, citric acid can be added for wine stabilization provided that the final content does not exceed lg/1.
Potassium ferrocyanide (536) can be added to white and rosé wines, as can zinc sulphate heptahydrate (which does not seem to appear on the permitted list) which are used together for ‘blue finings’. Red wines can also use calcium phytate (no E number) with up to 100mg/1 of metatartaric acid (E353).
Gum acacia (E414) is another permitted additive. DL tartaric acid (E334) precipitates excess calcium, and ion and cation exchange resins can be employed in certain conditions.
Some countries permit the use of discs of pure paraffin impregnated with allyl isothiocyanate (no E number) to create a sterile atmosphere in containers holding more than 20 litres, but there may not be any trace of allyl isothiocyanate in the wine.
Potassium bitartrate (no E number) can be used to assist the precipitation of tartar. The wine can also be treated with up to 20mg/l of copper sulphate (no E number), provided that the copper content in the treated product does not exceed lmg/1.
So you see that there is more to wine than the simple product of the fermentation of grape juice.
Beer
German beer has traditionally been made from just four ingredients—hops, malt, yeast and water. This was the result of the Reinheitsgebot, which was a consumer protection law issued by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in 1516.
Germany’s annual beer consumption is currently 146.5 litres for every man, woman and child. On 12 March 1987 the European Court in Luxembourg overturned the country’s decree banning imports of additive-containing beers from other countries. Even Bonn’s claim that beer makes up a quarter of the average German man’s diet so that the additives could be dangerous to health, did not move the court. It was counter-claimed that when the Germans exported their beer to other countries they were known to put in additives that are not permitted in Germany.
The Germans will go on producing their pure beers for home consumption and it is quite likely that the many undeclared additives in British beers will effectively deter the German beer drinker from buying them.
In particular, we need to be worried about the substantial additions of caramel (E150), which is the most widely used of all food colours and gives many beers, especially mild, stout, premium bitters, and strong ales, their colour. The 1987 Food Advisory Committee report on colours recommends that there be a maximum content not exceeding 5,000mg/kg, which seems rather high, as the same committee’s recommendation for brown bread is a maximum of 2,000mg/kg. Additives in use in beer include agents which keep a good head of froth on the beer and, as in wine, many technical aids, but there is no way of knowing just how ‘real’ is real ale, let alone the beverages which do not have such honest pretentions. An interesting and effective alternative to caramel is a refined malt. This might be classed as an ingredient rather than an additive.
Other Alcoholic Drinks
Look around any good off-licence and you will see that there must be a very wide variety of colours and additives in use ranging from caramel in whisky to goodness knows what in certain of the more exotic aperitifs and liqueurs. Effectively, there is no regulation whatsoever other than the general provisions of the Food Act.
Unless there is the safeguard of ingredient labelling on alcoholic drinks, disastrous and dangerous episodes such as the Austrian wine scandal—which proved to involve many more countries than just Austria—are certain to happen again. In July 1984 diethylene-glycol was found in Austrian wine in as many as 82 different brands, both in Germany and in Britain. Diethyleneglycol can be used as an anti-freeze, but when added to wine it improves the flavour, so that cheap wines can be sold as superior, more costly products. The expert view is that a consumption of 0.3ml of this contaminant daily is a potential health hazard to the kidneys and that 100ml can be fatal.
A bottle tested in Barnsley was found to contain 1.5ml, and so a heavy drinker could be endangered not only by the alcohol but also by the additive. It is ironic that the only reason the Austrian wine scandal was discovered was that one of the companies using diethylene-glycol in the wine requested a refund of the Value Added Tax. A sharp VAT inspector questioned the large volume of anti-freeze being used in the summer and the scandal was uncovered!
However, the fact is that food inspectors do not generally look very closely at the products which do not have lists of ingredients. Therefore, as things stand, we have very little protection against abuse.
Until public pressure and government action puts this situation to rights there is no reason at all why responsible manufacturers should not voluntarily tell us what is in their drinks. There will be a free, signed copy of this book and a place in history for the first three producers of alcoholic drinks who change their policy by listing all those additives and processing aids in all their products.
Fruit Juices and Fruit Nectars
The 1984 Labelling of Food Regulations seem at least reasonably clear but when you look back to other and earlier regulations concerning a specific food then, either through design or oversight, worms begin to creep out of the woodwork or, to be more specific, the two ingredients need not be declared in fruit juices and nectars when they are below certain levels.
Without making any declaration you can add up to 15 grammes per litre of added sugar and have present up to 10 milligrammes per litre of the preservative sulphur dioxide (E220).
These are both small amounts but it would not surprise me if products labelled pure or natural did sometimes contain these additions, so misleading the consumer as to the true nature of the product.
Chocolate and Fancy Confectionery
If you had picked up a Mars bar in the middle of 1987 you would have found no list of ingredients although the percentage of cocoa butter was given. This is still true of the majority of chocolate confectionary made in the UK. For reasons which are not stated by MAFF and cannot be logical or helpful, chocolates do not have to list ingredients. That this protection is not necessary and should be abandoned was made very clear by Mars who have since had the honesty and courage to list their ingredients in full. Have certain other manufacturers something to hide?
How can it be that the manufacturers of chocolates with brightly coloured centres that are almost certainly coloured artificially should be allowed to conceal this information? The vast majority of such manufacturers have nothing to hide and everything to gain by telling us all about the good wholesome ingredients that they may be using.
The same lack of information is permitted on fancy confectionery products packed as single items in such forms as a figure, an animal, cigarette, egg, or any other fancy form. Again, some manufacturers tell you what the product is made from. Let us hope the rest follow suit.
Additives in Ingredients and Some Other Exemptions
If an additive has been used in an ingredient which is part of a product containing a number of different ingredients, then the additive does not have to be declared if it serves no significant technological function in the finished product. So, if you buy a breakfast cereal containing apple flakes and the apple flakes look white, this could be because they were carefully processed or it could be because they have an added preservative. There is no way of knowing the difference unless the producer volunteers the information. The same considerations apply to a wide range of foodstuffs.
Bread and Other Fresh Foods
Fresh unwrapped bread carries no list of ingredients simply because there is nowhere to put it. The same applies to cakes and pastries. But when the product is wrapped and sold in an off-the-shelf form, then certain ingredients have to be listed, and you may well find that your wholemeal bread and, even more probably, your brown bread, contains added caramel and numerous other ingredients that are not necessary in the kitchen.
There is no good reason why the foods in the baker’s or the butcher’s that have been prepared on the premises have no list of ingredients. It would be easy to do and it would help us make an informed choice.
In addition to the unnamed additives on unwrapped bread there are also additives which do not have to be declared even when the product is wrapped. Chief among these must be the flour bleach, benzoyl peroxide (no E number). It is certainly very puzzling that we in Britain need to use a bleach at all when most leading European countries have either banned bleaches or found them completely unnecessary. Another area of contamination is the lingering presence of pesticides and fungicides applied not only to the growing crops but also in the storage silos to prevent insect infestation and fungal growth.
Ham and other meat products on the delicatessen counter have to show the amount of water present (at any rate to some extent, see page 25) but the other additives only need to be identified by their category name, a throw-back to the 1970 regulations. So a ham description may say ‘maximum 25 per cent added water, added preservative and colour’, unless it is in a packet.
Such loopholes are a negation of all the progress made in other areas of food labelling. The largest part of all food sold in this way is produced by manufacturers who are perfectly able to provide a label for the point of sale giving, in a legible size of lettering, the same information that would be required if the same product were sold in a packet instead of loose, or else it is produced by the shop itself, who must know the recipe.
Even the present very limited regulations are being openly abused in large numbers of shops where no ingredient information at all is supplied about the loose foods on sale. Our Trading Standards Officers, who should be enforcing the rules, have limited resources but are usually most helpful when apparent breaches of the regulations are drawn to their attention. It is a courtesy, however, to first warn the shop management of any likely problem so that they can put things right.
Medicines
A licensed medicine has only to state the details of the active ingredient or ingredients. All the other components of the product are exempt from labelling requirements.
It is not at all uncommon for the good effects of the medicine to be entirely negated by the adverse effects of the other ingredients being used. This is especially true of colours and preservatives. The Ministry of Health, some time ago, distributed a consultative paper to pharmaceutical manufacturers asking them if they would agree to list a limited range of additives which cause side-effects in sensitive people. It is thought that most manufacturers were happy to comply, but no legislation has so far resulted.
In the meantime, the Ministry has said that if you have a problem, all you have to do when buying a medicine is to ask the pharmacist if it has certain ingredients in it. Unfortunately, the pharmacist has no idea because he is not given the information either. He has to go back to the manufacturer who may be unwilling to give him the answer or even to find somebody who has the answer readily available. When the facts emerge they are often disturbing, as in the case of the chewable children’s vitamins which contain five different azo-dyes and ground sugar to make them pretty and palatable. There is no reason why pharmaceutical manufacturers should not volunteer to reveal the list of ingredients, and there is no reason why they should be exempted from so doing.
3. Golden Eggs and Pink-Fleshed Fish (#ulink_d68bca90-584b-5338-aebf-28da900e8c7b)
A happy free-range chicken, able to scratch around for its food and choosing many different pigment-containing and mineralrich items, will usually produce richly golden and strongly shelled eggs. The less fortunate battery hens have to rely upon what is in their feed to give their eggs colour. The most important of these colour-forming substances are, together with other oxygen-containing carotenoids, known by the collective name of xanthophylls (E161).
The xanthophyll content of these fresh feeds is not constant and rapidly degrades during storage periods, so poor colour is a particular problem during the winter months.
Because of the high prices of imported grains compared to those from home, even colour-containing alfafa and maize have been replaced by such cereals as wheat and barley which feed the hens just as well if various fats and soya meals are added, but have no pigments present. A typical laying chicken ration would be as follows:
The egg producer studies his market and knows that eggs for table use sell best if the yolks are a nice golden colour, while eggs used for the manufacture of bakery products, pasta and sauces are better yellow.
Egg yolk colours are measured on a scale from pale yellow to deep orange in shades of 1–15. Table eggs are generally at about No. 11 on the scale, although some producers prefer a very deep orange colour for which they demand higher prices. In practice, the feed supplier helps the egg producer choose the desired colour and then adds concentrated red or yellow pigments of synthetic or natural origin to produce the desired effect which is then checked on a regular basis.
It is known that certain free-range egg producers have added naturally occurring pigments to the ration, especially during the cold months, although the legal situation regarding this does not appear to have been established.
Maize-Fed Chickens
In both France and the United States maize-fed or, as the Americans say, corn-fed, chickens with attractive yellow skins are thought to look and taste better than the white birds preferred in Britain, and the colours can be achieved directly from the xanthophylls in the feed. It is possible to cheapen the diet by using a mixture of cereals and supplementing with pigments, or to add pigments to a maize feed to ensure a deep colour.
It is also possible to produce similarly coloured chickens when the feeds are not fresh, and for this purpose lutein (El6lb), which can be extracted from marigolds, is added to the feed.
Trout and Salmon
There is a long history of trout farming in Britain, certainly going back to the medieval monasteries where farmed trout brightened the Friday fast. Today the farming of salmon, trout and other fish is big business, but have you ever wondered about the great increase in the availability of delicious pink-fleshed trout and salmon? The pink flesh would, in natural waters, be from fresh foods such as crustaceans, shrimp, prawn, lobster (astaxanthin) and various algae.
It is too expensive to feed the farm fish the crustaceans of their usual environment, so a red pigment, canthaxanthin (El6lg), or astaxanthin (no E number), is added to the feed to produce pink flesh. El6lg and certain other pigments, including various forms of carotene and vitamin A, are also sold in tablet form so that we can look as if we have been on a Mediterranean holiday and developed a nice, if often rather yellowish, tan. Be warned though that such coloration gives no protection from sunburn and is there, as in the case of the fish, strictly for appearance’s sake. See additional note on page 374.
Other Uses of Pigments
Pigments are commonly found in pet feeds especially for captive birds so that their colourful plumage is maintained. Zoo flamingos are fed with canthaxanthin to ensure the pinkness of their legs, beaks and feathers. Such commonplace pet foods as dog biscuits and meats often appear to contain significant quantities of undeclared colours. It is doubtful whether these are truly appreciated by the animal, but they do attract the owner.
There are widespread abuses of the external colouring of seafood. For example, jumbo prawns and smoked cod’s roe are frequently on sale in the fish shop without any ingredient declaration, but they have quite often unquestionably been dipped in a heavy concentration of red dye.
Smoked fish is another loophole. Fish can be called ‘smoked’ when all that has happened is that they have been dipped in a liquid smoke flavour and then artificially coloured! Indeed, smoked and cured fish which is not packed ready for the consumer, like ham, just has to say ‘added permitted colour’, but if it is pre-packed the full declaration is required.
Consumer choice means the freedom to make an informed choice and although we think that the use of these artificial and natural additives in animal feeds presents no toxic hazard to the consumer, we do believe that we have a right, as is the case with eggs in the United States, to know what pigments have been added. In addition, acceptable and legally controlled levels of daily intake should be established and enforced. If the egg regulations are so changed, it would be a good opportunity to label egg boxes with the date the eggs were laid and not the less useful date of packing.
4. The Colour Problem (#ulink_5672c136-c601-533b-bd45-dc38ada508f5)
Food has been coloured since ancient times. The Romans coloured bread and wine both with ‘white earth’ and berries. When Britain first imported that rare luxury, sugar, in the twelfth century, the pink- and violet-coloured sugars of Alexandria were, according to John Wallford,
(#ulink_907628ab-e7a4-5bc5-a14b-ef31c9c22637) great favourites. Tyrian purple (from sea snails), madder (from the roots of a herb) and kermes (from a scale insect) are thought to have provided the varying shades of this part of the spectrum.
The red colour of cochineal (E120), was used at least as early as the tenth century by the Toltecs and then the Aztecs of Central America and, as with Egypt and the Mediterranean countries, where the same dyes were used for cloth and for food, it is most likely that cochineal was a food colour.
Many years ago at social meetings of food chemists and before we were in the least worried about the possibility that sweets could rot the teeth (or to be more precise feed the bacteria that do that dark deed), the manufacturers of Newberry Fruits, a range of sweets that were coloured, flavoured and shaped to represent miniature versions of the fruits of which they tasted, gave us a selection of this product in a specially prepared form where all the flavours were jumbled up. Only the most experienced palates could correctly identify a sweet that looked like a strawberry but tasted like a pineapple. So it is clear that colour has a very important role to play in our appreciation and enjoyment of food, affecting not only our eyes but also our taste and even, it is thought, our digestion.
By the same token, colour can influence us into thinking that inferior food that looks attractive also tastes good and is, no doubt, good for us.
Probably the most widely quoted and, in our view, illogical test of the response of the consumer to colour was undertaken by Dr Nathan Goldenberg of Marks & Spencer following certain complaints that their tinned peas were an artificial shade of green and the strawberry jam was an unnatural red. The colours were removed and the peas became grey/green and the strawberries red/brown. The customers stopped buying and it took a long time with the colours restored to bring back lost sales. The reason why this test was so pointless and inconclusive is that there was no clear explanation to the customers as to why the changes had happened and what they might expect when they took the product home. Today we have a completely different situation where very many manufacturers have taken the green colour out of peas and the red out of strawberry jam and have suffered no loss of sales. This seems to show that, with information and education, we can change our perception as to what looks good and tasty.
Added colour is like a cosmetic Like all cosmetics colours can improve the appearance delight the onlooker and deceive the senses. Added colours are not necessary, they are a matter of choice The author had a letter published in The Times on 23 January 1970 which pleaded that, as The World Health Organization had recommended, baby foods should be free from artificial colours, also that we all should be able to tell what is in the food we eat by reading the label. Neither request has yet been granted, but there is hope for babies, for the Food Advisory Committee (FAC) is recommending in its 1987 Report
(#ulink_8c7bfc44-88c9-5425-824c-65eeafa6173c) that baby foods should be without artificial colours. We do not know how long it will take to turn this recommendation into law but wish it every success. Only in 1986 did it become necessary to label at least most of the ingredients in the foods that we eat. So the battle to have the freedom to choose what we want to, or do not want to, eat is certainly not quick or easy.
The Functions of Colours
Colours have well defined food functions:
(a) to reinforce colours introduced into foods by their ingredients but where, without added colouring matter, the colour imparted to the final food by those ingredients would be weaker than the colour the consumer will associate with the food of that type of flavour (e.g. soft drinks, fruit yogurts, pickles and sauces);
(b) to ensure uniformity of colour from batch to batch where ingredients of varying colour intensity have been used (e.g. jams in transparent containers where the customer can compare like with like in the shop);
(c) to restore something of the food’s original appearance in those cases where the natural colours have been destroyed by heat processing and subsequent storage (e.g. peas, beans, strawberries and raspberries), or bleached out by the use of preservatives (e.g. fruit preservatives, sulphur dioxide for jammaking out of season), or are not light-stable during prolonged storage (e.g. soft drinks);
(d) to give colour to foods which otherwise would be virtually colourless (e.g. boiled sweets, instant desserts, ice lollies).
‘Need’ is an essential reason for deciding that a food additive be used. It could be argued that a reasonable response to at least most of the four categories above would be ‘needed by whom?’. It is clear that in many cases it is the manufacturer that needs the colour, but as we see the removal of many of the artificial colours from the shelves of our shops it is obvious that more colours are being permitted than are ‘needed’ by many responsible manufacturers and retailers, and that these are certainly not demanded by us when we have the choice.
Artificial Colours
In the middle of the last century almost anything that gave colour was used to make food products more attractive. Substances containing mercury, lead, cyanide and copper were frequently used. At about the same time in 1856 Sir William Henry Perkin discovered his first ‘coal tar dye’, which was aniline purple, when he was only nineteen years old. Perkin transformed the cloth industry, whilst at the same time a selection of his colours, which faded less, had a wide range of bright hues and was cheap to use, became available for the food producers.
It did not take long for the regulatory authorities around the world to wonder about some of the colours being used and, depending on where you were, they were either negatively listed, which is to say banned, or positively listed, which means that you could only use those which the government felt were both suitable and harmless according to the scientific standards of the age.
In Britain in 1925 a number of colours which were obviously harmful were banned from use. These included any compounds of antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc, also one vegetable colour, gamboge (much used by painters), and five of the ‘coal tar’ colours—picric acid, Victoria yellow, aurine, Manchester yellow and aurantia.
It was not until 1954 that the Food Standards Committee proposed that there should be a list of acceptable colours instead of just a list of those that were not permitted. Accordingly, in both 1957 and 1973 lists of both natural and synthetic colours that were permitted were prepared. So what is the position today? Britain permits more artificial colours than almost any other western country. If Norway can manage without any artificial colours and the United States allows seven, we have to wonder why we permit sixteen.
It must be said that some of them seem to cause very few problems, even in those people who suffer from many allergies and intolerances. The toxicological questions and allergic reactions occur most frequently with E110, sunset yellow, and the yellow colour E102, tartrazine. This could be because they are used quite often. More research is needed, but that which is being undertaken at the moment seems to ignore the well-established fact that many people are allergic or badly affected by both foods and food additives, and that often the combination of the food and the food additive together is worse than either alone.
The 1987 FAC Report has certainly made one major step forward, and that is to give proposed average daily intake upper levels for a number of the colours under review. Very many problems with foods and food additives are related to dose and an effort to reduce the level is welcome. However, the FAC has not looked at the question of need from the consumer’s point of view and this could well be an area where the reader will wish to form a personal opinion.
Natural Colours
Professor Frank Curtis, Chairman of the FAC, said in a meeting at the House of Lords in 1987 that he was worried about the increased levels of daily intake of natural colour additives being used, because the tests that had been made on them did not take relatively high levels of consumption into account. This is a fair point. Safety is related to dose. But, having been told that an E-number means that an additive is safe, then it is strange that the natural food colours to do not seem to have been as well tested as we have been led to believe, even though they have received their E-numbers. Nonetheless, so many of them are in common use in a food form that it is difficult to feel really worried about them. For example, if a manufacturer wishes to brighten a strawberry yogurt with beetroot juice instead of E123, amaranth, then the argument goes that the beetroot red colour may also cause problems. On the other hand, beetroot is part of a normal diet whereas amaranth is not.
If we are to be told that colours are necessary for a happy life and a good diet, then certainly a lot more work needs to be done on their safety and necessity, for it is certain that many producers of good food are finding that when they use fine ingredients and first-class methods of conservation the need for colours, artificial or natural, disappears. It is high time we became far less concerned with consistency in the colour of manufactured products, in the way that we do not mind variations of colour in the kitchen. We are already becoming used to a different palette of colours in the foods we eat and this trend will continue as we consume fewer and fewer of those most dispensable of all food additives, the colours.
For a note on some new EC proposals, please see page 374.
(#ulink_a1add663-c059-5c4c-ae7e-7d54ca6c73b9)Historical Development of Food Coloration, John Wallford. Developments in Food Colours, Elsevier 1984.
(#ulink_1162e236-6847-509c-8032-6759a5cd9fb5)‘Food Advisory Committee Final Report on the Review of the Colouring Matter in Food Regulations 1973’, HMSO, 1987.
5. Flavourings (#ulink_b208a0b0-ab39-506f-9f81-e015c5eef440)
The Food Act prohibits the addition to food of any harmful substance. Is a flavour harmful or not?—we cannot be sure. The dividing lines between ground almonds, almond essence and synthetic almond flavouring could well illustrate the various stages between being an ingredient and an additive. So it would seem that what we really need to know is precisely what ingredient or additive is being used, so that we have the freedom to decide whether or not to eat it. At the moment there is no statutory declaration of the nature of food flavourings. We also need to have information on the toxicity of these flavours.
The European Community is attempting to produce a framework for controlling flavourings as part of the general harmonization of the Food Law within the community. Because some 4,000 substances are involved this will inevitably take a long time.
Many flavourings are difficult to analyse because they are chemically identical (nature-identical) to the substances which gave the product its character in the first place. This fact could produce bad law because, if you cannot analyse whether the substance is natural or artificial as an additive, then regulations controlling its use have little strength unless we also bring in—and this is envisaged—regular random factory inspections of food manufacturers to check precisely the nature of the ingredients that goes to make up their products. This is in addition to having the contents clearly defined on the label, so that we can make up our minds, too.
The European Community is working towards a positive list, which means giving approval for specified artificial and natural flavours. In spite of obvious difficulties this lack of information remains a substantial gap in our knowledge of what we are eating which should be remedied as soon as possible.
As to safety we have few doubts. Very few problems have been shown to be caused by food flavours and, so far as we can tell, none of these under normal circumstances. This is because the effectiveness of a food flavour depends on it being chemically similar to that found in nature and, if you happen to be allergic to strawberries, you would be unlikely to eat strawberry-flavoured products which could produce the same problems.
Watch out for ‘smoked’ fish. It is legally permissible to dip fish into ‘liquid smoke’, which is in truth a flavour, and then add colour as a replacement for the hues of the normal smoking process. Such fish can be described as ‘smoked’. Also, both smoked and cured fish, as with ham, when sold not ready-packed only have to carry the words ‘added permitted colour’, and so avoid the obligation to give a true list of ingredients.
6. P for Pesticides (#ulink_7b7fc5b2-6f97-50d7-8f7c-89ca2b7b4c63)
A report from the American National Academy of Sciences was stated, according to an article in The Independent of 28 May 1987, to have studied 28 of the 53 pesticides which the Environmental Protection Agency deemed to be carcinogenic.
There was a lack of data on a number of the other pesticides used, but it was found that a small number of the widely used pesticides posed the greatest hazard to health, and it was suggested that three petrochemical compounds—the herbicide linuron and the insecticides chlorodineform and permethrin—be banned.
Permethrin is sprayed on almost every fruit, nut and vegetable purchased in America, says the article, and linuron is extensively used on soya beans and potatoes.
The difficulty for the EPA, which is a government agency, is that if it bans a chemical as being harmful to the consumer then it has to pay the manufacturer the cost of all the unused chemical plus the anticipated margin of profit.
It has frequently been suggested that we write a book as informative about pesticides as we hope this is about additives. The difficulty is clear. You cannot tell if a product contains an excessive quantity of pesticides without a clear labelling obligation. Until this comes about all that can be done is to give general guidance.
The Americans came to the conclusion that, if the fruits and vegetables are sprayed with the worst possible selection of permitted pesticides, the rating list of danger from contracting cancer was:
Tomatoes, beef, potatoes, oranges, lettuce, apples, peaches, pork, soya beans, wheat, beans, carrots, chicken, grapes and corn.
As to risk, the committee thought that 5.8 cases of cancer per thousand people consuming this list of foods when treated with the pesticides specified was a realistic forecast. There can be no better argument for selecting organically grown fruit and vegetables with some seal of approval—the most reliable being that of the Soil Association—and also dairy products and meat with similar quality controls. Fortunately, this branch of farming which was pioneered by the health food suppliers has now spread into a wider market and you should look out for ‘organic’ signs on foods which will not only have very low levels of pesticides but also very superior flavour.
Foods, herbs and spices, imported from overseas are rarely checked for pesticide residues. Those tests that have been undertaken show very grave cause for concern.
For example, lettuces from certain Mediterranean growers are produced in polythene tunnels under a continual mist of insecticides, fungicides and water until the moment of picking. The laboratory equipment at our ports is so out-dated that 10–14 days are required for analyses by which time the food would be bad. Finland has achieved the highest standards for import quality control, possibly the best in the world, with the result that growers produce special low pesticide residue produce for that country. We must demand equal standards throughout the EEC.
7. Is It Kosher? (#ulink_f613a026-b922-5d1e-b2bb-19ac34dd0776)
Certain religious disciplines, such as those of the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs, as well as those who have an ethical objection to certain foods or additives, have written us many letters asking distinctions to be made between additives that are animal, dairy, vegetable and synthetic. In addition, synthetic additives can be made from natural materials. Wherever possible this information is included in this edition, but there are a number of cases where the additive can be derived in different ways, some of which would be acceptable to particular groups and some of which would not.
This gives rise to the apparent paradox that some foods are approved by the Rabbinical authorities but contain additives which are on the banned list. In all cases this means that the food has been checked back to source, additives and all, and it has been prepared in accordance with Jewish principles.
List of non-kosher food additives:
Additives, or ingredients, which have not been allocated EEC
numbers, and may also be derived from non-kosher sources, are:
Edible fat or oil; gelatin, enzymes of catalase, lipase, pepsin, trypsin and rennin (or rennet); modified starch with glycerol; glyceryl tribenzoate, glyceryl tributyrate and glyceryl tripropionate; glycine; oxystearin; stearic acid and stearates; monoacetin, diacetin and triacetin; spermacetti; sperm oil; casein and caseinates; wine vinegar; wine or brandy as flavouring agents; proteins.
Note that whey and lactose are milk derivatives. Please note also that the additives and processing aids used in wine making, and therefore also in the preparation of fortified wines such as sherry and in brandies, are frequently of animal or dairy origin. These would normally be removed before the wines are bottled. In both this case and for the additives listed above, where there is any doubt it would be a simple matter for the regulations to be changed so that, for example, an (A) was used as a suffix for additives which were derived from animal material and the suffix (D) for those from dairy material.
It would unquestionably be fruitful for there to be a coming together of the leaders of the many groups involved, including vegetarians, vegans, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and Seventh Day Adventists, who would certainly together form a sufficiently persuasive and numerically strong grouping to convince both the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and also the EEC Commission in Brussels that such additive identification is both necessary and possible. As things stand, the problem is hardly recognized as existing.
8. Do Additives Affect Ability? (#ulink_89a24065-b667-522b-9162-7bca8d1a614b)
New York City State schools have some of the highest paid and best qualified teachers in the USA yet in the late 1970s they had some of the worst records of academic success and criticism of both pupils and teachers was reaching a desperately high level. What could be done?
Dr Elizabeth Cagan, a distinguished and charismatic educationalist, was routed out from her academic environment and given the challenge of reforming the school catering service, because it was felt instinctively that this could be part of the problem.
Liz Cagan looked at the food served to the children and said to herself that this was far removed from the plain, sensible, nourishing food which she had served to her own family. Aircraft-type meals were warmed up and most of them finished up in the rubbish bin. She called the cooks together and told them that, if they were to stay in work, they had to become real cooks and not just re-heaters.
Not long after, through one of her assistants, she heard of the pioneering experiments of Alexander G. Schauss, a brilliant penologist, who had turned to biosocial research and nutrition. He had experimented with prison populations by giving them food low in additives and sugar. There had been substantial improvements in work records and less aggression. In Alabama, for example, after a control period of 18 months without diet modifications, a revised diet was introduced. Within 4
/
months of changing the diet policy behaviour problems fell and then levelled off for the next 14 months of the trial at a figure 61 per cent lower than before.
These results were validated by a number of other controlled trials where the data confirmed that diet and behavioural problems have many cause-and-effect links, and these included problems with sugar, food colours and, indeed, flavours.
The Feingold Diet, which was on the same basic lines with also the removal of the antioxidants BHA and BHT (E320 and E321), had produced successful results with both hyperactivity and juvenile delinquency.
So, Dr Cagan’s colleague went to see Alexander Schauss and between them they decided to set up a food system for the New York City schools which, incidentally, have the second biggest buying power for food products after the US Army, in a first-phase Feingold Diet. This involved a gradual elimination of artificial colours, artificial flavours and the preservatives BHA and BHT while, simultaneously, foods high in sugar were either eliminated or the sugar reduced to a maximum figure of around 11 per cent.
It was ensured that, when each revision was implemented, changes took place simultaneously in all the schools, but the revisions were carried out over three academic years: 1979–80, 1980–81 and 1982–83, with no changes being made in the 1981–82 academic year so that there was a basis for evaluating the effects of change.
All the selected schools gave their children the California Achievement Test (CAT), which is given to many schools across the United States and from which the percentage ranking of the school was calculated.
They had already checked back for the four years preceding the changes so that they knew the average figures involved: these did not fluctuate by more than a mere percentage point. The mean academic CAT score for each school was calculated and then it was converted to a national ranking by comparing this mean with that of the other schools who used the same test in the same year. Then the previous year’s ranking was subtracted from the current year’s to show the gain or loss in national terms. The figures for all 803 schools averaged together show a mean gain or decline in the years between 1977 and 1983.
This exceptionally complex trial on almost a million children who ate both breakfast and lunch at school was undertaken by three doctors, Stephen J. Schoenthaler, Walter E. Doraz and James A. Wakefield Jr. It was published in the International Journal of Biosocial Research, Volume 8, Number 2, 1986, pp.138–148.
The results were astounding. There was a 15.7 per cent increase in mean academic ranking over and above the rest of the nation’s schools who used the same standardized tests. (Before the changes the variations had been less than 1 per cent.) Prior to dietary changes, the school children who ate the most school meals had the worst results. After the changes, the children who ate the most school meals had the best results. Never before had there been a trial of such a size and with such scientific support on so many children to determine the effect of diet upon ability.
The schools formed committees including pupils to set up their own menus, along Dr Cagan’s guidelines, with their cooks and dieticians. There were supportive posters everywhere such as ‘Have you hugged your dietician today?’ (which in some areas was altered by changing the h to m!). When Dr Cagan went to a school in the roughest part of New York City and was introduced at meal time by the head teacher as being the lady who had changed the food, she received a standing ovation from the pupils. Only a few years before, visitors would have required a police escort.
So, do certain additives damage the brain? We do not know. What does look certain from this gigantic and extraordinary trial is that there has to be a reconsideration of those additives which deny children the nutrients normally present in real food.
What is the purpose of excessive quantities of sugar, colours, flavours and preservatives? They are there to disguise nutritionally unimportant food substances, including highly calorific fats, as real, wholesome, satisfying food. Just go round your supermarket and look at the foods still being sold that appeal to the senses of the young. Without checking the labels carefully you can easily buy non-nutritive rubbish. But it tastes and looks just like real food. So additives can dilute nutrition. The test of ‘need’ is applied without a true understanding of the consequences to our children, upon whom all our future hopes must be founded.
Remember, many additives help to provide us with good and safe food, but beware—additives that in themselves might be harmless deceive us and, worse still, our children, into consuming empty calories.
A centre for severely disturbed children—the state-run Aycliffe School in Co. Durham—is undertaking a trial to find whether the Schauss/Schoenthaler Diet, which they will be adapting, can help these children.
The diet being used observes the following guidelines:
(a) sweetened breakfast cereals to be replaced with non-sweetened varieties;
(b) canned fruits, if packed in syrup, to be rinsed with cold water before serving;
(c) soft drinks to be replaced with a wide selection of fruit and vegetable juices;
(d) table sugar to be replaced with honey;
(e) wholemeal bread to be substituted for white bread;
(f) brown rice to replace white rice;
(g) processed foods to be replaced with fresh, when available at similar prices;
(h) snack foods high in sugar, fat or refined carbohydrates to be replaced by fresh fruit and vegetables, plus a variety of nuts, cheeses and wholegrain biscuits;
(i) preservatives, especially BHA (E320) and BHT (E321), and artificially coloured or flavoured foods to be avoided where possible.
In this special group of children the results may not necessarily be generally applicable but they will be of great importance. Further studies need to be done.
9. Hyperactivity in Children (#ulink_e8b31807-0960-5b73-a1ff-b2c6a0e89bc7)
A lot of cynicism has been generated about the whole idea of hyperactivity in children. ‘There are no hyperactive children, only hyperactive parents’ is a frequent retort. The evidence is mounting, although with some reservations, that a good deal of so called hyperactivity is, in fact, due to an unstable environment, but that a good deal is due to food. Dr Egger at Great Ormond Street Hospital showed in his series of cases that there were no children who had an adverse effect from additives only. They were always affected by a food as well.
Dr Ben Feingold MD began his work and observations in 1965 on the link between certain foods and additives and the effect on some individuals’ behaviour and their ability to learn. He proposed a diet which cut down on certain additives and eliminated certain foods. Scientific workers are still uncertain as to the validity of the whole of Dr Feingold’s ideas, but there is no doubt that a vast number of hyperactive children, and also asthmatics and those suffering from eczema, have benefitted immeasurably from a sensible and careful adaptation of this diet.
Hyperactive children bring much strain and exhaustion to parents who have to manage offspring who only sleep a few hours; are excitable and impulsive; are very fidgety; have a short attention span; are compulsively aggressive; can hurt themselves and are sometimes very anti-social. All these traits are beyond the control of the children, who may well also suffer from a lack of co-ordination of the muscles. They collide with objects when trying such simple sports as cycling and swimming. Their finer senses, such as their eyes and hands, do not seem to operate together. They have difficulty with buttoning and tieing, writing, drawing and speaking—sometimes they are dyslexic.
As they grow older they become even more active and can easily hurt. Difficulties are experienced with speech, balance and learning, even if the IQ is high. They suffer from excessive thirst and are often prone to respiratory difficulties.
It was to help such parents and children that the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group was formed in 1977. It is now a registered charity. The Secretary is Mrs Sally Bunday, 71 Whyke Lane, Chichester, West Sussex P019 2LD (please enclose an SAE if you would like details of membership). The Group recommends that parents try a diet based on the work of Ben Feingold. First, this means cutting out all food and drink containing synthetic colours or flavours, avoiding glutamates, nitrites, nitrates, BHA, BHT and benzoic acid. Second, for the first four to six weeks, foods containing natural salicylates (like aspirin chemically) should be avoided and then re-introduced one at a time to see if they cause problems. Such foods include almonds, apples, apricots, peaches, plums, prunes, oranges, tomatoes, tangerines, cucumbers, most soft fruits, cherries, grapes and raisins.
The additives that the HACSG recommends should be avoided are:
Plus another antioxidant preservative not used in the UK
Additives which are either dangerous to asthmatics or aspirin-sensitive people, and could reasonably be added to the HACSG listing, or should not be used in food intended for babies or young children are:
The medical profession still believes that more work is needed with larger trials, but in the meantime such diets are very valuable if you, having adopted them, then reduce the number of forbidden substances and foods so that the child concerned is left with as large a variety as possible, is not kept out of the main stream of childhood fun, and does not suffer from unnecessarily restrictive rules.
10. The Avoidable 57 Additives (#ulink_83ff1ecb-1369-50f6-8508-d369213ff40c)
Additives can hide the true nature of food. You can use polyphosphates (E450) to emulsify fat and to incorporate water, some 128 (Red 2G) to colour the fat so that it looks like meat, enhance the flavour with 621 (monosodium glutamate), so that the food has an addictive and chicken-like flavour. Add some BHA and BHT, E320 and E321, to make sure that the excessive quantities of fat do not go rancid, mix in some lean meat and salt, and surround the mixture with a pastry of white flour and lard, then you have a meat pie which contains very little lean fleshed meat and lots of the sort of saturated fat that our government advises us to eat only in moderation. The additives make sure that our senses do not detect the fat.
What are the most unnecessary or potentially worrying additives? That list only contains some 1 in 5 of those with numbers. These 57 different substances, with rather more chemical names, are:
Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, E250 and E251, are in this list because there is evidence that links them with producing carcinogenic nitrosamines. But the use of nitrates and nitrites in the preservation of cured meats is long established and prevents, among other things, the growth of the lethal botulinum.
The potassium salts of nitrates and nitrites, E249 and E252. are not included in the list, although they are also problematical, as it is recognized that chemical means to preserve meat are, at this time, necessary. They have the advantage of not adding to the amount of sodium in the diet.
What is included in any list of avoidable additives is a personal decision and the wise approach is to make your own list.
11. The Natural Opportunity for Profit (#ulink_06588d3b-74ad-5c6f-bb6e-6f212008e575)
The food revolution following the publication of E for Additives produced two conflicting results. The first was a whole lot of foods that were nutritionally better as well as being free from unnecessary and possibly harmful additives. The second was the use of such statements as ‘free from artificial colours’ and others, including the frequent use of the word ‘natural’ to give the impression that the food was just as if it had been taken from an old world farm and prepared specially for you with the care and consideration of a good home cook. These foods are taking a step along the right road but you have to be very discriminating indeed.
If a product says ‘no artificial colourings’, then that is all very well but what are the other ingredients? The overall concept of a healthy and balanced diet is far more important than any concern you may have for the odd E-additive unless you have a special sensitivity. It is the food we eat that makes us fit and healthy and the trick is to avoid being misled by advertising and pack presentation which makes you think that the absence of certain ingredients means that by default other good nutritional substances must be there. They may, but there again they may not.
The E-code has given us the freedom to make informed decisions about some of the foods we eat, but those decisions should not just be based on the additives but upon the whole nutritional concept of the food. On the other hand, food is also fun, and if you like to enjoy a few potato crisps, that is just fine. It is truly an advantage that you can now obtain them without BHA and BHT (E320 and E321), with natural flavours, and cooked in vegetable oil.
E does not stand for EVIL, but rather for EXPLANATION. Regrettably many consumers reject all foods with an E number whereas no-one need be concerned by four out of five of the Es.
This is causing yet another hype with manufacturers taking the legal option of spelling out the name of the additive in full instead of using the E number. They claim that this is because the consumer now understands additives better. The truth is that confusion has been created, the dreaded E symbol is absent. No E number equals OK to eat so a person who has become used to avoiding E102 because of an allergy problem now has to be aware that this additive is tartrazine. An asthmatic avoiding sulphates, E220–E227, has to learn eight different chemical names in addition to their numbers.
The law needs to be changed so that E numbers have to be listed as well as the optional chemical names or people will suffer.
The food industry has to make a profit in order to survive and to have the money available to develop new and interesting foods. It is our job to make sure that the promises on the packet are supported by the composition of the product; for by selecting for our personal use those products which are truly honest and nutritionally sensible and, not to be forgotten, taste good, we shall be supporting those manufacturers, and there are many of them, who truly understand the difference between nutritional hype and nutritional help.
12. The E Number Categories (#ulink_38088678-1c51-5641-b954-81a43689604f)
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