E for Additives. Maurice Hanssen

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СКАЧАТЬ Why Are There Still Secret Ingredients?

      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 ¹/₂ 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 СКАЧАТЬ