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СКАЧАТЬ 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 Report¹ 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 СКАЧАТЬ