Food Additives Factsheet

Food additives are found in a range of foods, some are even naturally occuring.

For example, if an apple carried a label it would look like this:

Food additives are substances not normally consumed as a food and not normally used as characteristic ingredients in food.
When approved as safe by EU scientific experts, additives are classified and given an E number for identification. All additives must comply to approved purity criteria and are listed in EU food legislation.

Modern food technologies which meet consumer demand for variety, choice and convenience sometimes require the use of food additives. These are needed to help maintain taste, appearance and nutritional quality of processed foods and to keep them safe - from production through to distribution and shelf-life on to eventual consumption. The most important additives in this respect are preservatives and antioxidants.
Food labels include the additive’s name or E number in the ingredient list. The ingredient list also shows what the function of a particular additive, such as antioxidants which help keep food fresh - e.g. vitamin C (E 300 ascorbic acid), colours - e.g. betacarotene (E160b) which, in nature, gives the orange colour to carrots.
Additives have a number of different characteristics: preservatives to keep food fresh e.g. calcium propionate (E282) which prevents bread from turning mouldy; to add texture preventing separation as in margarines; thickeners such as gelatin and pectin; sweeteners like saccharin (E954); flavour enhancers and colours.
All additives must have demonstrated a useful technological purpose in the foodstuff before they are approved for use.

Thanks to strict regulation and rigorous testing, food additives are safe. EU food safety experts approve the use of additives and constantly monitor and review additives in light of all new scientific data, as well as current food intakes.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is responsible for evaluating additives. They do so in cooperation with the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The WHO uses a safety margin of 100 when determining levels of food additives. This is based on a 10-fold factor to allow for differences between animals and an average human and a 10-fold factor to allow for differences in humans and sensitive subgroups such as the elderly.

Zdroj: Evropská rada pro informace o potravinách (European Food Information Council)