By Yumiq
Additives: are they all a real danger?
Colourings, preservatives, emulsifiers: not all additives are equal. Let's sort those that raise questions from those with no known risk.
What exactly is an additive?
A food additive is a substance added deliberately to a food to perform a technical function: preserving it, colouring it, giving it texture, sweetening it or enhancing its taste. In the European Union, each additive carries a code, theE number(E300, E330, E407...), and may only be used if it appears on the official list, with precise conditions of use: foods concerned and maximum dose.
More than 300 substances are authorised today. The first digit of the code generally indicates the family: colourings (E100 to E199), preservatives (E200 to E299), antioxidants (E300 to E399), thickeners, gelling agents and emulsifiers (E400 to E499), flavour enhancers (E600 to E699), sweeteners among the E900s. Behind an "E" there are therefore very different substances, which partly explains the confusion.
How is an additive authorised?
Before any authorisation, theEFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, assesses the safety of the substance. When necessary, it sets anacceptable daily intake (ADI): the amount that can be consumed every day, over a whole lifetime, without appreciable risk to health. This dose includes a substantial safety margin, generally a factor of 100 relative to the dose with no observed effect in animals.
The system corrects itself over time. Additives authorised before 2009 are being reviewed one by one: the EFSA has to re-evaluate 315 substances and, at the last point we consulted, had dealt with more than 70% of them, with a timetable that has overrun the initial deadlines (end of 2018, and end of 2020 for sweeteners).
The most telling example istitanium dioxide (E171), a white colouring widely used in confectionery. In 2021, the EFSA concluded it could no longer be considered safe, as a genotoxicity risk could not be ruled out. It has been banned in European food since 2022, France having already suspended it in 2020. This shows two things: control works, and "authorised" does not mean "risk-free for ever".
"All dangerous": why that is wrong
E300 is vitamin C, E330 is citric acid, E440 is fruit pectin, E160a is a carotene. These are substances found in foods, used to preserve, acidify or gel. Lumping them in with synthetic colourings makes no sense: an "E" is neither a sign of danger nor a guarantee of safety.
Danger also depends on thedose. For aspartame, the WHO gives an order of magnitude: an adult weighing 70 kg would need to drink more than 9 to 14 cans of diet soda a day to exceed the acceptable daily intake. A substance with a theoretical risk is not a poison with the first bite.
"No problem at all": why that is wrong too
A few additives, or families of additives, do raise real questions. Here are the main ones, with the state of knowledge:
- Colourings E102, E104, E110, E122, E124 and E129: since 2010, the warning "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children" has been mandatory on products containing them, following a study conducted in Southampton. Details in our article onfood colourings.
- Nitrites (E249 to E252): preservatives in cured meats, they contribute to the formation of N-nitroso compounds, and consumption of processed meat is associated with an increased risk of colourectal cancer. Seenitrites in processed meat.
- Aspartame (E951): classified as "possibly carcinogenic" (group 2B) by IARC in July 2023, whereas the WHO and FAO's JECFA expert committee kept the acceptable daily intake at 40 mg per kilo per day. The two opinions do not contradict each other: the first says a hazard is possible, the second assesses the risk at the doses actually consumed. Continued in the article onsweeteners.
- Carrageenans (E407): widely used thickeners, they are the subject of debate about their effect on the gut. The point is covered in the article oncarrageenans.
- Emulsifiers: an observational study from the NutriNet-Santé cohort (Inserm, 2024), involving about 92,000 adults, links higher consumption of certain emulsifiers to a higher risk of cancer, particularly breast and prostate. It is an association, not proof of causation, and the cohort is not representative of the whole population.
There remains the question of thecocktail effect. Assessments are made substance by substance, whereas we consume mixtures. The NutriNet-Santé work explores this avenue and reports associations for some mixtures, without being able to conclude a cause-and-effect link. Today, nobody can precisely quantify this effect.
What really matters: the number and type of additives
A single mild additive, such as citric acid, in a simple product is nothing to worry about. What should raise concern is a list that accumulates them, particularly so-calledcosmeticadditives (colourings, flavourings, flavour enhancers, sweeteners, emulsifiers), whose role is to make a product more appealing or more palatable, not to preserve it. A product containing several of them is almost always anultra-processed food, rated NOVA 4.
Three questions are enough to sort them out:
- How manyadditives does the product contain? One or two is common; five or more is a warning sign.
- Which ones? A natural technical additive (vitamin C, pectin) is not comparable to a synthetic colouring.
- How oftendo you consume it, and who eats it? A brightly coloured sweet now and then does not carry the same weight as a daily diet drink or a product intended for young children.
Spotting them on the label and in Yumiq
On the packaging, additives appear in the ingredients list, with the name of their category followed by the name or E number (for example "colour: E150d"). Our guide toreading a label properlysets out the method.
In Yumiq, each product's page shows the number of additives detected and sorts them into three groups: harmless, to watch and risky. TheYumiq-Scoreapplies a penalty to controversial additives assessed by the EFSA and ANSES, and the Yumiq star is reserved for products without any risky additive. Regulation is evolving: we follow changes in the news on theEuropean additives regulation.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
- How many additives are authorised in Europe?
- More than 300 substances are authorised as food additives in the European Union. Each one appears on an official list with its conditions of use: foods concerned and maximum dose. The exact number varies depending on the source and on updates to the list.
- Is a "natural" additive always safe?
- No. "Natural" says nothing about risk, which depends on the substance and the dose. Some additives of natural origin, such as vitamin C (E300) or pectin (E440), have no known risk at usual doses. Others, whether natural or not, are subject to reservations.
- What is the acceptable daily intake (ADI)?
- It is the amount of a substance that can be consumed every day, throughout life, without appreciable risk to health. It is set by food safety agencies with a safety margin, generally a factor of 100 below the dose with no observed effect in animals.
- Should you avoid all products containing additives?
- Not necessarily. A product with one or two technical additives is not problematic in itself. It is better to be wary of products that combine several, especially cosmetic additives (colourings, flavourings, sweeteners, emulsifiers), and to limit ultra-processed foods in the daily diet.