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Colouring Matters in Food
The Food Standards Committee appointed by the Minister of Food
to consider the composition, labelling and marking of foods have
adopted the report of their Preservatives Sub-Committee recommending
that the Public Health (Preservatives, etc. in Food) Regulations 1925—
1953 should be amended. The sub-committee reached the conclusion
that the present regulations were negative in character in that they
permitted colouring matters to be used in the absence of specific complaints
or evidence that they were harmful, and gave it as their view
that the Regulations should be amended to a positive form permitting
the use only of preservatives and colouring matters which were either
of natural origin and known to be free from any suspicion of adverse
effect on the consumer, or synthetic materials where the evidence was
sufficiently strong that no adverse effect either immediate, insidious or
cumulative was likely to be suffered by the consumer.
The Committee stated that of the 79 dyes which were submitted for
their consideration only 12 could be labelled as "A" dyes which have not
so far been shown to produce any harmful effects and which seem unlikely
to be harmful in the amounts ordinarily consumed; 32 were put
in "B" category as being food colours about which there was no direct
evidence of toxidity or harmfulness but about which the evidence was
inadequate or uncertain. The remaining 35 dyes were rejected as being
considered unsuitable for use in food on the grounds that they have
definitely harmful effects on health or that their chemical structure
might cause cancer or other effects in animals or man.
The main recommendations of the Sub-Committee are as follows:—
that the Public Health (Preservatives, etc. in Food) Regulations
1925-1953 be amended so as to permit the use in foods of specific
colours only;
that for the present official approval should be given only to the
colouring matters listed in Appendix III;
that specifications of purity should be prescribed and published
for each of the specified colours;
that colours, other than for marking purposes, should not be permitted
in milk, or in or upon meat, game, poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables,
sold in the raw or unprocessed state;
that in general notification of the presence in foods of added colour
should be given to the purchaser;
that colours sold for use in food should be appropriately labelled;
that any regulations made should apply also to imported foods.
Thirteen natural colours and 72 synthetic colours are listed in an
Appendix.
The Committee stressed the need for the continual collection of evidence
on the purity and suitability of preservatives and colouring
matters proposed to be used in foods.
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