Today, not only more vibrant and often superfluous colours are available, but the use of these chemicals is far more widespread; thanks to modern synthetic technology.
Our reaction to the appearance of food is often visceral and is ingrained in us through millennia of habit. Quite often we take such things unintentionally on whim of eye that our rationale does not approve of. To the mistake of the eye the whole body suffers.
Whatever we intake becomes part of our body. Certainly it takes its toll on the body's natural balance, as that depends upon the working capabilities of our body organs. Apart from the basic requirements, we also eat such things as supplement for the sake of satisfaction of our taste buds only; as that sounds like a treat for taste buds, and obviously people are strongly influenced by perception based on sight.
Also vibrant and most appetising colours of the food attract human sight. The colour of food has become vital to how we taste and perceive food. We attach enormous importance to colours for enjoyment of food. But have we ever thought about the impact of this inadvertence towards our eating behaviour?
In 1993, I was researching on aluminium, silver and gold foils (warq). These foils are used by people vehemently for decorating sweets and other food items; are still a risk to life and potential carcinogens. The leaves were ingested by them along with sweets, 'murabbas' etc. The survey report was published on the front page of a mainstream Urdu daily. During the survey it revealed upon us that the use of carcinogenic food colours is more rampant than that of these aluminium foils and causes more harm to body than these occasionally used aluminium and silver foils do.
It was in June 1993 and no one in the print media had published anything on the subject ever before. I had been meeting with the commissioner of Lahore chapter - a friend of mine - in the context of conduct of my researches on aluminium foils, taking measures to prevent use of carcinogenic food colours and conducting a survey on governmental level. He talked about the worst political crisis that gripped the country in 1993.
He promised to concentrate on the subject after the resolution of the crisis and work together on it. From 1993 onward, the subject has been of my special attention. Now when 2008 has arrived our country is still a victim of political crisis and many forthcoming crisis that await unresolved.
But I am pleased to see its mention in quite a small section of media as subject of media talk; but it is really pathetic that the implementing agencies are busy in coping with this political crisis. In the past fourteen years Europe has made intensive advancement in this field; so much so that keep the food aside they have made it prohibitory to use carcinogenic food colours in fabric dyeing process. And look! we have not even banned its use in food items.
And what if the survey would have been conducted. It would have made no difference as it did not made in the aluminium foil case - the survey that was conducted along with district administration, the PCSIR laboratories and mainstream print media, participating fully in the whole affair, that had been conducted for days and PCSIR laboratories had declared the use of aluminium & silver and gold foils (though they be in pure form) in food as a health hazard. Even the Lahore High Court had taken suo moto notice of the matter. But it could not make any significant role in alleviating its use.
REASON BEHIND IS THE MINDSET DEMONSTRATED IN THIS INCIDENT: when the court took suo moto notice of the issue the government official, in order to file written statement in the court, came to PCSIR laboratories to gather information about the affair. The doctor who prepared the report told me that in the whole meeting this man kept on insisting him to declare the use of aluminium foil beneficial for human use. And that case met the fate that all suo moto cases do. Let us consider the impact of food colours on health and ways to avoid them.
WHAT RISK CARCINOGENIC FOOD COLORS POSE:
Colours are often used in the manufacturing of soft drinks, various kinds of toffees, ice creams, jams and jellies etc, by both street vendors and large manufacturers. House wives use dyes to colour rice and other dishes, mainly to give them a more appetising look. Artificial colors are common in kids' foods, snacks and beverages. Artificial colours are also used in various dishes of hotels eg quormas, curry biryani etc to enhance their appeal.
Many of these dyes were originally derived from coal tar and were commonly called coal-tar dyes, they contain the azo group. Some artificial colors, such as Blue 1 and Green 3, are carcinogenic. It has been shown that impurities found in batches of cosmetic colours such as D&C Red 33, FD&C Yellow 5, and FD&C yellow 6;cause cancer not only when ingested, but also when applied to the skin. Some artificial coal tar colors contain heavy metal impurities, including arsenic and lead, which are carcinogenic.
Blue1 and Green3 are direct carcinogens. European food agency particularly stresses red colour risk. Some of these colouring agents are allergenic and even worse; some have carcinogenic properties. It is suspected that some artificial food colours contribute to hyperactivity, allergies, asthma, learning problems, and concentration difficulties both in children and adults. Certain specific foods that must be either avoided or least consumed, include coloured drinks, colour-coated candies, gummy and chewy candies, and many coloured cereals.
PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR, JIM STEVENSON, SAID:
"We now have clear evidence that mixtures of certain food colours and benzoate preservative can adversely influence the behaviour of children. There is some previous evidence that some children with behavioural disorders could benefit from the removal of certain food colours from their diet. We have now shown that for a large group of children in the general population, consumption of certain mixtures of artificial food colours and benzoate preservative can influence their hyperactive behaviour ... "
A study published by researchers at the University of Southampton, UK, in September 2007 demonstrates that young children who consume food and drinks containing the mixture of artificial colours and the preservative sodium benzoate have increased levels of hyperactivity.
BANNED COLOURS:
FOLLOWING ARE THE COLOURS BANNED IN WESTERN AND OTHER HEALTH CONSCIOUS STATES BUT OPENLY USED AND SOLD IN PAKISTAN
1) BLUE NO 1: Blue No 1 uses coal tar as one of its components. It is a carcinogenic in large quantities.
2) Blue FCF: It creates a medium blue shade. This coloring was actually banned in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, but has since been let back into most of the countries under the European Union.
3) Blue No 2: Third is Blue No 2, usually added to tablets and capsules, but used in ice cream, sweets, baked goods, confectionery, and cookies also. The colour was extracted originally from several species of plant as well as one of the two famous Phoenician sea snails or from woad, but now produced for food or textile by synthesis. It is possible to have an allergic to Blue No 2.
4) Green No 3: Green No 3, or Fast Green FCF, can be used for tinned green peas, vegetables, jellies, desserts, and dry bakery mixes at level of up to 100 mg/kg. Fast Green FCF produces a sea green shade. The intestines poorly absorb Green No 3.
5) Red No 40: Red No 40 was introduced as a replacement for Red No 2 it was a suspected carcinogen. It has the appearance of a dark red powder. Red No 40 can be found in sweets, drinks, medicines and cosmetics.
6) Red No 3: Also known as Erythrosine, Red No 3 is a cherry-pink coal tar-based food colour. It is also used in printing inks. It is used in cherries, canned fruit, custard mix, sweets, baked goods, and snack foods. It can cause sensitivity to light and learning difficulties, can increase thyroid hormone levels and lead to hyperthyroidism, and was shown to cause thyroid cancer in rats in a study in 1990.
7) Yellow No 5: Yellow No 5, or Tartrazine, is used for yellow colouring, can also be used with Brilliant Blue FCF or Green 3 to produce various green shades. Yellow No 5 can be found in soft drinks, flavoured chips cake mixes, custard powder, soups, ice cream, ice lollies, candy, chewing gum, jam, jelly, marmalade, mustard, yogurt, noodles, pickles and other pickled products. Its use is banned in Norway and was banned in Austria and Germany, before European Parliament lifted the ban.
8) Yellow No 6: Also known as Sunset Yellow FCF, this food colour is an orange coal tar-based food dye found in orange squash, orange jelly, etc.
I think you can now have a more liberal understanding of how much contaminated these convenience and ready-to-eat foods are.Moreover, these are artificially produced food colours and are permissible in our part of world, what about those that are illegal but go unnoticed in Pakistan.
That does not mean there has not been any work ever done for the subject in Pakistan. Fatima Jinnah Women University Department of Food Technology, University of Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi jointly conducted a survey in 2002.Different types of ready-to-eat foods were analysed for the detection and estimation of the added synthetic food colours. A total of 72 different samples of sweet meats and confectioneries were randomly collected from large and small shops of Rawalpindi Cantt.
Quantities of the permitted colouring matter among the tested samples were found within the range of 18-220 ppm(parts per million). The maximum limit of permissible colour to be added in any food is, according to the Pure Food rules of 1965, 0.1 gram per Kg of food as consumed ie 100 ppm (where as only 20 ppm is recommended internationally). 47.56% of the samples contained non-permitted food colours. Incidences of the use of non-permitted food colours and colours above permissible limits were higher in case of the unorganised food makers.
Another research was condudted by Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) in 2006. Various samples of food, beverages and drinking water were collected from selected educational institutes from Karachi to Khyber to determine their quality.
A total of 2003 samples of food items and 780 of drinking water and 1220 of beverages, were collected from 490 teaching institutes. About 44 percent of coloured foods and beverages were found to have non-food grade colours.A researcher at the PCSIR Laboratories Complex in Karachi, Seema Ismat, said "They are most probably the textile grade colours." According to Dr Nusrat Aijaz, the project coordinator from the PCSIR, Lahore, nearly 45 percent of Lahore's samples were also found unfit due to substandard synthetic food colours. Dr Nusrat also told that addition of such food in the human body could cause lung diseases, skin allergies, thyroid cancer, and renal diseases.
PERMITTED FOOD COLOURS IN PAKISTAN: According to the Pure Food rules of 1965 eighteen synthetic food colours and five natural food colours are permitted food colours in Pakistan. The synthetic food colours are Food Blue, Food Violet, Food Green Red and Food Black.
The use of Black and Brown dyes is completely banned in the developed countries as they contain harmful ingredients. According to the PCSIR scientists, Pakistan needs to review its list of 18 food colours permitted under the Pure Food Rules,1965.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: In Europe and other western countries public awareness and outcry over the potential dangers of colour additives grew in the past decade but in Pakistan we don't bother about them and most people even don't know about the risk they pose; with a number of them not acknowledging that they can ever be dangerous. The government too doesn't get into the business of protecting the public from poisonous colourants.
In UK the government is confronted by growing consumer demand for natural and healthy foodstuffs, food companies are looking for alternatives to artificial food colours like Sunset Yellow, Tartrazine and Quinoline Yellow.
The UK's Co-op chain banned these three legal colours, along with nine others in response to consumer concerns. They are replacing them with naturally derived colourings. With European colouring market facing an annual growth rate of just 1 per cent between 2001 and 2008, the colouring foodstuffs market is ripping ahead on growth of 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Efforts to detect carcinogenic colours in foodstuffs are still a priority for the food industry in Europe. Europe's risk system flags up illegal red colours in spices from India. Used in shoe polish and industrial products, these banned red dyes are considered a cancer risk by the EU. In UK alone over 600 well-known processed food products were pulled from the shelves when the government came to know the presence of deleterious ingredient in them. Europe's food law encourages firms to employ massive testing of food colours for their impact on human health.
Brussels now requires that imports of chili and chili products cross the EU border with a certificate that they are free of the illegal chemical dyes. Multinational companies are awakening to the call of public concern over toxic food colours. Many have announced to replace artificial food colours and flavours with natural ones.
SUGGESTIONS:
1) Coal-tar colors should not be used in foods;
2) Only specified, tested and certified dyes should be used in foods.
3) Each batch of food color should be tested and certified by a qualified chemist.
4) Food Colour specification that indicates the nature of the colours, should be mentioned on food labels, so that consumers can make the choice to avoid the product if they want.
5) Consumers must take a good look at the ingredients listed on the label.
PRECAUTIONS: What the layman can do if the government does not take concrete steps to ensure food safety from carcinogenic food colours.
FOLLOWING ARE FEW MEASURES THAT SHOULD BE ADOPTED:
1. While buying keep in mind to purchase such foodstuff as is either white or colourless; eg buy white 'barfi ', 'ras malai' or other such item rather than having traditional coloured sweets;
2. don't buy your children coloured candies, prefer white or transparent ones;
3. the housewife should grind her own pepper, flour, and coffee, bake her own bread, and avoid items nearly certain to be toxic such as sweets and jellies.
4. buy kulfa ice cream instead of flavoured varieties;
5. don't let your spouse cook vibrant coloured 'pulaos', prefer white rice that are becoming quite popular these days as people are becoming aware of food colour threats;
6. test the veracity of your red chili by taking a glass of cold water, then take a pinch of red pepper, drop in it and see, if the water remains colourless in spite of pepper addition, except for chili grains, it's pure; but if pepper dissolves in water and gives a homogeneous reddish solution it's surely adulterated.
7. use home-prepared ketchup instead of packed one.
8. use beverages without colours;
9. avoid coloured custards, you can also prepare custard with corn flour and few drops of vanilla essence as both are one and the same things. In a nutshell, use all food items preferring non-coloured ones.
CALL FOR INTRODUCTION OF NATURAL DYES: Until recently, food colouring could only be obtained from what people readily found in nature. For instance, saffron has long been used to give a yellow tint to rice, and squid ink gives pasta a black appearance. Other popular natural colorants have included paprika, turmeric, beet extract and petals of various flowers.
Why not revive this old tradition now, when the use of artificially synthesised colours has been declared a health risk. Following are the sources from which various colours can be obtained. Their use is safe.
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Colours Sources
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Red/Blue Black Grapes
Blackcurrants
Cherries
Elderberries
Red Cabbage
Strawberries
Pink Beetroot
Red Cochineal
Carrots
Red Peppers
Tomatoes
Green Alfalfa Grass
Nettles
Parsley
Spinach
Orange Annatto
Oranges
Yellow Saffron
Turmeric
Eggs
Yeast
Black Carbonized
Vegetable
Material
Brown colour Melanoidins
(Caramel)
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I would like to share with my readers a very interesting incident - an eye opener for many. In 1995 I went to Shah Alam market Lahore. There I met this man at a well-known food colour shop, he surprised me by telling that he exports natural food colours to Germany. "You will then be running a large plant with huge machinery - very expensive indeed", I expressed. "Not that big", he laughed out. Then he explained to me that the project was very easygoing and did not need much investment and technology.
"How?" I asked. "We take green leaves, crush them with a club, add alcohol and on drying they leave a green matter behind, this is natural green colour "itni si baat hai"(it's so simple); he talked confidently. Alas! We could have made such a product for our own people and primarily for ourselves.