Food additives can damage children’s brains
In addition to the links that tie food dyes to cancer, I’ve read a number of opinion pieces and advice columns that have suggested that artificial food colorings can be harmful to children in subtle and not so subtle ways. Ask Moxie, an Internet parenting advice guru, has recommended that parents eliminate artificial colors and flavors from their children’s diets if their kids suffer from sleep disturbances, strange rashes, or are just plain loopy or fussy. Though right now, when I should be the most careful, my habits haven’t been so great, I usually avoid foods with artificial colors just because the colors freak me out.
A British study has found that food additives can be just as harmful as lead and cause tantrums and damage intelligence. Officials are calling for the additives to be removed from the food industry.
The advice, which will be put before the FSA board next week, would be voluntary. However, manufacturers would be expected by the regulator to remove the additives, replacing them with natural alternatives if possible. Some sweetmakers have unilaterally agreed to remove the suspect colours following the latest scientific evidence.
Researchers have linked E-numbers to behavioural problems since the 1970s but the debate has intensified after the Southampton study, published last September, found that seven additives such as sunset yellow (E110) and tartrazine (E102) were causing temper tantrums among normal children.
The FSA, which funded the £750,000 study, was criticised by health groups for failing to ban the additives after taking the advice of the Committee on Toxicology, which said they had only a moderate effect on some children.
Instead, the FSA said it would work with manufacturers to see if they would remove the additives and awaited an assessment of its research by the European Food Safety Agency (Efsa).
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