Many people are worried about the effect of additives on children's health and behaviour. In fact, many additives cause no known problems at all and some are merely ordinary food components such as vitamin C (E300), calcium lactate (E327) or lecithin (322). Manufacturers say additives are necessary to stop food from going off, make it more attractive and that all additives are safe.
However, many health workers and food campaigners think that not all additives are safe for everyone, that food should be eaten fresh, before it is old enough to become bad, and that additives can mask poor quality food.
Dead foods
Many foods on sale today consist mainly of depleted, processed starches, sugars, salt and hydrogenated fat. Not only are such foods too nutritionally impoverished to build health, but they can contribute directly to conditions such as tooth decay, heart disease, constipation and its many complications, high blood pressure, strokes, some cancers, brittle bones, obesity and diabetes.
It is of much concern that manufacturers are able to sell us such poor foods by using additives to make them seem attractive. The chief worry for children's health is not whether a particular additive causes a problem (although that may also be the case), but that children's diets increasingly appear to consist of very low-nutrient foods that are made possible only by the use of high-tech methods and additives.
The resulting 'non-foods' or 'dead' foods may be attractively packaged, heavily advertised and, incredibly, often marketed as 'children's food'. It can be difficult for parents and carers to resist buying these very attractive-looking and seemingly inexpensive foods, especially with a child in tow.
A new survey by the Food Commission found that:
* 87 per cent of foods with 'a lot' of sugar, salt or fat contained colourings (E100-180)
* 74 per cent contained artificial sweeteners (E850-967) * 72 per cent contained emulsifiers (E322-495) * 65 per cent contained preservatives (E200-297), and * 64 per cent contained glazes and 'improvers' (E900-928) and flavour enhancers (E620-640).
By contrast, 'real', unprocessed foods, prepared and cooked at home from fresh ingredients, should have few or none of these - and we can choose the amount of sugar, salt and fat we put in. It is worth noting that it is no-one's job to test what happens when a range of different additives are consumed together.
Cosmetic effect
Most additives are concerned with making a food seem more attractive than it would be without the wide range of colourants, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers, texturisers, bulking agents, gelling agents and so on. These can disguise off-flavours and off-colours; they can make thin, watery food seem thick; they can make old food seem fresh even when it is months old; they can make sugar-water look like fruit juice; and they can even make a dessert taste fruity when it has no fruit in it at all.
Water can be added to products such as ham and chicken. It is illegal to add water to beer, but quite legal for us to be sold water for the price of meat. Water can come high up in the ingredients list of many processed foods, but emulsifiers and thickeners prevent it being obvious.
Colourings and flavourings are the 'cosmetics' of food manufacturing: they can give pale, tasteless food the colour and flavour of prime, fresh food. Colourings include some of the most questionable additives but are found in a vast range of processed foods. They are banned in foods intended for babies and young children, but can be put into other foods that are widely consumed by children, such as sausages, ice lollies and squash. As these are not specifically intended for babies and young children they may legally contain the full range of additives.
Preservatives can enable foods to sit on the shelf for months and still appear fresh. The word 'preservative' may sound innocuous, even beneficial, but there are dangers. The benzoates (E210-219) should be avoided by anyone with asthma, recurrent urticaria or aspirin sensitivity, and some benzoates may numb the mouth. All the sulphites (E220-24; E226-7) may be dangerous to asthmatics and may cause gastric irritation because of the release of sulphurous acid. Preservatives from these two groups can be found in a wide range of foods including orange squash, fruit pie filling, sausage meat, salad cream, packet mashed potato and sweets.
Confusing labels
But avoiding feeding these food additives to children can be difficult. In the first place, even finding the label on food products can be difficult. Some labels are underneath the packet. The print is usually tiny, the format and language can be hard to understand, and sometimes the very thing you want to know about isn't there. There is also a kind of 'code'. For example, there is a difference between the words 'flavour' and 'flavoured'. 'Raspberry flavoured yoghurt' must contain some raspberry, but 'raspberry flavour yoghurt' legally need contain no raspberries at all.
Sometimes a label says 'salt', sometimes it says 'sodium', but sodium is about two and a half times stronger than salt, which is a mixture of sodium and chlorine. Having both words in use makes it hard to compare products.
Often, there just isn't room on the label to print every added chemical. 'Strawberry flavour' may sound like one simple additive, but it actually has many components. Amelacetate, benzylisobutrate, heliotropin, L-methylacetrophone, y-undecalactone and solvent are just a few of them (source: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser; see information, left).
Hyperactive children
Various influences on children can make them seem hyperactive, including insufficient opportunities for daily vigorous exercise, boredom and poor parenting. Also, eating sugar can give some children a 'high' and cause unruly, uncontrolled behaviour (check food labels for sugar in all its forms, such as glucose, fructose, maltose or honey). Some children have an allergic reaction to certain natural foods (usually these are particular fruits and vegetables), but there are some children whose behaviour is altered by ingesting certain additives.
HACSG (the Hyper Active Children's Support Group) has drawn up a list of additives that it believes are linked to hyperactivity. The list includes colours such as E102 tartrazine, E122 carmoisine, E124 ponceau, E151 black PN, 154 brown FK, E161g canthaxanthin and E160b solvent-extracted annatto; preservatives such as sodium benzoate (E211) and sodium nitrite (E250 and 251); and antioxidants such as E320 and E321 (BHA and BHT). There may be problems with sweeteners and flavour enhancers such as MSG, saccharine and aspartame. ('E' for Europe means the additive has been designated as safe under European legislation. Some additives without an 'E' often continue to be used). NW
Mary Whiting is the author of Nursery World's Managing Nursery Food - A Practical Guide for Early Years Professionals (9.99).To order a copy, call 01454 617 370.
Further information
* E for Additives by Maurice Hanssen (Thorsons, 6.99) * 'Additives damage our diet', in the Food Magazine, issue 55, (Food Commission, Pounds 4.95) * Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (Penguin, 9.99) * HACSG, 71 Wyke Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 2LD (01903 725 182)
