Food Additives: Potential Problems

Some additives – despite being approved – are known to have potentially unpleasant or even harmful effects:

  • For the many sulfur dioxide and sulfite compounds (E 220-228) – very commonly used in canned vegetables, candied fruits, potato products, horseradish preserves, wine and dried fruit – asthma, headaches, irritation of the gastrointestinal tract or nausea may occur.
  • Sodium nitrite (E 250) is found in sausages: It preserves and ensures that a fresh red color is maintained. Caution is advised in case of allergies, asthma or migraine. In addition, the nitrite transforms into nitrosamines when heated strongly, which are considered carcinogens.
  • Some gelling and thickening agents are suspected of causing allergies (for example, carrageenan [E 407], gum arabic [E 414], locust bean gum [E 410]).

But there are also additives that are known to have a positive effect: for example, some thickeners (often from algae products) are part of the dietary fiber; locust bean gum is even cholesterol-lowering. Antioxidants prevent foods from going rancid – vitamin C, or more precisely its active ingredient L-ascorbic acid, belongs to this class with the number E 300.

Hypersensitivity to food additives

First of all, panic is not appropriate – it is estimated that only 0.2 percent of the population is sensitive to substances E100-E1520. Most people are much more sensitive to natural food ingredients (for example, specific proteins) than to the chemical additives used by the food industry. Each additive is screened for its potential allergenic effect. The rare cases in which allergy-like symptoms have been described after consumption of additives are usually not true allergies, but intolerances or pseudoallergies – in a pseudoallergy, the immune system is not involved, antibodies are not formed.

Pseudoallergies have been described for the following groups to date:

Since 25 November 2005, the use of certain ingredients that may cause allergic or other intolerance reactions must be indicated on the packaging of food. These are the following ingredients and products made from them: Cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soy, milk, nuts such as almonds or hazelnuts, celery, mustard, sesame seeds.

Furthermore, sulfur dioxide and sulfites in a concentration of more than 10 mg/kg are included. In addition, all ingredients contained in a compound ingredient, for example fruit fillings in baked goods, must generally be declared.