E numbers and additives what you should know

October 9, 2007 – 7:01 pm

We live in an age where a lot of the food we buy is processed. The processing is for various reasons, to give something more colour, stronger flavour, or to make it keep for longer. So how do we know what all these E-numbers and other odd sounding ingredients are, and what they are for?

Reading packages these days can be quite frightening if you’re faced with a long list of E-numbers and don’t know what they are. There are five main categories of E-number, Antioxidents & Preservatives; Colours; Emulsifiers, stabilisers, gelling agents & thickeners; Flavour enhancers & flavourings; Sweetners.

Antioxidants are designed to make foods last longer by helping to stop the fats, oils and some vitamins combining with oxygen in the air – this is what makes food taste ‘off’. Vitamin C which is also called ascorbic acid or E300 is one of the most commonly used antioxidants. Preservatives serve a similar purpose and help stop food from going off, meaning that it can be kept safely for longer periods. Most food that has a long shelf life will contain preservatives unless it’s been frozen, canned or dried (these are more natural methods of preserving food). Some examples of E-numbers that are Preservatives are Sulpher Dioxide (E220), Nitrite (E249) and Nitrate (E252). Other more traditional preservatives are still used to preserve some foods – these are things like Sugar, Salt, and Vinegar.

Artificial colours are often used to replace natural colour that’s lost during the food processing, or storage, or to make things a consistant colour so that you don’t wonder why something is very pale when you buy it one time, and much darker the next. Colours that you will often find in foods are Caramel (E150a), Sunset Yellow (E110) and Tartrazine (E102). The latter two of these have been linked in the past to hyperactivity in children, so if you have a child who is a little hyper, then these two are good E-numbers to avoid if you can. They’re often used in soft drinks, and sweets.

Emulsifiers help mix ingredients together that would naturally want to separate during storage, such as oil and water. Lecithin (E322) is a commonly used emulsifier. Stabilisers work to do the same job, and include things like locust bean gum (E410) These also help give foods a consistant texture as well. Gelling agents are used mostly in Jams, and the most common one is pectin (E440). Thickeners are used in things like sauces and gravies that you buy and thicken them in the same way that you would use something like cornflower at home to thicken a sauce or gravy.

Flavour Enhancers such as monosodium glutamate which is known often as MSG (E621) are used to bring out the flavour of various food products, without adding a flavour of it’s own. Flavourings however are things that are added to foods to give them flavour. These don’t have E-numbers because they’re controlled by different regulations to the ones that control other food additives.

Sweeteners are used in a lot of diet or low calorie products to give a product a sweet flavour. They contain less calories than sugar and are often used instead in things like soft drinks, sweets and yogurt products. Aspartame (E951), Sorbitol (E420 and Saccharin (E954) are probably the three common ones that you will see.

One of the best books that I’ve found is one called E for Additives it’s clearly laid out and easy to understand, and clears up a lot of the myths and mystery of each E-number, what it does and what problems or benefits it has. For a simple list of all E-numbers used in the UK, you can refer to the Food Standards Agency website where they have a list of all EU approved additives and their E-numbers.

So, now you know why you might find vinegar listed as an ingredient in your bread, or E322 in your mayonnaise, hopefully you will feel a little better equipped to understand which is what and whether you want to avoid them or not.

by Vialdana