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U.S. FDA is giving companies two years to purge products that use any of the six artificial flavours
Six artificial flavours are being ordered out of the food supply in a dispute over their safety, but good luck to anyone who wants to know which cookies, candies or drinks they’re in. The dispute highlights the complex rules that govern what goes in our food, how much the public knows about it, and a mysterious class of ingredients that has evolved over decades largely outside of public view. On food packages, hundreds of ingredients are listed simply as natural flavour or artificial flavour. Even in minute amounts, they help make potato chips tasty or give fruit candy that twang. “The food system we have is unimaginable without flavour additives,” said Nadia Berenstein, a historian of flavour science based in New York. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is giving companies two years to purge products using any of these six artificial flavours even though the FDA made clear it believes the ingredients are safe in the trace amounts they are used. The six artificial flavours in question, with names like methyl eugenol, benzophenone, ethyl acrylate and pyridine, are used to create cinnamon or spicy notes, fruity or minty flavours, or even hints of balsamic vinegar. The FDA and the Flavour and Extract Manufacturers Association, an industry group, did not respond when asked for examples of products the six ingredients are used in. But they noted in statements that the compounds have natural counterparts in foods like basil, coffee, grapes and peppermint, and that the action does not affect the naturally derived versions. The FDA said it had to order the artificial versions out of the food supply because of a lawsuit by consumer advocacy groups that cited a 60-year-old regulation that prohibits additives shown to have caused cancer in animals, even if tested at doses far higher than what a person would consume.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-life/no-accounting-for-these-tastes/article25500748.ece
