P Sakare, N Thombare, A Dutta & A Mahapatra

Colours play an essential role in influencing the initial consumer acceptance of a food product. Apart from making foods attractive, the significance of colours from the perspectives of food safety and nutritional quality is also important. There are two types of food colourants, which are mainly used in processed food items — synthetic and natural. 

Synthetic colours are highly stable, cheap, and readily available, but their use harms human health and the environment. Some of these synthetic food colourants, such as tartrazine (E 102), allura Red (E 129), carmoisine (E 122), sunset yellow (E 110), brilliant blue (E 133), fast green (E 143),  Erythrosine (E 127), green S (E 142) are permitted as food additives by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). However, besides these permitted colours, many harmful industrial colours, such as rhodamine B, are being used illegally on a large scale in food items to make them more appealing to…read more on NOPR