Assessment of the Health implications of Synthetic and Natural Food Colourants – A Critical Review

Abstract

Several types of dyes are available in the market as colouring agents to food commodities. Some commonly used synthetic food dyes include: brilliant blue, indigo carmine, citrus red, fast green, erythrosine, allura red, tartrazine and sunset yellow. The main food biocolorants are carotenoids, flavanoids, anthocyanidins, chlorophyll, betalain and crocin. There has been a rising concern over the health implications of the use of food dyes in human diets. How safe are these food colourants? This has led to a lot of studies, both by individual researchers, corporate organization-sponsored and even government-sponsored researches, to authenticate the benefits or risks associated with the use of food colourants (synthetic and natural). This review critically evaluated scientific researches from various published journal articles and reports, with a view of clarifying the health implications of using these food dyes. Various studies have shown that synthetic food colourants have considerable toxicological effects, including but not limited to carcinogenicity, hypersensitivity reactions, and behavioral effects. However, natural food colourants have been found to be relatively safe to humans. Besides the colouring property, they have been found to possess a number of pharmacological properties like strong antioxidant, antimutagenic, anti-inflammatory, antineoplastic and antiartheritic effects.

Nutritional Quality of Commercially Available Unbranded Cereal Snacks Consumed by School Children

“…Color usage has evoked the concern because they are being used excess of the statutory limit in the children snacks, which cause harmful effect on the health (Dixit et al, 2010;Okafor et al, 2016;Husain et al, 2008). Thus, these snacks are generally enriched with empty calorie ingredients like fat and sugar to improve the textural quality of snacks (Anon, 2015).…”

Preliminary characterization of some natural dyes

“…E-mail: mercy.ezeokonkwo@unn.edu.ng Tel: +2348035486024. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License information have led to increase in demand for natural dyes in food industry (Okafor et al, 2016). There is also a growing interest in the use of natural dyes in textile coloration, which has been attributed to the strict environmental measures imposed by many countries (Kamel et al, 2005).…”

“…Some of the approved dyes are being delisted due to legislative action as well as consumer interest (Garcia and Cruz-Remes, 1993). Again, natural food colourants contain some biological active components such as lycopene, carotenes, canthaxanthin and quercetin, which play vital role in human health (Okafor et al, 2016). Turmeric (a yellow dye) is a good colouring agent (Vankar et al, 2007), which is used as spice and as natural food colorant.…”

Electro-Oxidation–Plasma Treatment for Azo Dye Carmoisine (Acid Red 14) in an Aqueous Solution

“…The use of this red dye in the food industry has increased because of the coloration of confectionery, jams, candies, jellies, ice cream, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, etc. a result of numerous studies [4,5]. It is known that the decay products of azo dyes (e.g., aromatic amines) are toxic and carcinogenic [6].…”

“…Additionally, in the presence of salt irons in the plasma process, hydrogen peroxide forms in-situ, and the electro-Fenton process produces large numbers of hydroxyl radicals [25]. Despite its extensive use, a number of negative effects on human health have been identified as a result of numerous studies [4,5]. It is known that the decay products of azo dyes (e.g., aromatic amines) are toxic and carcinogenic [6].…”