Food Additives Bad for your Children Shocker!

News we will have an announcement on the Religious practices of the Pope.

All papers (Well, quite a few) carry the story on the front page. The Daily Mail has this, The Times has this and this, whilst the Guardian has this, this and this and er.. this.

Usefully though we do get a list of the dodgy E numbers, which are:

• Tartrazine E102 Lemon yellow dye
• Carmoisine E122 Red food dye
• Sodium benzoate E211
• Ponceau 4R E124 Synthetic red dye
• Quinoline yellow E104

What is scary is the things some of these additives turn up in. Obviously you would expect soft drinks and sweets, but also some smoked haddock and some meats you would assume were fresh.

What is clear is that sometimes you only observe effects when these additives are used in combination, though Quinoline yellow E104 is banned in the USA, Australia, Japan and Norway because of its effects on children.

The big issue which also comes out from these stories is why has this not been looked at before given that the first research into the issue was 30 years ago.