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. 2021 Jan;28(1):27-34.
doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2020.08.025. Epub 2020 Aug 21.

Dietary intake of artificial food color additives containing food products by school-going children

Mohammed Asif Ahmed  1 , Abdulrahman S Al-Khalifa  1 , Doha M Al-Nouri  1 , Mohamed Fekry Serag El-Din  1   2
Affiliations

Dietary intake of artificial food color additives containing food products by school-going children

Mohammed Asif Ahmed et al. Saudi J Biol Sci. 2021 Jan.

Abstract

Nutritional risk in children is associated with food safety. This is the first study to identify the food type consumed by 6-17-year-old school-going children in Saudi Arabia. Eight permitted artificial food color additives, including Tartrazine (E102), Sunset Yellow (E110), Carmoisine (E122), Allura Red (E129), Indigo Carmine (E132), Brilliant Blue (E133), Fast Green (E143), and Black PN (E151), and two non-permitted ones, Erythrosine (E127) and Red 2G (E128), were determined using 24-h dietary recall questionnaires. Artificial color additives in 839 food products were divided into nine categories, including biscuits, cakes, chocolates, chips, ice cream, juices and drinks, candy, jelly, and chewing gum, are determined using high performance liquid chromatography and diode array detector. The results indicated a high intake of juices and drinks, ice cream, and cakes, but low consumption of chewing gum among school-going children. Among the permitted artificial food color additives, Brilliant Blue (E133) (54.1%) and Tartrazine (E102) (42.3%) were the most commonly used. Sunset Yellow (E110) in one chocolate sample, Tartrazine (E102) and Sunset Yellow (E110) in one and two juice and drink samples, respectively, and Brilliant Blue (E133) in two candy samples exceeded the permitted level. Therefore, further investigations are needed to provide insights into the possible adverse health effects of high intake of these additives in artificial food coloring on the test population are warranted.

Keywords: Artificial food color additives; Dietary intake; Food products; School-going children; Sunset Yellow; Tartrazine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Strata of school-going children and the sample selection.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Food category group’s percentage distribution of samples.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Percentage distribution of artificial food color additives in the studied categories.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Artificial food color additives concentration in different food products vs good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and permitted levels in some countries (mg/kg).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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