Long‐term dietary exposure to different food colours in young children living in different European countries

Abstract

In this document, we report on the long-term dietary exposure to 40 different food colours in young children living in 11 European countries. Food consumption data of children aged 1 up to 10 years (in Cyprus 11 up to 14 years) were combined with food colour concentrations as supplied by EFSA using statistical models to calculate exposure. Food consumption data were all categorised according to a harmonised system to allow for linkage with food colour concentration data in a standardised way. Two different exposure scenarios were calculated for each food colour: the maximum permitted usage levels in the relevant Community legislation (here called the "MPL scenario") and the actual maximum reported usage patterns (here called the "maximum usage level scenario"). For some food colours extra scenarios were considered depending on the percentage of coating (5 or 20%), e.g. food colours permitted in the coating of chocolate products. For lycopene, five different scenarios were considered. Although the results showed differences in exposure between countries, such differences should be interpreted with caution, as different methodological limitations rather than true exposure differences might be partly responsible for such findings. It is clear from this exercise that food consumption data in different countries can be categorised in a standard way to allow for harmonised exposure modelling. Methodological issues related to exposure 1 EFSA-Q-

Oral intake of added titanium dioxide and its nanofraction from food products, food supplements and toothpaste by the Dutch population

“…On the contrary, for older people, one could imagine a more limited intake via coffee creamer in certain other countries compared to the Netherlands, however, in other countries other particular products could be main contributors. The variability in E 171 intake does not have to be that great, as, for example, the estimated intake of E 171 by children determined in different European countries according to the Expochi study was demonstrated to only vary about three-fold (Huybrechts et al, 2010), although the intake estimation in that study was conducted less sophisticatedly as has been performed in the present study. Still, it would be very interesting to determine TiO 2 intake levels for other populations as well, especially with regard to the limited margin of exposure as calculated for TiO 2 NPs (Heringa et al, submitted).…”

“…The dietary intake of TiO 2 has been calculated in previous years by Penttilä et al (1988), by the consortium of the Expochi project for EFSA (Huybrechts et al, 2010), and by Weir et al (2012). The dietary intake varied 1300-fold between 0.01 and 13.0 mg TiO 2 /kg bw/d.…”

“…There are two other intake estimates in the Dutch population: an intake estimate for Dutch children (Huybrechts et al, 2010), giving a median intake of 12-13.0 mg/kg bw per day, and a very recent intake estimation of E 171 with use levels provided by the industry, giving a median long-term intake of 1.4, 0.7 and 0.5 mg/kg bw per day for the age groups 2-6 years, 7-69 years and 70+, respectively (Sprong et al, 2015). The intake levels in the present study were substantially lower than those reported by Huybrechts et al (2010) and Sprong et al (2015) and also lower than the TiO 2 intake estimations for the German, UK and US population (Bachler et al, 2015;Weir et al, 2012) (Table 4). It should be noted that the results of the different studies cannot be compared directly to each other, due to the specific assumptions and choices that have been made in each study.…”

Food additives and preschool children

“…Food additives are chemicals in the food supply which are closely regulated to ensure they do not provide any risk to human health (72) ; exposure assessments are fundamental to ensuring that there is no concern from the intakes of such chemicals in the diet, and can provide valuable information for risk assessors (59) and manufacturers (56) . There is a high level of interest in the area of additives and young children, which is focused primarily on the behavioural effects of these food chemicals (62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68)(69) ; however, it is important to consider the limitations of the available scientific studies when interpreting results.…”

“…To date, four different risk assessments have been carried out (Pb, Cr, Se and food colours). Their report on food colours (59) utilised food consumption data from eleven countries to examine long-term exposure to forty different food colourings. This report illustrated that different countries had different levels of exposure and emphasised the need for a harmonised approach in food consumption data collection within Europe.…”