e-numbers

[weedom]

Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be a lot less e-numbers in the ingredients of food these days? I check these things because my daughter is quite susceptible to them.

I bought a wee cake from the co-op the other day, and checked the ingredients later. There are loads of things on there that, a couple of years ago, would have been abbreviated with an E reference.... cochineal, pyrophosphates, lecithines...

There are ingredients in this cake which, when you look them up, state "do not give to children"... and yet there is no mention of this on the packet.

To my mind, what's happened is that the manufacturers have seen a decline in sales of things with e-numbers on/in them. So, to pick up sales, they've stopped putting the e-numbers on the packets. Stuff is still made the same, with the same semi-toxic, nutritionally-valueless chemicals... it's just that fewer people understand what they're looking at!

Discuss...

[Metalattakk]

What's to discuss? You're absolutely right.

[Rheghead]

The decline of E numbers on packaging has more to do with the bad publicity and th ecampaign for more transparency in packaging (which was generated by consumer groups )than by the real toxicity of the substances themselves. I think most ingredients have an E number, water and salt inclusive. Since their introduction, e numbers have become a symbol of bad western diet not always borne out by the majority of cases but by the minority of high profile examples.

It is strange how people can make a fuss of e numbers and yet go to a restaurant and gorge theirselves on rubbish without a thought of what goes into the their meal. Not that they do not have ingredients with e numbers but the fact that restaurants and cafes are not obliged to give any nutitional information about their food.

E numbers were portrayed as part of a big conspiracy to slowly poison us, but there was lots of information out there for us find out what they were and how they affected us. I had a book called 'E Numbers' and it had all the test info on it on how it affected rats etc. If anyone has read a COSHH assessment, it amounted to the same type of reading that would scare even the most unmoved 'uneducated'.

[weedom]

What's to discuss? You're absolutely right.

Oh, how I wish that phrase was more widely applied to everything that I say. It would have saved me a lot of hassle, I can tell you. :)

[weedom]

It is strange how people can make a fuss of e numbers and yet go to a restaurant and gorge theirselves on rubbish without a thought of what goes into the their meal. Not that they do not have ingredients with e numbers but the fact that restaurants and cafes are not obliged to give any nutitional information about their food.

E numbers were portrayed as part of a big conspiracy to slowly poison us, but there was lots of information out there for us find out what they were and how they affected us.

Not everyone had/has the knowledge or interest to look out the data that you had. I'm not convinced that small-scale food production, such as restaurants and cafes, have the need to use additives in the same way that manufacturers do.

I, too, worked at our local nuclear establishment for a while, and had to read a COSHH assesment of washing-up liquid before I was allowed to use it. What I'm alluding to is the fact that the manufacturers have cynically changed, not their manufacturing processes, but the way in which they are listed in order to achieve higher sales/recover lost sales.

[George Brims]

I once heard of a person who would read the e-numbers on a packet, add them up, and then wouldn't buy them if they exceeded a certain total!

I've also met people who refuse to buy anything with any e numbers listed. Trying to point out to such people that an e number simply means a substance has been used for a long time and found to be safe usually meets with blank stares or outright hostility (Google "cognitive dissonance").

The only thing wrong with e numbers is that you needed a list of them to know what the ingredients were. On the other hand, how many people when faced with the name of some ingredient are going to know what on earth it is anyway? I have a chemistry degree and most of them mean nothing to me! I'm talking about things with long chemical names, not the obvious like "wheat flour" or "salt".

Another pet hate of mine is the diamond signs on freight vehicles that used to list a hazardous substance by name, and now only have a code number. If I come upon an accident I would prefer to know if the liquid coming out of the tanker will dissolve me, choke me with fumes, or incinerate me.

[Errogie]

There is a danger in looking at anything in isolation when you consider health. I know people who eat all the right things but take no exercise so consequently are seriously over weight with all the risk that entails. On the other hand there are hyper active skinnies (possibly through e numbers) eating all the junk food of the day who are probably a better bet for a life insurance policy.

Short of growing and preparing all of your own food there is no way to eliminate everything that might be harmful and abstinance simply isn't an option. There are probably some general principles relating to salt, cholesterel and roughage worth trying to stick to but activity and exercise have got to be part of the best advice to mantain the machinery in good running order. Unfortunately medical and dietary opinions change. It used to be that all substances with high chlosterel were bad news but now it emerges that there are "good" and "bad" variations and the proportions between the two are what is important rather than the overall figure. I know because I've just had an MOT and this came up.

[rich]

As a Canadian I am not familiar with the term "e-number."
In Canada and North America we are taking aim at saturated fats and trans-fat.

Salt is something else that we could sharply reduce. I don't know if it raises blood pressure in the general population or in a sub-group who are salt sensitive. But we could cut it out altogether and do ourselves no harm.

Cholesterol is a fascinating tale with evolutionary implications.

There are two types of cholesterol - LDL or low density lipoprotein and HDL, high density lipoprotein.

HDL, manufactured is known as “good” cholesterol because it protects arteries by stripping “bad” cholesterol – low density lipoprotein (LDL) – from potentially harmful plaques on arteries. In addition HDL prevents oxidation of LDL, curbs inflammation in the arteries, improves vascular endothelial function, and inhibits thrombosis.

LDL and HDL are both obtained through diet. HDL is vital for the development of the brain and hormones. LDL is something else again. It serves no useful purpose and the rest of the animal kindgdom has it only at astonishingly low levels.

For example, a recent study compared LDL levels in humans on a very, very, strict vegetarian fat-free diet and found that the levels were similar to that in a chimpanzee. Chimpanzees are not prone to heart disease. That's because they are subsisting on nuts and berries.

Noiw virtually every creature with a backbone has HDL - it's there from fish upwards - dinosaurs certainly would have needed HDL to develop their brains and nervous system. ALthough the great flesh eating dinosaurs may have had blocked arteries due to their diet. On the other hand they may have had to run a bit to catch their prey and that would be good exercise.

I once interviewed a researcher who had done a study of the herding Masai people in Africa who claim to subsist off of blood and flesh and dairy products (rich in LDL) He found that the Masai also gorged on vegetables, nuts, seed, plants, you name it. (Their women folk supply the good stuff!)

But I digress.

The point I would like to make is that LDL is unecessary - I heard one cardiologist describe it as a junk protein.

The experts consensus on LDL is that we began to have a problem with it around the time we popped down out of the trees and began exploring the African grasslands. We found an abubndance of food and by the time civilization had developed in Mesopotamia obesity was likely a problem. In dietary terms we had outsmarted ourselves. I guess was life was more interesting once you'd given up grubbing around for nuts but it was certainly a lot less healthy.

The solution is to get on the Mediterranean diet, eat porrige for breakfast, and have a glass of red wine every evening. On cheese the jury is out but I love it.

[rich]

So if you raise HDL can that be a treatment for LDL?
Not according to some bad news from the Pfizer company.
See today's new York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/health/04pfizer.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

[Through]

The trick is not to worry so much. Everything we eat is made of chemicals and so are we. An awful, awful lot of E numbers are substances extracted from natural sources, such as the colour that makes beetroot red. These are then used to give that property to the processed food, for example, to make strawberry flavoured ice cream red.

COSHH Assessments have to be read in the context that they are written. They are written not just for the chemical itself, but for how the chemical is being used. There is a world of difference between a COSHH Assessment for work involved in processing bulk quantities of a substance with other chemicals, heat or other energy, etc. and an ingredient list that includes half a gramme of something in a cake.

A small number of people react badly to one E number or another, just as a small number of people react badly to peanuts or milk.

Eat a balanced diet, using a wide variety of foods and if there is something in particular that affects you, then avoid it like the plague, but don't worry too much. Worry can have a very serious adverse affect on quality of life and can cause death before your time. The legislation that we have, means that E numbers in our food are very benign.

[peedie]

isnt it the coloured e numbers that are the problem (this is my understanding correct me if i'm wrong) but i notice blue smarties have been done away with, and everything seems to have "freee from artificial colours and preservatives" on the label. even on luminous green lemonade....

[Through]

Are you going to tell people not to eat beetroot then? A lot of other colours come from natural products too, such as chlorophyl from grass.

As for preservatives, what is wrong with them? They make food safe to eat for a longer time, reducing waste. The only effect that I've heard they have on us is to make our bodies last slightly longer after we die.

[George Brims]

A small number of people react badly to one E number or another, just as a small number of people react badly to peanuts or milk.

That's a good point - if they remove the e-numbers how are people with allergies supposed to figure out if they should avoid something? I suppose if they substitute the customary name instead that's OK.

[peedie]

i dont really know thats what o was saying i just noticed that there was a big rush to get rid of them from sweets and things,