E-numbers are under fire. What exactly is in your daily products? Some ice creams appear to contain animal remains and certain dyes are made from lice. We’re getting smarter about food, but do we know everything? And is it even desirable to know everything about the ingredients of our food? Organization Foodwatch, also known as the food watchdog, wants it to be clearer what is in your food. Do we know enough about the products we buy and consume every day? Consumer organization Foodwatch doesn’t think so and is committed to clarifying product information. For example, if there are duck feathers in your cookies, you want to know about it, right?
Uncertainty about ingredients
Olive oil, fruit juice, ice cream, children’s cookies: these are products that you would not expect to contain animal ingredients. For example, in the Liga Milkbreak you can find carminic acid. This dye is made with lice blood and sometimes from lice themselves. Magnum ice creams sometimes contain shellac, made from scale insects.
Ingredients such as carminic acid are often listed on the packaging, but under an E number. There are also animal ingredients that do not have to be stated by law. For example, certain flavorings may contain traces of animals, but are not stated on the packaging. Furthermore, technical aids are not seen as ingredients, although they can still (partially) remain in the end product. Gelatin, from pigs, is an example of this. This filters wine and fruit juice. Aphid wax is often used for apples and citrus fruits to make them shine better. In short: there is more in (and on) your food than you think.
Some examples of E numbers:
- E120 or carminic acid: a red dye made from lice
- E542: bone meal
- E628 or potassium guanylate: a flavor enhancer, extracted from yeast extract and sardines
- E471: mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, thickener
- E920: L-cysteine, bread enhancer, made from feathers or animal hair
For whom is it (extra) difficult not to know ingredients?
If you are Muslim, vegetarian, vegan or Jewish, you cannot eat certain products according to your beliefs. It is therefore extra good to check whether you do not accidentally ingest something that does not suit your lifestyle. It is easier to immediately see what is in the products you buy.
Bad for your health?
There is a reason that the E numbers are approved for consumption. Yet E129, for example, has been banned since 2011. It may therefore turn out in the future that more E numbers are not good for our health. Fortunately, there are also plenty of innocent E numbers. For example, E162 stands for beet red and there is little chance that beets will ever prove to be very harmful to us. Locust bean gum occurs under E410 and this product is even given to infants. E967 is Xylitol, which is considered a good alternative sweetener – it is even good for your teeth. Unfortunately, there are still many E numbers that remain dubious even with a little explanation. However, it is very difficult to avoid them all, so how do you go about it?
Think smart and eat better
What you can do now:
- Wash your fruit well.
- Read labels
- Download an app to look up E numbers
- Cook and bake more yourself to avoid E numbers
- Don’t you know it? Then don’t eat it!
I think it is good that organizations such as Foodwatch want more clarity about the contents of foods. In my opinion, however, it remains your own task to pay close attention to what you eat. If you do not want to eat animals on principle, or if you think that certain products are bad for your health, you would do well to first inform yourself about what is actually used in your products. E numbers may have been approved by the European Union as additives, but the important thing is that you approve them yourself. After all, you put them in your mouth and your body has to function on them.
