A bulletin for the Australian Food Industry May 2001
Contents: Updating diagnostics for BSE | Joint actions and interactions between food additives | FDA final juice HACCP regulation | New hygiene guidelines for the food industry | USDA claims HACCP led to a decline in illnesses | US risk ranking of ready-to-eat foods
Joint actions and interactions between food additives
Food additives are permitted for use in Australia and elsewhere on the basis that they present no hazard to the health of the consumer at the proposed level of use. The Australia New Zealand Food Authority as part of its review of the Food Standards Code introduced a general Standard for Food Additives. This general standard does widen the range of foods which may contain already permitted additives. It does not sanction the use of any additives not previously approved.
This amendment is in line with the policy adopted by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC), which has consolidated its specific permissions for the use of additives in foods for which there are Codex Standards into a general Codex Standard.
A comprehensive package of data from chemical, biochemical, metabolic and toxicity studies is evaluated and assessed prior to the initial approval of any food additive. Australia and most other countries are guided in this evaluation by the assessment and recommendations of the FAO/WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) whose recommendations are made available to CCFAC. These recommendations for additives, but not contaminants, usually take the form of an acceptable daily intake (ADI) which national authorities can take account of in regulating the use of an additive in one or more foods.
This system has worked well for many decades. However concerns have been expressed from time to time by consumer groups that the studies used to assess ADI values do not take account of the simultaneous intake of different additives and the possibility of joint action or interaction of these additives.
Therefore, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe Acceptable Daily Intake Task Force established an expert group of independent scientists to undertake an evaluation of the possibility of interactions occurring between the 350 food additives currently approved in the European Union. The conclusions of this group have been published under the authorship of six of its members in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 31 2000 77-99.
Interested readers should consult this paper for the approach taken by the evaluating group. However their conclusion is that the possibility of interactions between food additives is a hypothetical rather than a practical safety concern and it is already considered by JECFA during its assessment procedure.
The group did note that there were some circumstances where the possibility of joint actions or interactions could not be excluded on scientific grounds. The group included some chemicals which would be regarded as agricultural chemicals, not food additives, in the Australian context. The possible exceptions noted are:
| Organ site | 'Additives' |
| liver | curcumin, propyl gallate, butylated hydroxy toluene and thiabendazole |
| kidney | diphenyl, o-phenylphenol and its sodium salt and sodium, potassium and calcium ferrocyanide |
| thyroid | erythrosine, thiabendazole, sodium or potassium nitrate |
The authors conclude that in all cases the intakes of the additives are low (well below the ADI) and in some cases they are competing additives for the same use so they would not be used together.
While the list of additives permitted in the EU is not exactly the same as in Australia the two are very similar. The same can be said for the range of foods permitted to contain the common additives.
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