Food additives are substances that are added to food to maintain or improve the taste, as well as to give the desired product a more interesting and attractive appearance.
Green S or E142 – an additive that belongs to synthetic food colorings, gives colored products a red-green or blue-green tint and is currently actively popular in the food industry in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, at the same time as in Japan , Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden and Norway, this substance is prohibited for use as a food additive, as it may be harmful to human health.
General characteristics
Synthetic food colorings are organic compounds. They are not found in the environment, therefore they are called artificial. Many of them have been used in the food industry for decades.
Compared to natural food dyes, synthetic ones, in turn, do not have flavoring substances and the presence of vitamins, but are much less susceptible to storage conditions and technological processing, and also give us quite noticeable saturated colors, which gives them significant technological advantages.
E142 is a bright green artificial food coloring from the triphenylmethane family. Triphenylmethane substances are artificial organic compounds. They are all based on the compound triphenylmethane, which has the chemical formula (C6H5) 3CH. In simpler terms, green S is an artificial substance – sodium salts, which in turn are extracted from coal black tar. Its chemical formula looks like this: C27H25N2O7S2Na.
This additive has the form of a dark blue or dark green powder, sometimes saturated green granules, or is presented as a green-blue, almost black aqueous solution.
The substance withstands heating temperatures up to 150 degrees Celsius, in other words, it is quite thermally stable, soluble in water, slightly soluble in ethanol, but has a complete absence of dissolution in vegetable oil solutions, has moderate resistance to alkalis and light, and is also well resistant to fruit acids. To maintain stability in the environment, E142 requires a neutral pH environment.
Using food coloring
Green S or E142, in addition to food production, is actively used in medicine, pharmacology, cosmetology and even in the textile industry.
So, it is added to:
- the drinks;
- mint jelly and sauce;
- canned peas and canned fruits;
- popsicles and popsicles;
- desserts and confectionery (for candy fillings);
- dry breakfasts and packaged soups;
- semi-finished products from crayfish;
- mustard, dry mixes and various seasonings;
- cheese and sausage products.
In medicine, in particular in ophthalmology, this substance is used for diagnostic purposes in diseases of the surface of the eye, for example, such as dry eye syndrome.
In cosmetology and pharmacology, E142 is used to color medicines, dietary formulas, dietary supplements, and a few cosmetic products.
Some textile industries have begun to use this additive for dyeing silk and woolen fabrics.
In the countries of the European Union, a maximum use level of 10-500 mg/kg of food for various food products is allowed, in drinks up to 200 mg/l is acceptable.
Research: harm or benefit?
At the request of the European Commission for Food Safety, a scientific study was conducted in 1984 by a group of scientists evaluating the safety of Green S when used as a food coloring. The studies were carried out on rodents.
When consumed at a dose of 1500 mg of Green S/kg of body weight per day, rats showed moderate anemia, increased levels of protein and blood urea, enlarged lymph nodes in the intestinal walls, and changes in the thyroid gland. And with long-term use of 500 mg / kg body weight per day, including intrauterine irradiation, when analyzing the brain, heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, stomach in mice, convincingly associated with the use of this nutritional supplement, no pathologies were found.
Only a few neoplastic processes have been described, but the research team concluded that these non-tumor lesions are normal, non-treatment-related background changes, as they were similarly identified in E142-supplemented and unsupplemented rats. .
The authors concluded that Green S is not carcinogenic in mice and that a tolerable favorable dosage is 530 mg/kg bw/day in males and 660 mg/kg bw/day in females.
In rats, none of the studies performed are considered adequate by current standards. Three long-term studies were conducted with rats injected subcutaneously with E142 once or twice a week for about one year.
In one study, two males and one female developed a malignant sarcoma, while two other studies were completely benign. The team concluded that the observed local tumors were more likely to be related to the physicochemical properties of the injected material than to the carcinogenic potential of the dietary supplement. In the course of studies on the absorption, metabolism and excretion of E142, it can be concluded that this dye is poorly absorbed in the intestine and is mainly excreted unchanged in the faeces.
Since this food coloring is synthetic, it is not endowed with special useful qualities. It can cause allergic reactions, both when it is ingested or when it comes into contact with human skin. Therefore, it is recommended to exclude it from the diet of children. Currently, research is ongoing, but it is also known that these substances can cause the development of significant hyperactivity, bronchial asthma and insomnia.
It can be concluded that Green S or E142 is an artificial dye, but with its rare and insignificant use, the additive is practically harmless and does not pose a particular danger to human health.