Sweet poison? Survey of nation’s favourite treats shows many could contain toxic dyes

That bright yellow piece of barfi or orange laddoo, arranged neatly in the display window of the neighbourhood mithaiwala is undoubtedly tempting.

But think twice before you reach out to the sweet. It may be laden with a high dose of harmful synthetic colours, including dyes not permitted for human use, a nationwide survey has revealed.

Samples of sweets and savouries like namkeens collected from all over the country and analysed for the type of colours used has shown that both permitted and non-permitted food colours are being used rampantly. 

With the festival of Holi approaching, new research shows it is important to be vigilant when buying products from your neighbourhood sweet shop

In all, 64.8 per cent of the samples either had permitted colours much beyond the regulatory limit or contained non-permitted colours.

A total of 2,409 samples were analysed, of which 58 per cent of the eatables exceeded the maximum allowable concentration limit of 100 milligrams per kg, while 16.4 per cent contained non-permitted colours.

Researchers also studied intake of colours through food items among different age groups. Consuming eatables with excessive amounts of colours can trigger neurological and nervous system disorders.

Some of them are known to cause attention deficit and hyperactive disorder among children.

“Intake of colours among Indians is definitely higher than European and American populations and hence Indians are at higher health risks,” said Dr Mukul Das, food and chemical toxicologist from the CSIRIndian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow, who led the study.

“Most of the sweets, namkeens and bakery products we consume come from unorganised sector where there is no control on the use of colours. Most of them use aromatic dyes meant to colour wool or textiles and they contain toxic heavy metals such as lead and cadmium,” said Dr Thuppil Venkatesh, head of the Bangalore- based National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India.

The IITR study covered 16 states in four regions of the country. The results will be published soon in international publication, Journal of Food Science.

The samples were collected from halwais and sweetmeat shops that sell locally prepared sweets. Branded samples were not collected.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India permits use of eight synthetic colours in specified food commodities at a uniform level of 100 mg per kg/litre.

This limit, experts say, is unscientific because internationally approved Acceptable Daily Intake of food colours varies from 0.1 to 25 mg per kg body weight per day.

“While sweet makers may be buying permitted food colours, they are simply ignorant about the regulatory limit,” Dr Venkatesh pointed out.

“Jalebi is the worst culprit. Consumer should not get carried away by misleading labels like kesar barfi because there is no saffron in it,” he added.

 The so-called silver foil used to decorate sweets is nothing but toxic derivatives of lead and plastics.

“We need to create awareness about the use of permitted colours so that they are properly used. And also come down heavily on those violating the rules,” consumer rights activist Bejon Misra said.

“People should also be made aware that all non-permitted colours contain carcinogens.”

Researchers said over the years, the use of permitted colours has gone up. The use of non-permitted colours now is much lower compared to previous surveillance studies in which adulteration with non-permitted dyes was found to be in the range of 31-60 per cent.

But the overall adulteration (64.8 per cent) remains a cause of concern. Out of 8 colours permitted to be used in India, four were detected in food samples.

The levels of Tartrazine detected in the analysed samples ranged from 12.5 to 1091 mg per kg, followed by SSYFCF (12.0 to 1610 mg per kg), Carmoisine (11.7 to 911 mg per kg) and Ponceau 4R (10.9 to 716 mg per kg).

The median levels of use of all the four permitted colours exceeded the prescribed limit of 100 mg per kg.

When intake pattern was studied among 790 people across different age groups, it was found that consumption of coloured food items was maximum through cereal-based sweets (66 to 74 grams per day) followed by milk-based sweets (45 to 59 grams per day) and savouries (42 to 63 grams per day).

The intake of all the commodities was the maximum among adolescents.