Baking&Snack - February 2011 - 76

INGREDIENT R&D
▶ In January, Frito-Lay announced that it would make half of its portfolio with all-natural ingredients. A special logo calls attention to this content.
FRITO-LAY

WHAT’S REALLY FAKE? Ms. Cogswell said the Whole Foods list does set a precedent for “if and when FDA ever decides to lay out some ground rules for use of the term ‘natural.’ But for now, food safety is FDA’s priority and rightfully so. Defining ‘natural’ is a regulatory role, and I don’t see FDA addressing it in the near future,” she added. However, FDA partnered with the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation, Washington, DC, in 2004 to publish a brochure (revised in 2010) explaining food additives and colors. The paper stated, “Natural ingredients are derived from natural sources (e.g., soybeans and corn provide lecithin to maintain product consistency; beets provide beet powder used as food coloring). Other ingredients are not found in nature and therefore must be synthetically produced as artificial ingredients. Also, some ingredients found in nature can be manufactured artificially and produced more economically, with greater purity and more consistent quality, than their natural counterparts. For example, vitamin C or ascorbic acid may be derived from an orange or produced in a laboratory. Food ingredients are subject to the same strict safety standards regardless of whether they are naturally or artificially derived.” Indeed, it is important to emphasize the fact that all food additives are carefully regulated by federal authorities and various international organizations to ensure that foods are safe to eat and accurately labeled. The ambiguity concerning the term “natural” is not a food safety issue.

As mentioned earlier, FDA disqualifies some ingredients — colors and flavors — from being used in foods labeled as “natural,” because the agency characterizes them as artificial or synthetic. A number of ingredients described as chemical preservatives and nonnutritive or low-calorie sweeteners are also assumed by the industry to be artificial or synthetic, but for the record, FDA does not come right out and state this. For example, its definition of chemical preservative, as it appears in 21 CFR 101.22, is ambiguous. It reads, “The term ‘chemical preservative’ means any chemical that, when added to food, tends to prevent or retard deterioration thereof but does not include common salt, sugars, vinegars, spices or oils extracted from spices; substances added to food by direct exposure thereof to wood smoke; or chemicals applied for their insecticidal or herbicidal properties.” FLAVORS AND COLORS. Only one ingredient definition allows use of the descriptor natural, and that is the category of flavors. The US definition of natural flavor (21 CFR 101.22) encompasses “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” A fine line distinguishes when a flavor goes from being natural to artificial, because both are manufactured through the blending of chemicals. In general, if the ingredient is not directly sourced from a living system, the flavor is considered artificial. Synthetic food colors are classified by FDA as color additives subject to certification (21 CFR 74). They are certified with an FD&C number (indicating it has been tested for safety and is approved for use in foods, drugs and cosmetics, or FD&C) and further classified as standardized dyes or lakes. A dye is a concentrated source of color that is water soluble and oil insoluble. Dyes can take the form of a powder, granule or liquid. Lakes, on the other hand, are made by combining dyes with mineral salts to make them insoluble compounds. Thus, they are best described as provid-

Effects Examined
The potential link between color additives and behavioral problems in children will be examined during a public meeting to be held March 30-31 by the US Food and Drug Administration’s Food Advisory Committee. Although first postulated in the 1970s, such claims have long been considered unsubstantiated because a sizeable body of scientific research could not document them. But a 2007 study done at the University of Southampton in the UK tested two mixtures of artificial colors, plus a preservative, in beverages given to children and found “limited evidence that the mixtures of additives tested had a small effect on the activity and attention of some children.” The study did not determine the contributions of individual additives to behavior, but still, public outcry in the UK and EU prompted food manufacturers to reduce or eliminate all such colors from children’s foods. The removal, at first voluntary, became de facto mandatory when the EU required warning labels for the presence of six such food colors, starting in August 2010. In the US, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer watchdog group, picked up the issue and asked FDA to ban synthetic food dyes and to require warning labels on products until the colors are removed. While the March meeting does not concern the synthetic or artificial nature of such color additives, it may have consequences for usage of these materials in food products. BAKING & SNACK / February 2011

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Baking&Snack - February 2011

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