In today’s food and drink synthetic preservatives are used widely – they are often listed with their chemical name or number – and can leave parents completely confused as to their purpose and effect on their children.
Choice provides a handy guide to additives and their respective numbers found on ingredient labels. We have provided a quick reference summary below on the main categories of additives. More information can be found here.
- Colours (code numbers in the 100 range) that add or restore colour to foods.
- Preservatives (200 range) that help protect against food deterioration caused by micro-organisms.
- Antioxidants (300 range) that slow or prevent the oxidative deterioration of foods.
- Artificial sweeteners (including intense sweeteners in the 900 range, and bulk sweeteners such as sorbitol, 420) provide a sweet taste for fewer kilojoules than sugar.
- Flavour enhancers (mainly in the 600 range) that improve the flavour and/or aroma of food.
- Emulsifiers (mostly in the 400 range) help prevent oil and water mixtures (in mayonnaise, for example) from separating.
- Stabilisers (mostly in the 400 range) maintain the uniform dispersal of substances in foods like ice cream.
- Thickeners (including vegetable gums, which have code numbers mostly in the 400 range, and modified starches, with code numbers in the 1000 range) increase the viscosity of foods like thickened cream to a desired consistency.
Better Health Victoria also provides information on the use of additives in food here.
Other handy resources when trying to reduce or remove the additives your children consume is joining a support community such as Additive Free Kids .
If you are out shopping and want identify an additive by number or name, a good app is Additive Alert. The app provides a guide on additives and allows you to search and display data on Australian and New Zealand food additives.
