Evaluation of Certain Food Additives

This report represents the conclusions of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee (JECFA) convened to evaluate the safety of various food additives, including flavoring agents, with a view to concluding on safety concerns and to prepare specifications for the identity and purity of the food additives.

The first part of the report includes updates on the work of the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA) since the eighty-fourth meeting of JECFA and on activities relevant to JECFA with regard to the Environmental Health Criteria 240: Principles and methods for the risk assessment of chemicals in food (EHC 240). Following is a summary of the Committee's evaluations of technical, toxicological and dietary exposure data for eight food additives other than flavoring agents - anionic methacrylate copolymer; basic methacrylate copolymer; erythrosine; indigotine; lutein and lutein esters from Tagetes erecta and zeaxanthin (synthetic); neutral methacrylate copolymer; sorbitol syrup; and spirulina extract - and eight groups of flavoring agents - alicyclic primary alcohols, aldehydes, acids and related esters; carvone and structurally related substances; furan-substituted aliphatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids and related esters, sulfides, disulfides and ethers; linear and branched-chain aliphatic, unsaturated, unconjugated alcohols, aldehydes, acids and related esters; maltol and related substances; menthol and structurally related substances; miscellaneous nitrogen-containing substances; and saturated aliphatic acyclic branched-chain primary alcohols, aldehydes and acids.

Specifications and analytical methods were revised for the following food additives other than flavoring agents: cassia gum; citric and fatty acid esters of glycerol (CITREM); glycerol ester of wood rosin (GEWR); and modified starches.

Annexed to the report are tables summarizing the Committee's recommendations for dietary exposures to all of the food additives as well as toxicological information, dietary exposures and information on specifications.