Chapter 11: The supporting cast · Part 3: Colours
Tartrazine
- Contaminant risk
The worst fact: since 20 July 2010, EU foods containing it must carry the warning "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children". That followed the 2007 Southampton study, which found mixes of artificial colours with a preservative increased hyperactivity in 3-year-olds and 8- to 9-year-olds.
Why brands use it: a bright, cheap lemon yellow.
Take care if: you're sensitive to aspirin. US medicine labels must warn it "may cause allergic-type reactions (including bronchial asthma) in certain susceptible persons", frequently seen in people who are also sensitive to aspirin.
Comes from: sulfanilic acid, diazotised and coupled with a pyrazolone.
Myth check: "Tartrazine triggers asthma": in a Cochrane review of six small trials, neither adding tartrazine nor avoiding it significantly changed asthma; the authors said avoiding it routinely probably won't help most people, "except those very few individuals with proven sensitivity", though the evidence was too thin for firm conclusions.
Contaminants: benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl (both "carcinogenic to humans") and aniline. The US limits free benzidine to 1 part per billion; Health Canada, measuring free plus chemically bound benzidine in tartrazine and sunset yellow, found up to 270 parts per billion. They're unlikely in a well-made product, but it's a factor you can't see on the label.
Fair to say: Australia's food regulator reviewed the Southampton study and found no evidence to lower its safety limits; Australian children's estimated intake, even for high consumers, was under 5% of the daily limit.
Correct as of November 2026. What the badges mean
Sources
- Safe Work Australia. Hazardous Chemical Information System (HCIS): classifications for calcium chloride, boric acid, borax, and for N-vinylpyrrolidone, vinyl acetate, ethylene oxide, 1,4-dioxane, hydrazine, aniline, p-toluidine, styrene, chloromethane, carbon monoxide and octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4).
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Food Standards Code, Schedule 8 (2025); Food colours; Review of titanium dioxide as a food additive (updated 2025).
- European Union. Regulation (EC) 1333/2008 Annex V; Regulation (EU) 231/2012 (food additive specifications); Regulation (EU) 2022/63 (E171); Regulation (EU) 1297/2014 (detergent capsules); Regulation (EC) 790/2009 and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/849 (borates); Regulation (EU) 109/2012; Regulation (EU) 2023/2055 (microplastics); Regulation (EU) 2024/1328 (D4, D5, D6); Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 (cosmetics) Annexes III and IV.
- JECFA (FAO/WHO). Specifications and evaluations: titanium dioxide (2023), sodium carboxymethylcellulose, polyvinylpyrrolidone, Brilliant Blue FCF, tartrazine, Sunset Yellow FCF, D&C Red 33.
- McCann D et al. Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children. Lancet 2007;370:1560-1567.
- Ardern KD, Ram FSF. Tartrazine exclusion for allergic asthma. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2001.
The full source list is at the end of Chapter 11.