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Glossary

Additive law is written in terms of art, and several of them mean close to the opposite of what they look like. A permission of quantum satis is a limit, not a missing one. “Not listed” is a statement about a list, not a finding against a substance. An acceptable daily intake is a reference value, not a line above which harm begins. These are the words the rest of this site leans on.

Acceptable daily intakeADI

An amount, per kilogram of body weight per day, that a scientific body judges can be consumed over a lifetime without appreciable risk. Expressed in mg/kg bw/day.

An ADI is a reference value set by an assessing body, not a legal limit and not a threshold above which harm occurs. EFSA and JECFA have both set one for 99 additives here and differ on 35 of them; this site shows each value with the body and year that set it and draws no conclusion between them. “Not specified” and “not limited” are positive findings, meaning the body saw no need for a numerical limit — not missing data.

See also No-observed-adverse-effect level, Tolerable daily intake.

Assimilated lawGreat Britain

European Union law kept on the British statute book after withdrawal, since renamed from "retained EU law". Great Britain's additive rules began as the EU's and have diverged since.

Northern Ireland continues to apply the EU rules under the Windsor Framework, which is why this site records Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom.

A substance used to dissolve, dilute or otherwise carry an additive without changing what it does, so that it can be handled and dosed.

Carriers are themselves additives and are authorised separately, in the EU under Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008. A carrier reaches the finished food in the additive it carries, which is one route by which carry-over happens.

Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, Annex III

See also Carry-over.

An additive may lawfully appear in a food it is not permitted in, because it was permitted in one of that food's ingredients and came along with it.

Set out in Article 18 of Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008. It is the usual explanation for an additive on a label that the rules appear not to allow in that food, and it is why a permitted list read on its own does not predict what a label will say.

Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, Article 18

See also Carrier.

Codex Alimentarius

The food standards collection published by FAO and WHO. Its General Standard for Food Additives is a reference standard, not law in any country until a country adopts it.

Codex matters because national rules are often written against it and because trade disputes are judged against it, not because it binds anyone directly.

See also JECFA, General Standard for Food Additives.

ComitologyEuropean Union

The European Union procedure by which the Commission adopts implementing measures with a committee of member state representatives. Most amendments to the additive lists are made this way.

Drafts appear on a public register before adoption, which is why a change is often visible a year or more before it takes effect.

Consolidated textEuropean Union, Great Britain

A version of a regulation with all its amendments merged in. Convenient to read and not legally authentic: only the original acts in the Official Journal are.

Designated additiveJapan

Japan's category for additives the Minister has designated as permitted, listed in the Ministerial Ordinance under the Food Sanitation Act.

Japan permits three other categories outside that list: existing additives in use before 1995, natural flavouring agents, and ordinary foods used as additives. An absence from Japan's designated list is therefore not evidence that a substance may not be used in Japan.

See also Positive list, Not listed.

The identifier the European Union gives an additive it has authorised. The number without the E is usually the INS number Codex uses.

An E number means the EU authorised the substance; it says nothing about any other jurisdiction, and a substance can be authorised in the EU under a number while being unlisted elsewhere. Sub-forms are sometimes numbered differently by the EU and by Codex, so E 160a(i) and INS 160a(i) are not always the same thing.

See also INS number.

The unit a permitted list is written in: a permission attaches to a class of foods, such as "fermented milk products, heat-treated", rather than to food in general.

Each regulator maintains its own category tree with its own numbering, and the trees do not correspond. Codex, the EU, Great Britain and Australia and New Zealand all use a code like 6.3, and they do not all mean the same foods by it.

See also Maximum permitted level.

Functional class

What an additive is there to do — preservative, emulsifier, colour — as named by a regulator.

Regulators name and group these differently, and an additive usually has several. Where this site groups one regulator's term with another's, it says so and shows each regulator's own word.

General Standard for Food AdditivesGSFA, CXS 192

The Codex standard that says which additives may be used in which food categories and at what levels.

See also Codex Alimentarius, Food category.

Generally recognised as safeGRASUnited States

An American category: a substance whose use is generally recognised as safe by qualified experts does not need to be listed as a food additive at all.

A conclusion of GRAS may be reached by a company without telling the FDA, so there is no complete public list of what is in use. A company may instead notify the FDA and receive a letter, and those notices are shown on this site — but a notice concerns one notifier's conclusion for one use, and is not a listing. The absence of a US row on an additive page is therefore weaker evidence than the absence of an EU one.

See also Positive list, Not listed.

Good manufacturing practiceGMPCodex, Australia and New Zealand, Canada

The same idea as quantum satis under a different name: no numeric ceiling, but use limited to the quantity needed to achieve the technological purpose.

Codex states it in the Preamble to the General Standard for Food Additives, and Australia and New Zealand and Canada use the phrase in their own instruments. This site keeps the two vocabularies apart rather than merging them, because they are separate provisions of separate laws that happen to say much the same thing.

See also Quantum satis, Maximum permitted level.

The International Numbering System identifier maintained by Codex. Identification only: an INS number is not an authorisation anywhere.

See also E number.

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives: the scientific committee that advises Codex, evaluates additives and publishes specifications of identity and purity.

JECFA advises; it does not legislate. Its specifications of identity and purity reach this site through FAO, and its acceptable daily intakes through WHO's evaluations database. Where EFSA has also set an intake for the same substance the two are shown side by side, and this site does not choose between them.

See also Specification, Acceptable daily intake, Codex Alimentarius.

Maximum permitted levelML, MPL

The greatest amount of an additive a food may contain, usually in milligrams per kilogram of the food as sold.

A ceiling, not a target or a recommended amount. Two jurisdictions' figures can only be set against each other when their food categories describe the same foods, which is often not the case.

See also Quantum satis, Food category.

No-observed-adverse-effect levelNOAEL

The highest dose in a study at which no adverse effect was seen. An ADI is normally derived from a NOAEL by dividing it by an uncertainty factor, conventionally 100.

See also Acceptable daily intake.

The substance does not appear on a jurisdiction's permitted list. This site records that as its own status, distinct from prohibited.

An absence is a statement about the list, not a finding against the substance. A regulator may never have been asked about it, may regulate it under another law, or may cover it under a broader entry this site could not match. Only an explicit instrument naming the substance is recorded as prohibited.

See also Prohibited, Positive list.

Positive listEuropean Union, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Japan

A rule that nothing may be added to food unless it appears on a published list of permitted substances. Everything not on the list is outside the law by default.

The European Union, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan all work this way for additives. The United States does not: a substance may be used there without appearing on any list if its use is generally recognised as safe. That difference is why an empty row means something different in each column of an additive page.

See also Generally recognised as safe, Not listed.

Prior-sanctionedUnited States

An American category for uses the FDA or USDA had already sanctioned before the 1958 Food Additives Amendment, which remain lawful without a modern listing.

See also Generally recognised as safe.

A named instrument forbids the substance in food. In the United States that is usually 21 CFR 189.

This site records a prohibition only where the instrument names the substance. Nineteen substances carry one today, all of them American; every other empty cell on the site is an absence, not a ban.

See also Not listed.

Quantum satisQSEuropean Union, Great Britain

Latin, roughly "as much as is needed". A permission with no numeric ceiling: use the smallest amount that achieves the intended effect, and no more.

Defined in Article 3(2)(h) of Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008. It is a legal limit, not a missing one — the general rules on use still apply, and a use that goes beyond what the technological purpose requires is unlawful even though no figure is breached. Just over twenty thousand permissions on this site are quantum satis.

Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, Article 3(2)(h)

See also Good manufacturing practice, Maximum permitted level.

The document that says what a substance must be to count as the additive: its definition, its assay, and the limits on impurities such as lead and arsenic.

The EU sets specifications by regulation, so they bind. JECFA publishes its own through FAO, and they are advisory until a country adopts them. Where both exist for one substance they can differ, and this site shows them separately for that reason.

See also JECFA.

Technical effectUnited States

The American term for what this site calls a function, listed at 21 CFR 170.3(o).

See also Functional class.

Tolerable daily intakeTDI

The same kind of reference value as an ADI, used for substances that are present in food without being deliberately added.

See also Acceptable daily intake.

Where a term is defined in an instrument, the instrument is linked and it is the authority; the wording here is this site's and is meant to be read, not relied on. See the method for how the distinctions are enforced in the data.