Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the food additive and colour additive parts
Food and Drug Administration · United States
Substances the FDA has affirmed or listed for use in food, and the colours it has listed. It is not a complete account of what may lawfully be used in the United States, because a substance generally recognised as safe needs no listing.
An empty United States row therefore proves less than an empty European one. The GRAS Notice Inventory and the Substances Added to Food inventory are shown beside the permissions as evidence, never as listings.
How it is arranged
- Part 73 — colour additives exempt from certification.
- Part 74 — colour additives subject to certification, the FD&C colours.
- Part 82 — provisional listings of certified colours, including the lakes.
- Part 172 — food additives permitted for direct addition to food for human consumption.
- Part 173 — secondary direct food additives.
- Part 182 — substances generally recognised as safe.
- Part 184 — direct food substances affirmed as GRAS.
- Part 189 — substances prohibited from use in human food.
What this site takes from it
All of the parts above, as permissions and, for part 189, as prohibitions.
And what it does not
Indirect additives and food-contact substances, which are a different question; and self-determined GRAS uses, which are nowhere published.
Provenance
- ecfr Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21 — U.S. Government Publishing Office / National Archives. Public domain; retrieved 2026-10-17.
- gras GRAS Notice Inventory — U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Public domain; retrieved 2026-10-18.
- saf Substances Added to Food (formerly EAFUS) — U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Public domain; retrieved 2026-10-18.
Recorded on Sources, generated from the provenance table so it cannot drift from what the site holds.
Read the instrument. Where a page here disagrees with it, the instrument is right and this site is wrong — check the retrieval date first.