{"id":8956,"date":"2023-09-26T06:51:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T20:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=8956"},"modified":"2023-09-26T06:51:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T20:51:18","slug":"what-are-food-colourings-made-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/health\/what-are-food-colourings-made-from\/","title":{"rendered":"What are food colourings made from?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8957\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic1.jpg\" alt=\"All Over &amp; Shutterstock\" width=\"1161\" height=\"770\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic1.jpg 1161w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic1-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic1-768x509.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1161px) 100vw, 1161px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Food colourings can be made from plants, animals or synthetically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As additives they are given identifying numbers, known as \u2018E\u2019 numbers in Europe; in Australia we use the same list but omit the \u2018E\u2019. Colourings all have numbers between 100 and 199.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">An example of plant colouring is \u2018162\u2019, a \u2018beet red\u2019 that comes from beetroot, used in sauces and sweets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">\u2018120\u2019 is an animal product: a red colouring made from crushing the shells of insects (picture above) which live on cacti in Central and South America. This \u2018cochineal\u2019 colours sausages, lipsticks, and even the drink Campari.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Among synthetic colours is E 131, a blue colouring for candy originally based on tar. It can also be used in cheese, as the blue absorbs yellow light, making the cheese white. But E 131 is banned in Australian food.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8959\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic3.jpg\" alt=\"All Over &amp; Shutterstock\" width=\"1324\" height=\"934\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic3.jpg 1324w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic3-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic3-1024x722.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic3-768x542.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1324px) 100vw, 1324px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8216;140\u2019 is green chlorophyll, as is responsible for photosynthesis in plants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As a colour it is commonly extracted from leaves such as spinach, or from algae.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8958\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic2.jpg\" alt=\"All Over \/ Shutterstock\" width=\"1326\" height=\"928\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic2.jpg 1326w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic2-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic2-1024x717.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pic2-768x537.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1326px) 100vw, 1326px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Cola, some whiskies and soy sauce include \u2018150a\u2019 to \u2018150d\u2019, a set of \u2018caramels\u2019 made from burnt sugar mixed with various amounts of ammonia and sulphites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food colourings can be made from plants, animals or synthetically. As additives they are given identifying numbers, known as \u2018E\u2019 numbers in Europe; in Australia we use the same list but omit the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,48,116],"tags":[973,120],"class_list":["post-8956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-us","category-health","category-insects","tag-food-colouring","tag-health-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8960,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8956\/revisions\/8960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}