Mmmmm. Chicken tikka was a staple of ours when Margie and I last went to Britain on our own. Turns out those “colors not found in nature” that it sometime sports may be unhealthy as well as unnatural.
Random tests ordered by Trading Standards officers in Surrey suggest 57% of Indian restaurants in the county use “illegal and potentially dangerous” levels of dyes to give the sauce its distinctive orange-red hue. […] Out of 102 curry houses sampled, only 44 were using the colourings within legal limits. One restaurant, in Woking, was using four times the legal limit of colouring in its curry. Trading standards now plans to test every curry house in the county.
The tests focused on the use of three specific chemicals – Tartrazine (E102), Sunset Yellow (E110) and Ponceau 4R (E124). The Hyperactive Children’s Support Group believes all three are linked to hyperactivity in children. The colourings, which are only dangerous if taken excessively over a prolonged period, have also been linked to a string of other medical conditions in tests.
Tartrazine, a dye made from coal tar, is banned in Norway, Finland and Austria. As well as being used in a variety of cakes, soft drinks and sauces, some egg manufacturers feed it to their chickens to make their yolks extra yellow. But scientists believe it can cause blurred vision and purple skin patches and is particularly hazardous for asthmatics and anyone allergic to aspirin.
Sunset Yellow is also banned in Norway and Finland but elsewhere is used in juices, sweets and sauces. Scientists have linked it with chromosome damage and kidney tumours as well as abdominal pain, hives, nausea and vomiting.
Ponceau 4R, which is illegal in the USA and Norway, is believed to cause cancer in animals.
Jeez. Whatever happened to having to worry about kitchen conditions when you visited a restaurant?
(via BoingBoing)