If you pick up a bag of colourful sweets and look at the ingredients, you will notice a list of numbers with an ‘E’ in front of them, eg E104 or E133. What do these Es stand for? These E-numbered ingredients are additives - and they tend to get bad publicity. In sweets, the main role of the E numbers is to produce the bright colours but this is not all they can do. E-numbers are added to food during production and they can: • retain the food’s consistency • retain or improve the nutritional value of the food • retain the freshness of the food • improve the flavour and/or colour of the food E numbers can be natural substances or synthetic chemicals and they can be either good or bad for you. In fact, the only thing that all E numbers have in common is that they have all been approved for use in foods by the EU – hence the capital E! Here are a few examples that show how diverse E numbers are: E406, or agar, is a thickening agent, stabiliser, emulsifier and gelling agent extracted from seaweed and is used in ice creams and tinned food. E102, or tartrazine, is a yellow azo dye. It is thought to cause allergic reactions in some people and is found in squashes, sweets and many other yellowy-orange foods. E300, or ascorbic acid, is more commonly known as Vitamin C and is an antioxidant which is found in fruit drinks and cold remedies. For more information on additives and all matters foodie, have a look at the British Nutrition Foundation’s website. Go back