Toxic treats

25th November 2011

Parents and teachers were left up in arms this week after the news that sweets which contained toxic substances were being sold in schools around the country.

The report, which appeared in legal paper Gazeta Prawna, claims that the chemicals can help cause children to become both distracted and excited, and to make matters worse as they are not listed in the table of substances prohibited by law, meaning that their inclusions in goods such as sweets is completely legal.

In a recent investigation, the State District Sanitary Inspector in Krakow put a number of sweets and lollies under the microscope, and came back with interesting results. Of the 48 different products it analysed, 17 of them were found to contain at least one of the harmful chemicals. One of the key issues, said the organisation, was the lack of information on the packaging warning parents about the substances contained inside.

While the hands of the police and Saniped (Poland’s official hygiene body) are tied, parents are able to identify the chemicals as the following:

E110 (Sunset Yellow FCF), E104 (Quinoline Yellow), E122 (Azorubine / Carmoisine), E129 (Allura Red), E102 (Tartrazine) and E124 (Ponceau 4R).