Natural Food Colourants Juxtaposed with Synthetic Food Colourant: A Review

Application of synthetic colourants to foods, snacks and beverages has been on the increase within the past 50 years and up to 500% increase has been reported. Consumers of colour foods and beverages have been showing worries on the possible health hazards of such products over time and this has led to a series of reports by researchers on the health implications of synthetic food colourants. This present study took a hard look into variously published reports on a plant-based and commonly used synthetic food colourants. It is revealed that synthetic colourants cause more harm than good to a human and some harmful compounds have been revealed in synthetic colourants. The noticeable side effects of consumption of synthetic colourant include behavioural problems inform of neurobehavioural disorder, aggression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and inflammatory cascade. In conclusion, synthetic food colourants should be replaced with natural food colourants to avoid further health effect on humans. Also, parents and food producers should be advised on the adverse effect of synthetic food colourants while the government regulates every food production company to ensure proper choice and application of food colourants as well as candid labelling for safety purposes.