HotBot's take on of Marc j's chicken pathia.

[Yellow Fingers]

...If you have read the article I linked on hints and tips you would see the amount of concern there is within the business community and the health authorities about the number of restaurants/takeaways that are flouting the guidelines on additives...

Whoaaaa there horsey! Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs 

Here's a quote from my post in March 2005

"Pete if you are worried about cancer don't eat anything in a curry house that is red in colour. The colourings used are ponceau, tartrazine and sunset yellow. They are all carcinogens and tartrazine in particular has been known to kill asthmatics. There was a report that said some places exceeded the recommended use by ten or more times!"

and here's the link to that page:  https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=170.msg915

It's one of those topics that has been done to death - pun intended.

YF

[hotbot]

The colourings used in the rice i made were liquid food colouring used for icing and baking would this make any difference? :-[
Or are these detrimental to your health.?   If so why are these sold when then are used to decorate cakes and biscuits sweets etc  that KIDS  love and are bound to eat....?

[Chilli Prawn]

HB these are mostly safe natural products and those that are risky contain warnings to that effect.  This is my final response on this issue also.  My debate is about excessive use of potentially dangerous products, and the Indusytrt and Government arguments are ithe food industry can't self-regulate then substances will be banned.

CP

[Yellow Fingers]

Hi hotbot

If you have kids the one you really want to stay away from is Tartrazine which manufacturers try to hide by using its E-number, 102. This is known to cause hyperactivity in children, amongst tens of other worrying effects on both children an adults. It is a red food colouring and when mixed with other colours can be used as a yellow (custard) or green colour (tinned peas).

If you are squeamish you may want to steer clear of cochineal which is made from the crushed shell of the female cochineal beetle. I've seen a bottle of red food colouring in Tesco that was labelled "artificial cochineal", can you guess what the colouring was? Yes good old E102, tartrazine. Devious buggers these manufacturers aren't they?

You ask if they are detrimental to your health and if so why do they allow it? Well, artifiial colours are cheap to make and cheap means more profit. Things are changing though. If you've seen the latest smarties advert, they make a big hoohaa out of the fact that they no longer contain artificial colouring.

Contrary to what CP says there are literally hundreds of non-natural food colourings still in use which are known to have detrimental effects on your health.

If it's not something you do already you should start reading the contents label on your foodstuffs. It'll scare the pants off you - or at least it should.

YF

[DARTHPHALL]

I find there are some good alternatives to coloring your dishes, Turmeric & a little Tomato Puree work well, I'm definitely not PC but do tend to lean to substituting chemical color with more natural colors & on top of that it is a challenge to be able to do so & lets face it everyone, we here at cr0 are up for a challenge,   it may be a good idea to have that in hints & tips (Natural Alternatives to chemical colors & a not so natural Colorings used sections).
One point on the PC side of things, following the normal path (horrible word) & using colors is far more PC than finding Healthy Alternatives to what Normal (AAAAAHH) people do! IMHO.
But thats my opinion & I'm only barely Human, thank Satan & all his Hellish instruments of PaIN ;D

Down with being a Sheep  ;D
A Pirates life for me yo ho yo ho  ;D