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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Health ![]() Curries could damage your health ![]() An authentic curry needs no extra colouring ![]() Excessive food colourings used by curry chefs may be causing asthma and other allergies, health officials have warned.
A trading standards swoop on restaurants in the West Midlands, known as Britain's "Balti Belt", found that more than half of the most colourful dishes contained levels of additives that would breach safety rules under some circumstances. Repeated overexposure to the colourings - Tartrazine, Sunset Yellow and Ponceau 4R - are thought to lead to increased sensitivity to allergies and even the onset of asthma. Current legislation covering the use of colouring applies only to sauces, not to meat or rice. Meat inspection The Midlands Co-ordinating Group on Trading Standards surveyed dishes in which the meat is normally marinated to give it colour, such as tandoori and tikka masala.
Sandwell Council, which headed the inspections, will be pressing for changes to the law to include coloured meat and rice. Roger Horton, the chair of its environment committee, said: "Consumers believe mistakenly that the brighter the colour, the hotter the dish. "Twenty-one meals were found to have no added colours - tomato powder, red chillies and turmeric provide sufficient colour for an authentic Indian meal." Some restauranteurs were in agreement with the council's action. 'Public don't realise' Mohammed Aslam, who manages a chain of seven "colour-free" curry houses, said many British curry fans did not realise how much colouring was being used. He said: "It would be safe to say a lot have never seen an Indian-style kebab cooked without food colour. "That's how they have been introduced to the food and they think that's how things are supposed to look. "Indian cooking doesn't need artificial colouring because you can create the colours you want with spices. We need to stop this practice for the sake of our industry." ![]() |
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