Watchdog sees red over food colours

One curry had 21 times the limit of colour allowed

More than one in three dishes in Midlands restaurants and takeaways has high levels of artificial colouring, a survey has revealed.

Trading standards officers, who carried out the research, found one sample of chicken tikka massala to contain 21 times the accepted colouring limit.

In total, 81 dishes were tested, 28 of which were found to have high levels of artificial colour.

Officers targeted brightly-coloured foods such as rogan josh, spare ribs and pilau rice.

Some of the colours found.. have been associated with hyperactivity in children and should not be consumed by people with aspirin sensitivity or asthma

Sarah Smith
Trading Standards

However, no artificial colouring at all was found in 19 of the samples taken, the meals instead being coloured with natural ingredients such as turmeric, saffron and tomato powder.

A similar exercise carried out in 1998 found more than half of dishes sampled contained excess artificial colouring.

Trading standards policy officer Sarah Smith said: "Although the results do demonstrate that there has been some improvement, it is still worrying that 35% of the meals sampled contained excess colourings.

"Some of the colours found such as tartrazine, sunset yellow and ponceau 4R have been associated with hyperactivity in children and should not be consumed by people with aspirin sensitivity or asthma.

"As restaurant and takeaway meals do not come with a list of ingredients it is essential we work with the trade to ensure the limits are complied with."

The trading standards officers tested food from the following areas: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Herefordshire, Sandwell, Solihull, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford & Wrekin, Walsall and Wolverhampton.