Safety evaluation of certain food additives - ipcs inchem

94 PAPRIKA EXTRACT
3.5 Individual dietary records from national survey consumption data
(peppers)
Information from the United Kingdom’s national nutrition surveys on pepper
consumption indicates mean consumption of pepper (undefined) of 3 g/day for adult
consumers, with 97.5th-percentile consumption up to 28 g/day (Henderson et al.,
2002). Estimated consumption of peppers for younger children from the United
Kingdom was lower (Table 3) (Gregory et al., 1995; Gregory, 2000). For French
consumers, results reported from a household economic survey indicated a mean
consumption of peppers of 3 g/day and 97.5th-percentile consumption of 18 g/day
(Combris et al., 1998). The mean consumption estimates were much higher than
those for the whole population reported for dried peppers or spices for these
countries from the food balance sheet data of 0.8 g/day for the United Kingdom and
0.6 g/day for France. These figures were not converted to total carotenoid dietary
exposures, as it was unclear whether the consumption data referred to fresh or dried
peppers and chillies.
Table 3. Consumption of peppers by consumers in France and the United
Kingdom
Population group Pepper consumption (g/day)
Mean 97.5th percentile
French consumers 3.1 18.4
United Kingdom preschool children 0.3 11.7
United Kingdom schoolchildren 4–6 years 0.5 8.4
United Kingdom schoolchildren 7–10 years 0.8 20.9
United Kingdom schoolchildren 11–14 years 1.1 15.3
United Kingdom adults 3.3 28.1
3.6 Estimated dietary exposure to capsaicin
Capsicums grown for use as fresh or dried food ingredients do not have use
level limits. For many food applications, a high capsaicin content gives greater
flavour, which is a desired characteristic associated with chilli peppers. The
capsaicin content of fresh peppers is reported to typically range up to around 1%
(Govindarajan, 1985; Lopez-Hernandez et al., 1996; Parrish, 1996; Thomas et al.,
1998).
Limited data were available on the potential dietary exposure to capsaicin
from the use of paprika extract as a food colour. Dietary exposure to capsaicin could
be predicted from estimates of dietary exposures to total carotenoids by applying a
ratio of capsaicin content to total carotenoid content; however, this ratio has not yet
been specified for paprika extract, as further information is required to complete the
evaluation.