Safety evaluation of certain food additives - ipcs inchem

SULFITES: ASSESSMENT OF DIETARY EXPOSURE
Dr C. Leclercq, 1 Ms C. Le Donne 1 and Dr M.C.F. Toledo 2
1 National Research Institute for Food and Nutrition (INRAN), Rome, Italy
2 Faculty of Food Engineering, State University of Campinas, Campinas,
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Explanation ................................................................................
Chemistry and analytical methods ............................................
Chemistry ............................................................................
Analytical methods ..............................................................
Dietary exposure .......................................................................
Current status of sulfites in Codex and national legislation
Data made available to the Committee ...............................
Concentration of sulfites in foods and beverages ...............
Screening by the budget method ........................................
Assessment of long-term dietary exposure to sulfites ........
Assessment of long-term dietary exposure based on
model diets ...............................................................
Assessment of long-term dietary exposure based on a
total diet study ..........................................................
Assessment of long-term dietary exposure based on
individual dietary surveys .........................................
Evaluation and recommendations .............................................
References ................................................................................
Appendix 1. Recent data on concentration of sulfites in foods
made available to the Committee since 2000 .......................
1. EXPLANATION
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Dietary exposure to sulfites was evaluated by the Committee at its present
meeting at the request of the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA) at its
Thirty-ninth Session (Codex Alimentarius Commission, 2007a). The Committee was
asked to consider all data necessary for the assessment of dietary exposure from
all foods, including use levels, owing to concern that the acceptable daily intake
(ADI) might be exceeded.
Sulfites have a number of technological functions, including antioxidant,
bleaching agent, flour treatment agent and preservative, and are used in a wide
variety of applications in the food industry. The terms “sulfites” and “sulfiting
agents” usually refer to the gas sulfur dioxide and sodium, potassium and calcium
sulfites, hydrogen sulfites and metabisulfites. Throughout the present report, the
concentration of sulfites in food is expressed as sulfur dioxide.
Sulfur dioxide and sulfites were evaluated by the Committee at its sixth,
eighth, ninth, seventeenth, twenty-seventh, thirtieth and fifty-first meetings
(Annex 1, references 6, 8, 11, 32, 62, 73 and 137). At its seventeenth meeting, the
Committee established an ADI for sulfites of 0–0.7 mg/kg body weight (bw),
expressed as sulfur dioxide.
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