E102 — Tartrazine
E102 (Tartrazine), a color, is rated "avoid": worth avoiding. A bright yellow synthetic dye in soft drinks, candy, and snacks. One of the six colours the EU forces to carry a warning that it may harm children's activity and attention — a label no other additive class needs.
Is tartrazine (Yellow 5) bad for you? →
What is Tartrazine?
A bright lemon-yellow synthetic dye derived from petroleum. Common in soft drinks, snack chips, candy, mac-and-cheese mixes, pickles, and some medicines. It adds colour only — no taste, no nutrition, no preservative effect.
What does it do to the body?
One of the "Southampton Six" dyes tested in the 2007 McCann study, where children drinking dye mixes at everyday supermarket doses showed measurably more hyperactive behaviour. Children are the group at risk, and the effect showed up at amounts a kid gets from a couple of coloured drinks or sweets in a day. Separately, it can trigger hives or breathing trouble in a small number of people, most often those sensitive to aspirin.
What regulators say
The EU did not ban it — it did something it does for almost nothing else, and made the package warn you: products must print "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children". EFSA set an acceptable daily intake of 7.5 mg per kg of body weight per day in 2009. The FDA still permits it as Yellow 5, but in April 2025 asked manufacturers to voluntarily drop it and the other petroleum dyes by the end of 2026, and California bans it from school food from the end of 2027.
Risk rating: Avoid
Known or suspected to cause harm: a substance EFSA or another regulator has flagged, or one restricted in some jurisdictions. Best kept out of a regular diet.
Source: EU Regulation 1333/2008 (Annex V warning list) ↗