How to know if a food additive is safe
The short version: an E-number by itself tells you nothing about safety. It only means the additive is approved. To know whether one is actually worth avoiding, you have to look at the specific substance and what food-safety regulators say about it.
Start with the substance, not the label
Every approved additive has a name and a number, and the number groups it by type (colours are in the E100s, preservatives in the E200s, and so on). But two additives in the same group can be worlds apart on safety. The only reliable move is to look up the exact one and read the evidence, rather than reacting to the sight of any E-number at all.
What EFSA approval actually means
In the EU, additives are assessed by EFSA. Where it can, EFSA sets an Acceptable Daily Intake, the amount judged safe to eat every day over a lifetime. It also estimates how much people really consume. When those two numbers cross, meaning normal diets go over the safe ceiling, that is a real signal, and it is the kind of thing that moves an additive onto a watch or avoid list.
Approval is not permanent either. EFSA re-evaluates additives as new research lands. Several once-routine additives have since been given tighter limits. So an old approval is not the same as a clean bill of health today.
The distinction that matters
There is one line worth holding onto. Some concerns are about the substance itself, such as its own toxicology or an exposure that overshoots the safe limit. Those earn a real rating. Other concerns are really about quantity, like how much sugar or salt a product contains. That is a question of how much, answered by the nutrition panel, not a verdict on an additive. Mixing the two is how bad ratings happen. Our full method goes deeper.
The fast way to check one
You can do all of this yourself. Our additive directory has a page for every E-number with its rating, the reason, and a link to the EFSA source. Or scan a product with the app and it checks all of them at once.