CAC/GL 3-1988 Guidelines for Simple Evaluation of Food Additive Intake
1. INTRODUCTION
The first step in the permitted use of food additives is the examination of toxicological studies by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), the establishment of an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI), and the elaboration of identity and purity criteria.
In the second step, proposals for the permitted use of an additive in different foodstuffs are made by the responsible governmental agencies or by the Codex commodity committees to the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). The endorsement of the proposed use in a foodstuff is done in accordance with the General Principles for the Use of Food Additives (Codex Alimentarius Commission Procedural manual, 6th Ed. p. 144, 1986) which states that "Approval or temporary approval for the inclusion of a food additive in an advisory list or in a food standard should:...(iii) as far as possible take into account any Acceptable Daily Intake, or equivalent assessment, established for the food additive, and the probable daily intake of it from all sources. Where the food additive is to be used in foods eaten by special groups of consumers, account should be taken of the probable daily intake of the food additive by consumes in those groups."
Information regarding the probable daily intake is therefore needed, especially in the case of food additives with low ADI, high levels of an additive in a food of high consumption and/or the use of additives in food eaten by special population groups.
Different approaches exist as regards the estimation of the probable daily intake, some of these being very expensive and time consuming. Some countries have therefore difficulties in initiating studies on intake of food additives.
