E142 - Green s

Green S is a synthetic triarylmethane dye, also catalogued as Acid Green 50 and CI Food Green 4. It is one of the few green colours on the permitted list — most “green” in food is actually a blue dye mixed with a yellow one, or chlorophyll, which fades.

Green S is used where a stable, bright green is needed that will survive processing: tinned peas are the classic British example, along with mint sauce and mint jelly. It is water-soluble and light-stable in a way chlorophyll is not, which is why it persists in products where a natural green would go grey.

Tinned garden peas and mushy peas, mint sauce and mint jelly, some ice creams and jellies, and sugar confectionery.

Green S is authorised in Great Britain as E 142, in Group III — food colours with a combined maximum limit, meaning it shares a ceiling with other colours in that group rather than being permitted freely.

The Scientific Committee on Food set an acceptable daily intake of 5 mg per kg of body weight per day. EFSA re-evaluated the colour in 2010 and concluded that the data on absorption, metabolism, subchronic, reproductive, developmental and long-term toxicity and carcinogenicity gave no reason to revise that figure. At maximum permitted levels, intake estimates for children at the 95th/97.5th percentiles exceeded the ADI at the coarse tier of the assessment, but not in the refined estimate; adult estimates did not exceed it at either tier.

Green S is a synthetic dye but it is not one of the “Southampton Six”, so it does not carry the mandatory warning about effects on activity and attention in children. Some people prefer to avoid azo and triarylmethane dyes generally; tinned peas and mint sauce are the products where it is most reliably found.

• FSA Register of Food Additive Authorisations — E 142
• EFSA (2010), Scientific Opinion on the re-evaluation of Green S (E 142) as a food additive
• Assimilated Regulation (EU) No 231/2012 (specifications, E 142)