Amaranth, FD&C Red No. 2, E123, C.I. Food Red 9, Acid Red 27, Azorubin S, or C.I. 16185 is a modified

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

azo dye used as a

food dye Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial food ...

and to color

cosmetics Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...

. The name was taken from

amaranth grain Species belonging to the genus ''Amaranthus'' have been cultivated for their grains for 8,000 years. Amaranth plants are classified as pseudocereals that are grown for their edible starchy seeds, but they are not in the same botanical family ...

, a plant distinguished by its red color and edible protein-rich seeds. Amaranth is an anionic dye. It can be applied to natural and synthetic

fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorpora ...

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hog ...

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

, and

phenol-formaldehyde resin Phenol formaldehyde resins (PF) or phenolic resins (also infrequently called phenoplasts) are synthetic polymers obtained by the reaction of phenol or substituted phenol with formaldehyde. Used as the basis for Bakelite, PFs were the first commerc ...

s. As a food additive it has E number E123. Amaranth usually comes as a trisodium

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

. It has the appearance of reddish-brown, dark red to purple water-soluble powder that decomposes at 120 °C without melting. Its water solution has absorption maximum at about 520 nm. Like all azo dyes, Amaranth was, during the middle of the 20th century, made from

coal tar Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psorias ...

; modern synthetics are more likely to be made from petroleum byproducts. Since 1976 Amaranth dye has been banned in the United States by the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

(FDA) as a suspected

carcinogen A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive subs ...

. Its use is still legal in some countries, notably in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

where it is most commonly used to give glacé cherries their distinctive color.

History and health effects

After an incident in the 1950s involving Orange 1, the FDA retested food colors. Later, in 1960, the FDA was given jurisdiction over color additives, limiting the amounts that could be added to foods and requiring producers of food color to ensure safety and proper labeling of colors. Permission to use food additives was given on a provisional basis, which could be withdrawn should safety issues arise. The FDA gave " generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) provisional status to substances already in use, and extended Red No. 2's provisional status 14 times. In 1971, a Soviet study linked the dye to cancer. By 1976, over of the dye worth $5 million was used as a colorant in $10 billion worth of foods, drugs and cosmetics. Consumer activists in the United States, perturbed by what they perceived as collusion between the FDA and food conglomerates, put pressure on the FDA to ban it. FDA Commissioner Alexander M. Schmidt defended the agency's stance, as he had earlier defended the FDA against collusion accusations in his 1975 book, stating that the FDA found "no evidence of a public health hazard". Testing by the FDA found a statistically significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors in female rats given a high dosage of the dye, and concluded that since there could also no longer be a presumption of safety, that use of the dye should be discontinued. The FDA banned FD&C Red No. 2 in 1976. FD&C Red No. 40 (Allura Red AC) replaced the banned Red No. 2.

References

{{reflist, 30em Azo dyes Food colorings Organic sodium salts Naphthalenesulfonates Suspected carcinogens Suspected fetotoxicants Acid dyes

History and health effects

See also

Red dyes

References