Food colors, flavors, and safety: A consumer viewpoint

Abstract

A 1985 US survey of 200 female readers of Good Housekeeping assessed consumer attitudes toward artificial flavors and colors in foods and how these attitudes affect food-purchasing decisions. Factors affecting purchasing included considerations of safety, taste, freshness, purity, and price. Most respondents ranked the absence of artificial flavorings, preservatives, ingredients, and coloring, and the presence of natural flavor, essential vitamins, and high protein and fiber, highest. Consumers' fear of artificial food additives focused on their possible causation of cancer and a basic fear of chemicals. They ranked NutraSweet over other artificial sweeteners in terms of benefit, and natural color or no color added as being the most acceptable. The respondents placed greatest belief on information provided by the American Medical Association, their personal physicians, a nutrition expert, and the US Surgeon General.(wz)