Levantamento de aditivos alimentares em produtos alimentícios voltados para o público infantil e seus impactos na saúde

Abstract

Consumption of ultra-processed foods can be especially harmful in childhood, as children are considered more vulnerable to the effects of food additives, which have had an acceptable daily intake (ADI) established for adults. Theobjective was to evaluate, according to the information on the labels, the types of food additives present in foods targeted at children. It is a cross-sectional, descriptive study which compiled the types of additives in the ingredient list of eight categories (fruit drink, dairy drinks, sandwich cookies, cakes, breakfast cereals, jellies, corn chips, and yogurts) of products with child appeal (n = 409) collected in supermarkets in Belo Horizonte-MG, in the second half of 2018. Only 19 (4.6%) products hadno additives. The cakes (8,3 ± 2.1) and gelatins (8,3 ± 1.2) categories presented the highest average of additives and the morning cereals category, the lowest (2,0 ± 1.6). The most commonly found food additives were: flavoring (79%; n = 323), colorings (56%; n = 229) and emulsifiers (36%; n = 148). It was mainly found the classes of flavorings, colorings and emulsifiers.