Ebook

The Caramel Color File: Four Colors. One Name.

Caramel color is used in greater quantity than every other color additive combined, and it hides in plain sight: colas, sauces, breads, spirits, gravies, pet food. But "caramel color" isn't one thing. It's four — classified E150a through E150d, made by four different processes, two of them using ammonia. Only some of them can carry the byproduct that put caramel color on a state carcinogen list and quietly pushed the biggest soft-drink makers to reformulate. The label gives you none of that. This file goes to the record: what the four classes actually are, what the byproduct is and what the evidence on it supports, why the reformulation happened without an announcement, and what a shopper can and can't tell from an ingredient statement that names a category instead of a substance. Every claim is graded in a certainty ledger — established, probable, open, unsupported — and nothing gets promoted a grade to make a better headline. Where the evidence runs out, the ledger says so. It closes with a wallet card: what to look for on a package in ten seconds, no chemistry required. Not a scare, not a cleanse, not medical advice. The principle is on the cover and it cuts both ways — Approved ≠ Safe. Not Approved ≠ Unsafe. Instant PDF, built to read on a phone.

• What the four classes — E150a through E150d — actually are
• The byproduct behind the state carcinogen listing, on the record
• Why the soft-drink reformulation happened without an announcement
• A certainty ledger that grades every claim honestly
• A wallet card for reading a package in ten seconds

Read the free ingredient entry →