[MargaretR]

Originally Posted by Michael1954

Well I had some reduced kippers the other day and they were delicious.

Were they really naturally smoked or were they flavoured and coloured by Brown FK? or did you even bother to look at the label?


EFSA - Opinion of the Scientific Committee/Scientific Panel: Re-evaluation of Brown FK (E 154) as a food additive

"Adverse effects seen after short-term or prolonged exposure to Brown FK in rats and/or mice include damage to cardiac (and to a minor extent skeletal) muscle fibres, characterised by vacuolar myopathy, degenerative lesions including myocardial fibrosis, necrosis and pigment deposition. Other changes induced by Brown FK include occasional hydropic degeneration of the kidney, fatty change of the liver, and increases in organ weight (spleen, liver, heart, testes and thyroid)."

Kippers

"Colouring

There is a small demand for undyed kippers, but these are rather pale in colour after smoking. Most consumers prefer a rich mahogany colour which cannot be achieved by smoking without losing a lot of weight and producing an overdried product, so that most kippers for the British market are dyed in the brine bath.

The dyes used are mostly water-soluble coal tar derivatives, which the processor buys in powder form; a dye is dissolved in water and added to the brine bath until the dipped fish are judged by eye to be of the required colour. The dye mixture used almost universally at present for home kipper production is known as brown FK, but mixtures of other permitted dyes are available that give the desired colour. It would be possible to control the concentration of dye to a specific level in the finished product, at least with continuous briners, by metering the amount of dye added to the bath."