Ingredient · Color
Titanium Dioxide
A bright white pigment used to whiten and opacify icings, coffee creamers, chewing gum, and sweet coatings. It has no nutritional purpose and, like other colours, exists to change how a product looks.
also known as E171, TiO2
In 2021 the European Food Safety Authority concluded it could no longer consider E171 safe as a food additive, because it was unable to rule out genotoxicity from the nanoparticle fraction. The EU banned it in food from August 2022.
It remains permitted in the US, and is still used in non-food applications including some pharmaceutical coatings and cosmetics. That split is the reason it appears in this directory: the same additive is prohibited in one major market and allowed in another, so the classification here reflects the more cautious reading.
Why it’s classified this way
Classified High risk: banned as a food additive in the EU since 2022 on unresolved genotoxicity concerns, while still permitted in the US.
References
- EFSA opinion on the safety of titanium dioxide (2021)
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63