Calcium disodium EDTA (E385)

Names on a label

• E385
• E 385
• Calcium disodium EDTA

Labels outside Europe often print the number on its own, without the E.

What it’s used for

The FDA lists these uses in food: antioxidant; color or coloring adjunct; flavor enhancer; fumigant; sequestrant.¹

What regulators and scientists say

• EFSA set an acceptable daily intake of 2.5 mg per kilogram of body weight per day (November 26, 2009). For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, that’s about 175 mg a day.²
• The FDA permits it as a color additive by regulation (21 CFR 73.1).¹

An acceptable daily intake is, in EFSA’s words, “an estimate of the amount of a substance in food or drinking water that can be consumed daily over a lifetime without presenting an appreciable risk to health.”³