Ammonium phosphatides are the emulsifiers the food industry lists as E442. In our table they are no risk identified: they take no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from EFSA: No reason to revise the existing ADI of 30 mg/kg bw per day; low acute oral toxicity and no adverse effects in a 90-day rat study; no concern for genotoxicity; 'the ADI is not exceeded in any population group', so use at permitted/reported levels is not of safety concern (EFSA Journal, Re-evaluation of ammonium phosphatides (E 442) as a food additive (2016), efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4597)
- No child flag. The class, and the points it costs, are the same for a child of any age.
- Where you meet it. They turn up in 4 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in cookies. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 1 citation from EFSA, each one below.
What Ammonium phosphatides do to a score
A packaged food's additive subscore starts at 100 and loses points for each additive on the label; that subscore is a third of the final score. Ammonium phosphatides take no points off a product's score. Scan the pack in Sito and the score you get is the one for your own child's age, with this additive named in the reasons. How we score has the whole method.
See what is in your own cupboard
Scan a packaged food and Sito names the additives in it, then scores the product out of 100 for your child's age.
What the sources found
Every classification in our table comes from the citations below, and nothing else. Each finding is our one-line summary of what the source concluded, with the source and reference beside it.
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EFSA
Journal, Re-evaluation of ammonium phosphatides (E 442) as a food additive (2016), efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4597
No reason to revise the existing ADI of 30 mg/kg bw per day; low acute oral toxicity and no adverse effects in a 90-day rat study; no concern for genotoxicity; 'the ADI is not exceeded in any population group', so use at permitted/reported levels is not of safety concern.
Why this class
Clean current EFSA and FDA status. These rows exist so that an unfamiliar additive is never treated as a bad one: a missing row costs a product nothing, and a clean row says so with citations.
Our confidence in this row's classification is high. Medium or low does not mean the evidence is weak; it means something about the row is still being pinned down, usually a regulatory status confirmed from one source rather than two.
Questions parents ask
Are Ammonium phosphatides (E442) safe for kids?
No risk identified. No regulator finding we score, so a product keeps its full additive subscore in Sito. The current status is clean: No reason to revise the existing ADI of 30 mg/kg bw per day; low acute oral toxicity and no adverse effects in a 90-day rat study; no concern for genotoxicity; 'the ADI is not exceeded in any population group', so use at permitted/reported levels is not of safety concern (EFSA Journal, Re-evaluation of ammonium phosphatides (E 442) as a food additive (2016), efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4597).
What is E442?
E442 is the E number for Ammonium phosphatides, which our table lists as an emulsifier. Open Food Facts tags it en:e442.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E442 in our table, then the closest emulsifiers by number.
- Polysorbate 60 (E435), low risk, flagged for young children
- Polysorbate 65 (E436), low risk, flagged for young children
- Pectins (E440), no risk identified
- BVO (E443), high risk
- Sucrose acetate isobutyrate (E444), no risk identified
- Glycerol esters of wood rosin (E445), no risk identified