Calcium diglutamate (E623): What the Sources Found

Calcium diglutamate is the flavour enhancer the food industry lists as E623. In our table it is high risk: it takes 30 of the 33 additive points off a product's score for a child.

In short

High risk. 30 of the 33 additive points come off a product that carries it.
Flagged for young children. Set only where EFSA’s own exposure assessment shows toddlers or children exceeding or approaching the ADI, or where a regulator used explicitly child-specific language. For a child under 6 it moves one class up.
2 citations from EFSA, each one below.

What Calcium diglutamate does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Calcium diglutamate takes 30 of the 33 additive points off a product's score, and a child under 6 sees it one class higher again. 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.

What the sources found

Every classification in our table comes from the citations below, and nothing else. They are quoted as the source wrote them.

EFSA Journal 2017;15(7):4910, doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2017.4910 (PMC7009848)
Group ADI of 30 mg/kg bw/day expressed as glutamic acid applies to E 620-625 including calcium diglutamate.
EFSA Journal 2017;15(7):4910, exposure assessment (PMC7009848)
Mean glutamate exposure in toddlers and children exceeded the group ADI and the MSG symptom complex dose; P95 exposure in infants, toddlers and children exceeded doses associated with adverse effects in humans.

Why this class

IARC Group 1 or 2A with a dietary exposure route; or EFSA has withdrawn or negated a safety conclusion; or EFSA’s own exposure assessment finds a child age group exceeding the ADI at mean intake; or the substance is banned or formally being phased out for food use by the EU, by the US FDA, or under a US state law.

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.