Chlorine dioxide is the additive the food industry lists as E926. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from the FDA: Chlorine dioxide permitted as an optional bleaching ingredient in US flour (21 CFR 137.105 (eCFR), Flour, optional bleaching ingredients)
- No child flag. The class, and the points it costs, are the same for a child of any age.
- Where you meet it. None of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts list it. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 2 citations from the FDA and EU law, each one below.
What Chlorine dioxide does 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. Chlorine dioxide takes 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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FDA
21 CFR 137.105 (eCFR) — Flour, optional bleaching ingredients
Chlorine dioxide permitted as an optional bleaching ingredient in US flour. -
EU law
Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, consolidated text 02008R1333 — EN — 16.12.2024 — 059.001 (EUR-Lex), Annex II Part B 'List of all additives' and Annex III
Checked against the consolidated primary text: 'E 926' occurs nowhere in the Union list — neither in Annex II Part B (the enumeration of all authorised additives) nor in Annex III. Under Article 4 the Union list is a positive list, so chlorine dioxide has no authorised food use in the EU. Absence from the list is non-authorisation, not a ban or a withdrawal.
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 medium. 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
Is Chlorine dioxide (E926) 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: Chlorine dioxide permitted as an optional bleaching ingredient in US flour (FDA, 21 CFR 137.105 (eCFR), Flour, optional bleaching ingredients).
What is E926?
E926 is the E number for Chlorine dioxide, an additive. Open Food Facts tags it en:e926.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E926 in our table, then the closest additives of the same kind by number.
- L-cysteine (E920), no risk identified
- Potassium bromate (E924a), high risk
- Azodicarbonamide and carbamide (E927), low risk, flagged for young children
- Azodicarbonamide (E927a), low risk, flagged for young children
- urea (E927b), no risk identified
- Calcium peroxide (E930), no risk identified