Modified starch (E14xx): What the Sources Found

Modified starch is the thickener the food industry lists as E14xx. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score for a child.

In short

No risk identified. No regulator finding we score, so a product keeps all 33 additive points.
No child flag. Nothing below is written about children specifically, so the class is the same at every age.
3 citations from EFSA, Open Food Facts, each one below.

What Modified starch does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Modified starch 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.

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 10.2903/j.efsa.2017.4911 (PMC7009865)
Re-evaluation of modified starches E 1404, 1410, 1412, 1413, 1414, 1420, 1422, 1440, 1442, 1450, 1451, 1452: previous ADI 'not specified' upheld, no need for a numerical ADI, no safety concern at reported uses and use levels for the general population; modified starches are hydrolysed by intestinal enzymes and fermented by the microbiota rather than absorbed intact.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2020.5874
Follow-up on starch sodium octenyl succinate (E 1450) in foods for infants below 16 weeks: available data did not allow an adequate safety assessment at authorised maximum use levels in infant formula (gastrointestinal symptoms reported).
Open Food Facts additives taxonomy node en:e14xx (live taxonomy, 683 nodes, verified 2026-08-10)
OFF names this node 'E14XX - Modified Starch'; there is no 'en:e1499' node in the taxonomy, confirming that 'e14xx' is the correct E-number for this entry.

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.