Titanium dioxide (E171): What the Sources Found

Titanium dioxide is the colour the food industry lists as E171. 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.
No child flag. Nothing below is written about children specifically, so the class is the same at every age.
4 citations from EFSA, Law, IARC, OEHHA, each one below.

What Titanium dioxide does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Titanium dioxide takes 30 of the 33 additive 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.2021.6585
'E171 can no longer be considered as safe when used as a food additive'; a concern for genotoxicity of TiO2 particles cannot be ruled out; an ADI cannot be established.
Law EU: Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63 (adopted 2022-01-14)
Authorisation to use titanium dioxide as a food additive withdrawn across the EU.
IARC Monographs Vol. 93 (2010), titanium dioxide
Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic to humans) - scoped to airborne, unbound particles of respirable size, i.e. the inhalation route, not dietary exposure.
OEHHA Prop 65, titanium dioxide (airborne, unbound particles of respirable size), listed 2011; NSRLs effective 2025-10-01
Prop 65 listing covers only the airborne respirable form; it does not reach titanium dioxide bound in food.

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IARC Group 1 or 2A with a dietary exposure route; or EFSA has withdrawn or negated a safety conclusion; or EFSA’s own exposure assessment finds a child age group exceeding the ADI at mean intake; or the substance is banned or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.