The thought that a dye which might shine your shoes could pass your lips is alarming.

But that is what has happened. What is described as the largest food recall in British history has been triggered by the revelation that the potentially cancer causing red dye, Sudan 1, has been found to have illegally contaminated a batch of chilli powder.

The 428 products affected by this scare range from table-top sauces to food ingredients.

Sudan 1, normally used as a colouring in solvents, oils, waxes, petrol and shoe and floor polishes, is banned under UK and European Union rules.

While Government agencies and local authorities try to clear our shop and canteen shelves of affected products, what about the bigger picture and what this scare actually means?

While it is unlikely that there is an immediate risk to health, this food alert raises a number of questions. What are we eating? Who is in control of what we eat? And what exactly is in the food we eat?

Why we eat what we eat is more complex than it first appears.

Our dietary habits are a result of years of evolution, both personal and technological development, and cultural influences. The list goes on, down to the basics of eating what we like the taste of.

Time, work, other people's food likes and dislikes and food availability and accessibility all play a huge role in our diet.

What this scare has highlighted is that the Food Standards Agency is capable of dealing with such situations and that affected products can be detected.

On the other hand, this scare has brought home how little control we actually have over what we are consuming.

Understanding that this scare has a low risk of any health consequences does not quell the realisation that the food we eat has been through a complex process before arriving on our tables.

`Food' is a massive global industry, and the regulatory process is immense. On this occasion the dye slipped through before certification was necessary - and the resulting lesson from this will probably be tighter regulation.

But if a dye also used in shoe polish can slip through the net, what else can? Do we want to be eating food that is filled with colourings and flavourings? Or will this food scare be the catalyst for the nation to be more observant about ingredients on food labels?

Since the 1960s large food retailers have emerged and captured most of the food market. In the 1980s and through to the 1990s this transformation was complete with the larger supermarket chains being largely in control of the UK grocery market.

There has been a revolution in the physical distribution of products, logistics, IT development - all at the demise of the smaller, independent grocery stores. Our food choice today is immense, but to some extent we are limited by what goods the supermarket actually provides.

The wide range of products, and the innovation of food manufacturers, will probably have a long-term impact on our food choice and dietary intake. Foods affected by the Sudan 1 scare include soups, sauces and ready meals, most of which could be classed as convenience foods. There was a time, long ago, when users of convenience foods were seen to be `lazy', shying away from their homemaking duties.

But times have changed, and so have demographics. Many of us live alone and there are fewer families and multi-person households - ideal for `meals for one.' Or is it?

Patterns of life have changed. We eat on the run and time is always an issue. Convenience puts more emphasis into time-saving, but convenience at the cost of something else - perhaps our health?

There are a number of levels through which a processed food has to pass before reaching our microwave ovens - a far cry from harvesting, peeling and cooking vegetables from our own garden, or collecting eggs from the nearby farm.

So will this food scare now have us all running scared and shying away from foods with additives?

Previous scares, such as BSE or salmonella, have generated a `climate of fear', raised awareness about food safety and directed mistrust towards the government and food companies.

But there is another way of looking at this. Food scares are good stories, particularly issues surrounding food safety.

The media has a vital and important role in translating information to everyone about food safety - but perhaps now is the opportunity to look at this incident and think about what it says about our diet as a whole.

Consumer confidence 'not too badly affected'

The impact on consumers of the Sudan 1 food scare will take months to properly assess, according to retail groups.

But they say the risk is small, people are aware of that and consumer confidence should not be too badly affected.

And according to Kate Ison, press officer at the British Retail Consortium, shoppers will not be expected to pick up the cost.

"There are no set-in-stone precedents about how this will be dealt with in terms of cost. The customer can take any affected goods back to the shop and they will get their money back so it will not cost them anything.

"But in this situation the retailer is also a customer to the supplier and it is the suppliers they will be looking to get back some of their losses.

"The larger supermarkets already have measures in place should an occurrence like this occur, but there is no set way the smaller retailers will go about getting back their costs.

"At the end of the day it will be the supplier of the contaminated batch of food which will be expected to deal with the monetary losses, and I am sure different retailers and manufacturers are already involved in negotiations to work out what this will be."

Ms Ison said it was too soon to tell if the Sudan 1 scare would change people's attitudes to food.

"While there has never been a product recall on this scale before, people should remember the most important thing that the Food Standards Agency said - and that is that there is no immediate risk to health.

"The contamination itself is like a drop of water in a swimming pool. This is not the first potential `food scare' and it probably won't be the last and I think customers are becoming a lot wiser, and also somewhat jaded.

"The most important thing retailers have done, and will continue to do for their customers, is to remove the potentially affected products as soon as possible to ensure any risk is eliminated.

"Considering the scale of this, the whole sector, large and small, has reacted very quickly and effectively and we are still working closely with suppliers, the FSA, and trade associations to ensure this continues."