food additive
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What is a food additive?
Food additives are chemical substances added to foods to achieve specific effects. They have been used since ancient times for preservation and to enhance palatability. Modern food processing relies on additives to create many products, such as low-calorie, snack, and ready-to-eat foods.
Food additives are categorized as nutritional, processing, preservatives, or sensory agents, though some may fit in multiple categories. Processing agents maintain food consistency, using emulsifiers for uniform liquid dispersion, stabilizers/thickeners to increase viscosity, and chelating agents to protect against enzymatic reactions. Food coloring enhances the appearance of foods, with sources ranging from natural vegetable dyes to synthetic substances. Additives undergo toxicological analysis to determine acceptable daily intake and ensure they are safe for consumption.
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Why are food additives used in food processing?
Food additives serve several purposes in food processing, such as preservation, enhancing taste and appearance, and aiding in processing. They are used to maintain freshness, prevent spoilage, and extend shelf life by inhibiting the growth of molds, preventing oxidation, and controlling moisture.
Flavor additives, including natural and artificial flavorings and flavor enhancers, replace flavors lost during processing or create new products. Color additives, both natural and synthetic, enhance the appearance of foods, which can be altered or lost during processing. Processing agents, such as emulsifiers, stabilizers, and thickeners, maintain consistency, aid in food production, and prevent deterioration during processing and storage.
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What types of food additives are there?
Food additives enhance food's appeal, taste, or shelf life. They are generally categorized as nutritional additives, processing agents, preservatives, and sensory agents.
- Sensory Agents These include food colorings to enhance appearance, and flavorings to stimulate taste and smell. Flavorings, the largest group of additives, can be natural or artificial.
- Preservatives These delay microbial growth and spoilage. Sugar, salt, and vinegar have been used for centuries. Sulfur dioxide and sulfites are important inorganic preservatives, while nitrates and nitrites are common in curing meats.
- Processing Agents These aid manufacturing and maintain consistency. Emulsifiers maintain liquid dispersion, while stabilizers and thickeners increase viscosity. Chelating agents protect against enzymatic reactions.
- Nutritional Additives These include nutritional supplements.
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How do preservatives help keep food safe?
Preservatives help keep food safe by preventing spoilage from chemical changes and the growth of microorganisms. They are classified as either antioxidants, which prevent food deterioration through oxidation, or antimicrobials, which inhibit the growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms.
Antimicrobials are often used with other preservation methods like refrigeration. Examples of antimicrobials include organic acids (acetic, benzoic, propionic, and sorbic acids), nitrates, nitrites, sulfur dioxide, sulfites, nisin, and natamycin. Some preservatives, such as sodium nitrate and nitrite, also improve the appearance of food.
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What are some concerns people have about artificial additives?
Many are concerned about artificial food additives due to potential health risks. Some synthetic colorants like Allura Red AC and Tartrazine may cause psychotoxicity and hypersensitive reactions in some individuals. Rigorous toxicological analyses are conducted on food additives, but some studies have linked high concentrations of additives like saccharin and cyclamates to tumour development in animals. Certain additives, such as sulfites, nitrates, nitrites, certain food colorants, and monosodium glutamate (MSG) can cause reactions in susceptible people. Because of these concerns, some countries have disallowed certain additives.
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How do governments regulate the safety of food additives in processed foods?
Governments ensure the safety of food additives in processed foods through regulatory agencies that inspect, test, and set safety standards. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to approve food additives, establish purity standards, conduct factory inspections, and enforce labeling requirements. The FDA can prevent the sale of untested products and take legal action against those that violate safety standards, ensuring that food additives used in the food processing industry are safe for consumption.
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food additive, any of various chemical substances added to foods to produce specific desirable effects. Additives such as salt, spices, and sulfites have been used since ancient times to preserve foods and make them more palatable. With the increased processing of foods in the 20th century, there came a need for both the greater use of and new types of food additives. Many modern products, such as low-calorie, snack, and ready-to-eat convenience foods, would not be possible without food additives.
There are four general categories of food additives: nutritional additives, processing agents, preservatives, and sensory agents. These are not strict classifications, as many additives fall into more than one category. For more information on additives, see emulsifier; food coloring; nutritional supplement; and preservative.
Nutritional additives
Nutritional additives are used for the purpose of restoring nutrients lost or degraded during production, fortifying or enriching certain foods in order to correct dietary deficiencies, or adding nutrients to food substitutes. The fortification of foods began in 1924 when iodine was added to table salt for the prevention of goitre. Vitamins are commonly added to many foods in order to enrich their nutritional value. For example, vitamins A and D are added to dairy and cereal products, several of the B vitamins are added to flour, cereals, baked goods, and pasta, and vitamin C is added to fruit beverages, cereals, dairy products, and confectioneries. Other nutritional additives include the essential fatty acid linoleic acid, minerals such as calcium and iron, and dietary fibre.
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Processing agents
A number of agents are added to foods in order to aid in processing or to maintain the desired consistency of the product.
| function | typical chemical agent | typical product |
|---|---|---|
| anticaking | sodium aluminosilicate | salt |
| bleaching | benzoyl peroxide | flour |
| chelating | ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) | dressings, mayonnaise, sauces, dried bananas |
| clarifying | bentonite, proteins | fruit juices, wines |
| conditioning | potassium bromate | flour |
| emulsifying | lecithin | ice cream, mayonnaise, bakery products |
| leavening | yeast, baking powder, baking soda | bakery products |
| moisture control (humectants) | glycerol | marshmallows, soft candies, chewing gum |
| pH control | citric acid, lactic acid | certain cheeses, confections, jams and jellies |
| stabilizing and thickening | pectin, gelatin, carrageenan, gums (arabic, guar, locust bean) | dressings, frozen desserts, confections, pudding mixes, jams and jellies |
Emulsifiers are used to maintain a uniform dispersion of one liquid in another, such as oil in water. The basic structure of an emulsifying agent includes a hydrophobic portion, usually a long-chain fatty acid, and a hydrophilic portion that may be either charged or uncharged. The hydrophobic portion of the emulsifier dissolves in the oil phase, and the hydrophilic portion dissolves in the aqueous phase, forming a dispersion of small oil droplets. Emulsifiers thus form and stabilize oil-in-water emulsions (e.g., mayonnaise), uniformly disperse oil-soluble flavor compounds throughout a product, prevent large ice crystal formation in frozen products (e.g., ice cream), and improve the volume, uniformity, and fineness of baked products.
Stabilizers and thickeners have many functions in foods. Most stabilizing and thickening agents are polysaccharides, such as starches or gums, or proteins, such as gelatin. The primary function of these compounds is to act as thickening or gelling agents that increase the viscosity of the final product. These agents stabilize emulsions, either by adsorbing to the outer surface of oil droplets or by increasing the viscosity of the water phase. Thus, they prevent the coalescence of the oil droplets, promoting the separation of the oil phase from the aqueous phase (i.e., creaming). The formation and stabilization of foam in a food product occurs by a similar mechanism, except that the oil phase is replaced by a gas phase. The compounds also act to inhibit the formation of ice or sugar crystals in foods and can be used to encapsulate flavor compounds.
Chelating, or sequestering, agents protect food products from many enzymatic reactions that promote deterioration during processing and storage. These agents bind to many of the minerals that are present in food (e.g., calcium and magnesium) and are required as cofactors for the activity of certain enzymes.
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