Why food additive is so important in our daily life?
2018-09-03 10:07:22
Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste, appearance, or other qualities. Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling (with vinegar), salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as with wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the twentieth century, many more additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin.
Food additives can be divided into several groups, although there is some overlap because some additives exert more than one effect. For example, salt is both a preservative as well as a flavor.
Acidity regulators :Acidity regulators are used for controlling the pH of foods for stability or to affect activity of enzymes.
Food coloring :Colorings are added to food to replace colors lost during preparation or to make food look more attractive.
Fortifying agents:Vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements to increase the nutritional value
Color retention agents :In contrast to colorings, color retention agents are used to preserve a food's existing color.
Emulsifiers :Emulsifiers allow water and oils to remain mixed together in an emulsion, as in mayonnaise, ice cream, and homogenized milk.
Flavors :Flavors are additives that give food a particular taste or smell, and may be derived from natural ingredients or created artificially.
Preservatives :Preservatives prevent or inhibit spoilage of food due to fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms.
Stabilizers :Stabilizers, thickeners and gelling agents, like agar or pectin (used in jam for example) give foods a firmer texture. While they are not true emulsifiers, they help to stabilize emulsions.
Sweeteners :Sweeteners are added to foods for flavoring. Sweeteners other than sugar are added to keep the food energy (calories) low, or because they have beneficial effects regarding diabetes mellitus, tooth decay, or diarrhea.
Thickeners :Thickening agents are substances which, when added to the mixture, increase its viscosity without substantially modifying its other properties.
Food additives are one of the most active, developing and improving contents in the food industry. Many food additives have been improved rapidly in purity and use efficiency, for example, enzyme preparation, and the activity and use efficiency of many products have made new progress every year or even every quarter. Therefore, the processing enterprises of green food should pay attention to the new trend of the development of food additive industry and constantly improve the use level of food additives in product processing.