FINALS 1.2 ADDITIVES

• Food additives


  Substances that are added to food to maintain or improve the safety, freshness, taste, texture, or appearance of the food
• Food additives


  • Developed to meet the needs of food production; small scale → large scale
  • FDA lists over 3000 ingredients in its database
• Types of food additives

  • Chemical preservative
  • Firming agents
  • Coloring agents
  • Flavoring agents
  • Stabilizers
  • Thickeners
  • Acidifiers/acidulants
  • Humectants/sequestrants
  • Nutritional supplements
  • Anti-caking agents
• Chemical preservatives


  Substances which either delay the growth of microorganisms without necessarily destroying them or prevent deterioration of quality during manufacture and distribution
• Benzoates


  Benzoic acid is a commonly used antimicrobial preservative in food and beverages, especially in carbonated beverages, as it presents its strongest antibacterial activity at pH 2.5–4.0
• Functions of nitrites in cured meats

  1. Contributes to the flavor

  2. Reacts with myoglobin to give mononitrosylhaemochrome which gives the characteristic pink color

  3. Inhibits the growth of food spoilage bacteria, and most importantly, Clostridium botulinum
• Sulfites


  SO2 and soluble sulfite salts are employed as antimicrobial and antioxidant agents, enzymes, and Maillard reaction inhibitors
• Parabens


  Retain their efficacy at pH levels of up to 8.0, making them a wide-spectrum antimicrobial agent and a popular choice to use in foods closer to a neutral pH
• Firming agents


  Food additives added in order to precipitate residual pectin, thus strengthening the structure of the food and preventing its collapse during processing
• Coloring agents


  Synthetic food dyes are widely used to enhance the appearance of foods and offer certain advantages over natural colorings in that they are brighter, more stable, cheaper, and available in a greater variety of colors
• Natural coloring agents


  • Betalain
  • Carotenoid
  • Anthocyanin
• Synthetic coloring agent


  • Tartrazine
• Flavoring agents


  Additive substances that give an additional taste or flavor, and help in masking unpleasant tastes
• Stabilizers, thickeners, gelling agents


  Substances that give foods a smooth and consistent texture, commonly referred to as food hydrocolloids
• Stabilizers


  Allow food ingredients that do not mix well retain a homogenous dispersion
• Stabilizers


  • Agar
  • Carrageenan
  • Pectin
• Thickeners


  Increase the viscosity of food without affecting other properties like taste
• Thickeners


  • Starches and gums
  • Proteins (e.g. gelatin)
• Acidifiers/acidulants


  Additives, mainly acids or their salts, hydroxides, and oxides, used as acidifiers, buffering agents, or pH adjusting agents
• Humectants/sequestrants


  Hygroscopic substances that control water activity because its reduction preserves texture and enhances food stability against deterioration caused by microorganisms
• Humectants/sequestrants


  • Sugar alcohols
  • Glycerol
  • Glycerol triacetate
  • Polydextrose
  • Propylene glycol
  • Salts of ortho-, di-, tri-, and polyphosphoric acids
  • Polysaccharides used as stabilizers and thickeners, such as alginic acid and its salts, agar, and carrageenan
• Nutritional supplements


  Any vitamin or mineral added during processing to improve nutritive value and sometimes to provide specific nutrients in which populations are deficient
• Food Fortification Law - iodized salt must be used to combat iodine deficiency
• Anti-caking agents


  Control moisture content and inhibit the formation of aggregates or lumps
• Anti-caking agents


  • Inorganic calcium and magnesium salts
  • Fatty acid calcium and magnesium salts
  • Oxides (magnesium oxide and silicon dioxide)
  • Cellulose
  • Soybean hemicellulose
• Foods that anti-caking agents are added to

  • Dried powdered foods
  • Foods in tablet and coated tablet form
  • Food supplements such as in capsules or tablets
  • Rice
  • Salt and salt substitutes
  • Sliced or grated hard, semihard, or semisoft ripened and unripened cheese products
  • Processed cheese products
  • Sugar confections
  • Spreadable fats
  • Tabletop sweeteners in powdered form or in tablets
  • Whey cheese products
• GRAS substances


  A group of additives regarded by qualified experts as "generally recognized as safe" due to their past extensive use without showing any harmful effects
• Prior sanctioned substances


  Products that already were in use in foods prior to the 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the federal FD&C Act and are therefore considered exempt from the approval process
• Regulated direct/indirect additives


  All other additives that require a specific food additive petition to be filed with the FDA, providing convincing evidence that the proposed additive performs as intended and would not cause harmful effects at expected levels of human consumption