ADDITIVES USED IN FOOD PROCESSING AND THEIR HEALTH IMPLICATIONS

WHY ADDITIVES ?

Additives are substance used in or around food that may become a component of the food. Some are introduced specifically for the purpose of improving  appearance, taste, texture, or shelf life of the product; these are intentional additives, others enter food as residues after some stage of production or manufacture and are known as incidental additives.

WHAT ARE FOOD ADDITIVES ?

A food additives is any substance not normally consumed as a food in itself and not normally used as a characteristic ingredient of food whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which the food for a technological purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packaging, transport or storage of such food result, in it or its by-products becoming directly or indirectly a component of such foods.  Examples of additives are Carageenan, Mannitol, Xanthan Gum, Dextrins, Sodium Alginate, Glycerin and Calcium phosphate etc.  Many food additives are naturally occurring and some are even essential nutrients. Some food additives that are regarded as poisonous when consumed in excessive quantities may be useful in smaller amount.

 Additives can be conveniently classified as the following;

– Food Colours:  The successful marketing of food products relies to a great extent upon the colour and appearance of the food. Thus colouring agents are often added in order to enhance the product image.   E.g  tartrazine.

– Food Acidulants: Acids are added to foods for a variety of reasons, e.g. to impart a sharp taste to the product or to adjust the PH.  These acid materials may be organic origin (Citric acid) or they may be inorganic derivative (phosphoric acid ).

– Flavours and Sweeteners: In this group are flavouring agents such as maltol, which is a naturally occurring flavouring added to bread and cakes, as well as flavour enhances like monosodium glutamate.  Many substances are added to food in order to impart a sweet taste, including glucose, fructose and lactose.

– Flour improvers, anti-staling agents and bleaches: Chemicals are added to the flour blend in order to produce an open strutted loaf of bread from a mixture of different types of wheat.  Similarly, substances may be added to a flour blend in order to whiten the product bread loaf (chlorine dioxide).

– Fat extenders, emulsifiers, gelling agents, stabilizers, and thickeners: In many foods, the product quality may depend to a certain extent upon the level of fat incorporated, it is therefore prudent to extent or make the proportion of fat go further by adding a compound such as G.M.S. – glyceryl monostearate.  Emulsifiers are used to hold together unline particles such as oil and water, and so form a stable emulsion, e.g. mayonnaisse.  Emulsifiers agents may be derived from natural sources, e.g. lecithin or from synthetic sources, e.g. ethylene oxide condensates.

– Anti-Oxidants, anti-caking agents, anti-foaming agent, sequestering and chelating agents: Fats and oils are susceptible to oxidation, particularly those of animal origin, resulting eventually to the breakdown of the triglyceride molecule.

The addition of anti-oxidants at low levels helps to delay this breakdown process.

– Anti-caking agent: These are chemical substances added to particulate food solids such as sugar, flour and salt in order to improve their flow properties.

– Anti foaming agent:  These may be added to refined oils and fats or other food liquids in order to minimize foaming and frothing at elevated temperatures E990 (climethyl polysiloxane) is normally added to the refined oil blend at very low levels.

–  Chelating agents:  These are used to retain a trace metal in solution and prevent precipitation.

To be continued......

Article by:

Ojo Olalekan Solomon

Food, Nutrients and Health

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