Food Additive
INTRODUCTION
The use of food additives is an emotional topic which continues to provoke consumer concern. Despite modern-day associations food additives have been used for centuries. Food preservation began when man first learned to safeguard food from one harvest to the next and by the salting and smoking of meat and fish. The Egyptians used colors and flavorings, and the Romans used saltpeter (potassium nitrate), spices and colors for preservation and to improve the appearance of foods. Cooks regularly used baking powder as a raising agent, thickeners for sauces and gravies, and colors, such as cochineal, to transform good-quality raw materials into foods that were safe, wholesome and enjoyable to eat. The overall aims of traditional home cooking remain the same as those prepared and preserved by today's food manufacturing methods.
Over the last 50 years, developments in food science and technology have led to the discovery of many new substances that can fulfill numerous functions in foods. These food additives are now readily available and include; emulsifiers in margarine, sweeteners in low-calorie products and a wider range of preservatives and antioxidants which slow product spoilage and rancidity whilst maintaining taste.
A food additive is defined as "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 to food for a technological purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packaging, transport or storage of such food results, or may be reasonably expected to result, in it or its by-products becoming directly or indirectly a component of such foods" (Council Directive 89/107/EEC). Many food additives are naturally occurring and some are even essential nutrient. It is the technical purpose that leads to these being classified as food additives and given an E number.
Food additives play an important
The use of food additives is an emotional topic which continues to provoke consumer concern. Despite modern-day associations food additives have been used for centuries. Food preservation began when man first learned to safeguard food from one harvest to the next and by the salting and smoking of meat and fish. The Egyptians used colors and flavorings, and the Romans used saltpeter (potassium nitrate), spices and colors for preservation and to improve the appearance of foods. Cooks regularly used baking powder as a raising agent, thickeners for sauces and gravies, and colors, such as cochineal, to transform good-quality raw materials into foods that were safe, wholesome and enjoyable to eat. The overall aims of traditional home cooking remain the same as those prepared and preserved by today's food manufacturing methods.
Over the last 50 years, developments in food science and technology have led to the discovery of many new substances that can fulfill numerous functions in foods. These food additives are now readily available and include; emulsifiers in margarine, sweeteners in low-calorie products and a wider range of preservatives and antioxidants which slow product spoilage and rancidity whilst maintaining taste.
A food additive is defined as "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 to food for a technological purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packaging, transport or storage of such food results, or may be reasonably expected to result, in it or its by-products becoming directly or indirectly a component of such foods" (Council Directive 89/107/EEC). Many food additives are naturally occurring and some are even essential nutrient. It is the technical purpose that leads to these being classified as food additives and given an E number.
Food additives play an important