FOOD ADDITIVES

food engineering) A substance added to foods during processing to improve color, texture, flavor, or keeping qualities; examples are antioxidants, emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives, and colorants.



Food and Fitness: food additives

Food additives may be natural or artificial. Common natural additives include sugar, salt, corn syrup, baking soda, and pepper. Many modern additives, such as vitamins and some flavours, are made in a laboratory but most of them are exact replicas of naturally occurring substances and the body is unable to distinguish between the natural and artificial forms. The most controversial additives are those which are completely synthetic and have no natural counterpart.

In the European Union, food additives are often given ‘E’ numbers: a set of standard codes which have been approved by the European Union. The main categories of additives are colours (e.g. E100, curcumin), preservatives (e.g. E200, sorbic acid); antioxidants (e.g. E300, L-ascorbic acid); emuslifiers and stabilizers (e.g. E322, lecithins); and sweeteners (e.g. E421, mannitol). Other food additives include:

• acids (e.g. citric acid, give a sour taste)
• anti-caking agents (e.g. some phosphates, to help food flow easily)
• antifoaming agents (e.g. oxystearin, to prevent excessive frothing)
• bases (e.g. bicarbonate, as a raising agent and acid neutralizer)
• bulking agents (e.g. guar gum, adds bulk without adding any calories)
• firming agents (e.g aluminium salts, to retain crispness)
• flavour modifiers (reduces flavour)
• flour improvers (e.g. cysteine)
• glazing agents (e.g. waxes, to give polished appearance)
• humectants (e.g. glycerol, to prevent foods, such as marshmallow, drying out)
• liquid freezants (e.g. liquid nitrogen, to freeze food quickly)
• packaging gases (e.g. nitrogen, to control the atmosphere within a package)
• propellants (e.g. carbon dioxide, to form an aerosol, forcing food out of containers)
• release agents (e.g. silicates, to prevent food sticking to pans)
• sequestrants (e.g. sodium hydrogen diacetate, to help remove heavy metals from food
• solvents (e.g. glycerol, to dissolve solids in food).

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Wikipedia: food additive

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or improve its taste and appearance. 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 in some wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the 20th century, many more additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin.

Numbering
To regulate these additives, and inform consumers, each additive is assigned a unique number. Initially these were the "E numbers" used in Europe for all approved additives. This numbering scheme has now been adopted and extended by the Codex Alimentarius Committee to internationally identify all additives, regardless of whether they are approved for use.

E numbers are all prefixed by "E", but countries outside Europe use only the number, whether the additive is approved in Europe or not. For example, acetic acid is written as E260 on products sold in Europe, but is simply known as additive 260 in some countries. Additive 103, alkanet, is not approved for use in Europe so does not have an E number, although it is approved for use in Australia and New Zealand.

The United States Food and Drug Administration listed these items as "Generally recognized as safe" or GRAS and these are listed under both their Chemical Abstract Services number and FDA regulation listed under the US Code of Federal Regulations

See list of food additives for a complete list of all the names.
See E number for the numbers.
Categories
Food additives can be divided into several groups, although there is some overlap between them.

Acids

Food acids are added to make flavors "sharper", and also act as preservatives and antioxidants. Common food acids include vinegar, citric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, fumaric acid, lactic acid.

Acidity regulators

Acidity regulators are used to change or otherwise control the acidity and alkalinity of foods.

Anticaking agents

Anticaking agents keep powders such as milk powder from caking or sticking.

Antifoaming agents

Antifoaming agents reduce or prevent foaming in foods.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants such as vitamin C act as preservatives by inhibiting the effects of oxygen on food, and can be beneficial to health.

Bulking agents

Bulking agents such as starch are additives that increase the bulk of a food without affecting its nutritional value.

Food coloring

Colorings are added to food to replace colors lost during preparation, or to make food look more attractive.

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.

Flavours

Flavors are additives that give food a particular taste or smell, and may be derived from natural ingredients or created artificially.

Flavour enhancers