Food additives are substances intentionally added in food preparations without these having a nutritional purpose, but more for a technological purpose. Let's find out more.
What are food additives?
The term food additive means any substance intentionally added in food preparations without this having a nutritional purpose, but more for a technological purpose.
Additives can be used in many stages of the preparation of food products. Like food coloring additives are used to color the products while preservatives are used to preserve them for a long time. These synthetic substances bring various modifications to the food product without however bringing a nutritional value.
This addition of substances is therefore intended to make the product more attractive, with an appearance, texture, and flavor that make it more saleable to customers or that allow a technological improvement useful for conservation that leads to longer shelf life or better storage and transport of the sales chain.
Categories of additives
Additives can be classified by the purpose of use, i.e. by the effect, they bring to the product. Some examples of food additive categories:
- Acidifiers that serve to lower the pH and therefore increase shelf life
- Thickeners, emulsifiers, stabilizers that serve to give a better consistency
- Coating agents used to protect and coat the food product
- Antioxidants that act as improvers for shelf life
- Dyes that improve the color of the food product
- Preservatives that serve to lengthen the expiration date of the food product
- Sweeteners that have the function of sweetening (sweeteners)
- Flavour enhancers that make the food product tastier
- Packaging gases that have the function of maintaining the product during packaging
The additives are also classified by their origin: natural additives deriving from products extracted from plants/animals/minerals or even chemical synthesis of substances that are equal to the molecule present in nature.
Another group is chemical synthesis additives that are not present in nature and that are created in the laboratory with the artificial synthesis of man.
For example, among sweeteners for sweetening purposes or aromatic additives we have:
- Natural additives of plant origin such as brown sugar (sweetener)
- Natural additives of animal origin such as honey (sweetener)
- Natural additives of natural-identical origin such as vanillin which is of chemical synthesis but equal to the natural molecule (natural-identical aroma)
- Chemically synthesized additives such as aspartame and acesulfame-K that are newly synthesized laboratory-created sweeteners
The classification of additives
Currently, the world recognizes as food additives 360 substances that can be added to food preparations and classifies them with wording by inserting the letter E followed by several 3 or 4 digits for each addictive substance.
The authorized list of food additives is studied and documented from a toxicological point of view and is monitored with the advice of a special EFSA body that controls food safety.
This daily dose has been calculated, according to current knowledge, by evaluating the amount of additive that can be added every day to people's diet and that this dose over a lifetime does not lead to the appearance of side effects. We can say that it is a safe dose a threshold that puts a limit on the use of additives for the safety of people.
Shopping tips
In going shopping in supermarkets or city shops we find more and more packaged food products and a long supply chain that requires several steps between the initial producer and the consumer and end-user of the product.
To know how best to choose food products here are some tips for shopping:
- Learn to read the label very well: leaving aside the aesthetic and marketing aspect of the package we look for the words ingredients and verify the composition of the product
- Inquire and prepare a list of additives and substances that you want to exclude. Especially when you are buying sweeteners. For example, vegans will write additives and substances of animal origin while customers who want to exclude synthetic chemical additives can write these and maybe even those at higher risk
- Choose unprocessed food products and as little processed as possible. Fresh products with fewer supply chain steps, with as little packaging as possible.
- Purchase products from organic farming that admits in its regulation the possibility of adding only 50 additives out of the 360 allowed in conventional nutrition.
Hope this article is helpful to you, So what is your point of view about these food additives please share with us, and to find more information like this, stay tuned with us here!
