What are Food additives?

A food additive can be anything that affects food either directly or indirectly or just is a component of food. It can also be defined as a substance that is added intentionally in very small amounts during any steps of production, processing, storage, or packaging.

Food additives are not present naturally in any food product. Additives are not considered as ‘Nutritive’ and contain little or no nutrition. Different countries have different rules and regulations pertaining to which food additives can be used for specific propose. These laws recommend the amounts of food additives to be added to certain foods. Many novel product categories such as low-calorie, RTD beverages, and ready-to-eat convenience foods, instant mixes would not be possible without food additives in this generation.

Examples of Food Additives

Mono Sodium Glutamate
Sodium benzoate
Carrageenan
High fructose corn syrup
Guar gum
Aspartame
Trans fat
Yeast extract

Functions of Food Additives

Food additives serve numerous functions in contributing to a foods colour, flavour, overall acceptance, improving shelf life, and on a whole enhance the acceptability of a food product. Their functions in food can be summarized as below

Maintaining product consistency
Improving or maintaining nutritive value
Maintaining palatability and wholesomeness of the food
Improving flavour or imparting desired colour to the food product
Providing leavening or controlling acidity / alkalinity especially in bakery and beverage industry.

Classification of Food Additives:

There are four general categories of food additives:

Nutritional additives
Processing agents
Preservatives, and
Sensory agents.

On a wider note, food additives can be classified as

Direct additives - these are added to any food product to serve a specific purpose.

Examples include synthetic colours, flavour enhancers, sweetening agents

Indirect additives - as the name indicates these become a part of the food in minor amounts due to storage, handling, or packaging.