negativeFood additives

Why food additives are important

Introduction

In recent years, food additives have become an essential thing in food production. Food

producers add some chemical products into food during the process of food production in

order to improve the food quality in tincture, odour and flavour. In addition, they use food

additives to store food for a long period of time. However, some cancers can be caused by

food additives. For example, many meats have some additives added which will interact with

gastric acid and protein. (USDA, 2008) Therefore, a large amount of nitrites which can lead

to chronic physiological disorder will be produced. This project will first expound the

definition of food additives, and then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of them. It

will finally go on to introduce two familiar categories of food additives in order to show why

they are important.

What are the food additives?

Food additives are the substance added to food in order to change the features of food, such

as the appearance, flavour and the storage life. Some of these are collected from naturally

materials; others are produced through the chemical industry. However, the same as every

other constituent of food, all of the food additives are chemicals. (Emsley, J, 2011) The use

of food additives has become more extensive in recent years, because the productions of

prepared processed, and convenience foods have increased rapidly. At the same time, there

are many questions raised by consumers and scientists about the importance and the

necessity

of food additives. At present, there are 23 categories and more than 2,000 kinds of food

additives in China, include acidity regulator, Anti-caking agent, defoaming agent, antioxidant,

bleaching agents, bulking agent, colorant, colour fixative, enzyme Preparation, flavour

enhancer, nutrition enhancer, preservative, sweetener, thickener, fragrance and some other

categories.

What are the advantages of food additives?

Food additives have widely promoted food industry and they have also been hailed as the

soul of food industry. The main reason is that they bring many benefits to food production.

Moreover, food additives execute a number of functions in food. As most people have no

longer live on farms, additives can help them to keep the nutrition and the appearance of food

while they are exported to other places which are thousands far away from where they are

grown and produced. In addition, food additives can not only improve the nutrition value of

foods, but also make them more attractive through promoting their taste, consistency, texture

or appearance. (Environmental Health and Safety Online, 2006)

The advantages of food additives are these followed five points:

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Improve the appearance of food.

The colour, flavour, taste, shape and character are very important indicators to test the

quality of food. If the colorant, colour fixative, bleaching agents, flavour, emulsifier and

thickener can be used in an appropriate way, the quality of food will be enhanced obviously.

Therefore, the different requirements of food will be satisfied.

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Keep and enhance the nutrition value of food.

If food processing factories add some food additives when they produce food, such as

vitamins, minerals, amino acids and amino acid derivatives, the nutrition value of food will

be improved greatly. It can prevent people from malnutrition and promote nutrient balance to

increase the health level of people.

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Increase the variety and conveniences of food.

Nowadays, there are more than 20,000 kinds of food for consumers to choose.

Although

most of them are dilicious oringinally, they will be added some different additives at diferent

levels to enhance or keep their appearances and nutritions. As a result of these numerous

kinds of food, particularly the convience food, it can contribute to the convinience for a

number of people to live and work.

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Miantain freshness and prolong shelf life.

Foods will be putrid if they contact with fungus, air, microbe, fungi or yeast. Therefore, food

borne illness, even life-threatening botulism can be caused by bacterial contamination. If the

food is added preserver, it will be kept for longer time. For example, antioxidants can

prevent fats and oils in bakery products and other foods from becoming rancid or developing

abnormal taste. They can also protect cut fresh fruit from contacting with air, such as they can

prevent cut apples from turning brown when they are placed in are for long time.