food additives guide

Food additives can be classified into types of classification according to its origin, function classification and safety evaluation. what are food additives? Food additives by sources can be divided into three categories in the international: natural extract; material prepared by the fermentation method, such as citric acid, although some of them are chemically synthesized but its structure are the same with the structure of natural compounds; pure chemical compounds, such as sodium benzoate.

The advantages of food additives are as follows: improve the development of modern food industry; improve the food texture and flavor; etc. Most nature foods have their own food colours and odors, but their own colors may fade or lost during the manufacturing or storage. As a result, edible food colors ingredients added to food during the processing to improve food sensory properties and maintain its colors.

According to the source of food colorings, food colorings extracted from plants，animals （microorganisms are included) are natural food coloring. For example, Lac Red are extracted from Lac female secretions; anthocyanins extracted From grape skin. And those with chemical synthesis ways are artificial food coloring. Such as carmine, lemon yellow, etc.

Color food additives are very safe when used properly. There are kinds of food additives used in food. Foods with ingredients are not added the more the better, such as pigments, adding too many colors will deviate from expected. Will you eat food with too much sweeteners? So, due to the natural of some food additives, they cannot be added too much. But views about foods without additives are different.

In short, the functions of additives and process of this product have a great relationship. Sometimes, the same kinds of food additives play different roles in different foods. The purpose of food additives is to improve the quality of food and convenient food processing. The most common food additives are monosodium glutamate food additive, maltodextrin food additive, trisodium phosphate food additive, sulphur dioxide food additive, sorbic acids, citric acid, preservative sodium benzoate, etc. They belong to categories of food additives. Different additives have different functions. The food additives and health are still an important issue, so food additive manufacturers or food additive companies need to be strictly to the quality.

Importance of food additives

Food additives are synthetic or natural substances added to food to improve food quality, color, aroma, taste, as well as corrosion protection, preservation. No additives, no modern food industry. Titanium dioxide, calcium chloride, calcium carbonate, maltodextrin, xanthan gum are common food additives.

Foods that contain additives can enhance food sensory shapes, prevent spoilage and extend shelf-life. The importance of food additives is therefore essential, household soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, salt, in fact, belong to the category of food additives.

In the production of food, additives is an indispensable and important part. The preservative sorbic acid and potassium sorbate can effectively inhibit the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, preventing food spoilage and extend shelf life.
We like foods with colours, because they offer a wide range of color choices, show excellent technical properties, meet different stability requirements for food processing and in line with the expectations of consumers. It is ideal and healthy way for today's increasingly health-conscious consumers to add value to their products and given food and drink flavour.

For example, food additives emulsifiers play an important rolein food processing. The good texture keeps the tongue feels smooth. China food additives have a fast development, and the most common food emulsifiers have several big class: fatty acids glycerol ester class products, and fatty acids sorbic alcohol ester class products, and (various fatty acids) of sucrose fatty acids glycerides products, and fat n lactic acid sodium (calcium), and poly glycerol fatty acids ester class products, and natural soybean p ester class of products and other type of food emulsion agent. Comparison of results has been detected, natural food additives is not smaller than the toxicity of synthetic.

Because of incorrect recognition of food additive safety, people tend to believe that natural food additives are safer than artificial or chemical synthesis food additives. Actually, limited by current testing methods, test content constraints, an accurate judgment cannot be made about many natural products.

What is a natural food emulsifiers？People cared about chemical additives in food may be harmful to them. Can the food additives companies or food additives manufacturers in https://www.okfoodadd.com/ guarantee the quality?

Illegal non-edible substances added to food or those that do not belong to traditionally food ingredients are not listed in the laws and regulations. In order to ensure that the use of food additives will not cause health hazards to consumers, regarding its use in food range and use requirements have become more stringent. As long as the scope, methods of use and usage to meet the standard requirements, their safety is assured.

Functions of food additives

Preservatives are just a part of food additives. And food additives have all kinds of categories, including sweeteners, preservatives, emulsifiers, flavour enhancers, food colouring, acidity regulators, antioxidants, thickeners, etc. Generally, salt and MSG are also food additives. The functions of food additives are make our life colorful.

So, additives and preservatives in food have a close relationship with modern food industrial, as long as we according to the using standard and method of food additives, they are harmless to our body. Think about it: any food you eat so much is harmful, such as salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, rice, etc. Maybe we know too little about food additives, or maybe the irresponsible media information on food additives, that leads us have a misunderstanding about food additives.



What will the world look like if there are no preservatives in our food? Therefore, it is our shared society responsibility to lead people recognize and understanding food additives

What are food ingredients? Many natural ingredients of food has its own color, the colors can enhance one's appetite, increases the secretion of digestive juices, so they conducive to digestion and absorption. However, food color ingredients easily fade or change color. In order to improve the ingredients in food processing, people used to process food by adding food coloring ingredients to improve their sensory properties.

Add food color ingredients is not a modern patent, the history of food additives is long, people knew the use of monascus pigments to produce wine. Since 1856 Parkin synthesized the first artificial food coloring aniline purple, synthetic pigments plays a role in improving food colors.

What are the food additives? Ingredients in food processing such as lactic acid food additive, E330 citric acid food additive, E300 ascorbic acid food additive, carmine food additive, msg food additive, bht food additive, propylene glycol food additive, carrageenan food additive, food additives emulsifiers, titanium dioxide food additive, potassium chloride food additive, calcium carbonate food additive are part of examples of most common food additives.

The advantages of food additives are as follows:

1 to save and prevent deterioration

2 improving the sensory characteristics of the food

3 maintain or improve the nutritional value of foods

4 increasing food variety and convenience

5 enabling food processing, adaptation to production mechanization and automation

6 meet other special needs

In fact, additives in food are necessary. Do not use food preservatives and additives have a greater degree of risk. This is because bad food tends to cause food poisoning disease. In addition, the preservatives not only keep food from spoiling, but can also kill by Aspergillus Niger effect of toxin-producing micro-organisms such as bacteria, which are beneficial to human health.

Ten commonly used food additives that have been banned by China government II

6. lean (disabled)

Industrial chemical name: clenbuterol hydrochloride. It also known as salbutamol. It is an adrenal receptor nerve stimulants. It can make people feel dizziness, nausea, trembling hands and feet, rapid heartbeat, even death by cardiac arrest if people eat the meat and offal containing "lean". Alsi it will cause a group of vicious food
poisoning accident.

7. caustic soda for industrial purposes (disabled)

Industrial chemical name is sodium hydroxide or caustic soda, a highly corrosive. It should be distinguished whether it is food grade or industrial alkali. Usually it is marked on the packaging. Government is against add and use industrial base in the food processing, many illegal retailers. It is mainly used in chicken feet, tripe, tendon, sea cucumber, squid, dried fish for the food tender, white, and smooth, and improve the appearance and texture.

8. soda ash (disabled)

Industrial chemical name: sodium carbonate. The appearance is white powder or fine crystal, slightly soluble in ethanol, insoluble in alcohol. Its aqueous solution is Alkaline hydrolysis, a certain degree of corrosion, is a raw material for industry. Government prohibits to add soda ash in food processing. But some illegal retailers use it in food to increase food smooth and whiteness.

9. melamine (disabled)

It is known as melamine amide. It is a kind of organic nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds with nitrogen-containing up to 66%. Also it is a toxic chemical raw materials. It is banned to use in the food, due to the defects test method in the milk, wheat powder containing protein food and feed industrial, melamine sometimes are added to milk, yogurt, liquid milk, dairy, and wheat powder protein food or fishmeal to upgrade food detection in the of protein content index by many illegal retailers.

10. industrial sulfur (disabled)

Industrial sulfur is a kind of chemical raw materials that contains toxic substances such as lead, sulfur, arsenic. Foods smoked by sulfur and the sulfur dioxide residue exceeding will harm the human respiratory system. Sulfur dioxide and water form sulfurous acid in foods, excessive intake may damage the gastrointestinal tract. Government are against using industrial sulfur in the food processing. But some illegal retailers use it to bleach, coloring, corrosion-resistant in the food such as sugar, pepper, candied fruit, white fungus, etc.

Ten commonly used food additives that have been banned by China government

Many food additives are added to a food to keep the quality and improve taste, but this is only in a reasonable range. But some of the additives are prohibited by the State, so what are the banned commonly used additives?

1 Sudan (disabled)

Sudan is not a food additive, but a chemical dye. It contains a chemical called naphthalene compounds with azo structure. Due to the chemical nature of the structure determines it is carcinogenic, it has obvious toxicity to the human liver and kidney. The government against adding Sudan red in food processing, but some illegal retailers mainly use it for paprika pepper product (food) and other desired food coloring or feeding ducks poultry processing red eggs.



2 The sulfoxylate (disabled)

Industrial chemical name: sodium sulfoxylate formaldehyde or formaldehyde-sulfoxylate and sodium, the main ingredients are: sodium sulfoxylate formaldehyde white blocks or crystalline powder, it is an industrial bleach. The government against adding sulfoxylate to food, but some illegal retailers add it to the noodles, rice, pasta, tofu, brown sugar, candy, flour, shoots, tremella, cattle venetian, blood tofu and seafood for the food whitening, preservation, appearance color bright, increase taste and toughness, anti-corrosion.

3. Industrial formaldehyde (disabled)

Also called formalin. It is an industrial bleach. Formaldehyde is a colorless gas soluble in water with a strong pungent odor, usually 35% to 40% of the formaldehyde solution called "formalin". It functioned as a preservative to soak pathology and human and animal specimens. Government against adding formaldehyde in food processing, but some illegal retailers use it in sea cucumber, squid, dried seafood, fish, water, Yuba, noodles, seafood, beer, soy foam, pickled food, blood products for strong food sterilization, antisepsis, whitening, foaming white bleached, solidification, stereotypes, improve the appearance and texture.

5. Two sodium sulfite (disabled)

It is an industrial strong bleach and mainly for the reduction of printing and dyeing agents, silk, wool fabric bleaching, which contains heavy metals might remain difficult to rule out in the human body for a long time. Government against adding sodium disulphite in food processing, but some illegal retailers use it to soak the mushroom, kelp and other foods to make the foods fresh and bright.Click here

What do you know about sweeteners

With the improvement of people's living standard, people‘s eating has made a lot of improvement. There are many additives in food, and sweeteners is one of the most common one. A series food such as drink, fast food, snacks and other foods have a variety of food additives. Besides, glucose syrup, sodium cyclamate, acesulfame, white granulated sugar, sucralose are very common.



Artificial sweeteners provide sweet taste, but hardly any energy, so it also known as low energy sweetener, or nonnutritive sweetener, sugar substitute, and so on. Currently, the most popular and most widely used low energy sweeteners include: acesulfame-k, and aspartame, Neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia sugar and sweetener. Due to its high intensity sweetener property, just with a little sweetener can get a good sense of sweet. Moreover, the sweeteners do not increase the risk of tooth decay and dental caries.

Is it safe to use sweeteners?

People with stomach function disorder had better not to eat foods contain generation sugar material, this may easy to cause bloating. Allowed to use sweeteners are subject to stringent safety assessment. In order to ensure the safety of food and drink, sweeteners must go through many national scientific institutions stringent safety assessment before use. Current studies suggest that sweeteners as part of the daily diet is safe. On the regulatory, food manufacturers are required to must be indicated on the product label sweetener ingredients. We usually use acceptable daily intake values (ADI) to show safety of sweeteners. ADI is an ingredient that human eat without any harm. In General, level of people's intake of sweeteners is difficult to reach the ADI level. Current investigation showed that all types of people on common sweetener intake is lower than the ADI value. It can be argued that as long as fair use, the allowed to use sweeteners are safe.

Do foods without sugar not cause obesity?

Although food sugars have been replaced by sweeteners, the food calories cannot be ignored. such as carbohydrates in grains of desserts. Besides, for people who need to lose weight or fat, sweetener is a good substitute. Because sweeteners will not loss sweetness, also with a low calorie sweetener in food can reduce energy intake, this help people lose weight or maintain weight. In the past 20 years, a large number of studies have shown that low calorie sweeteners can help people lose weight or weight control. However, successful weight loss also need to maintain a balanced diet, regular exercise. At the same time, in the use of alternative sweeteners additives in food energy, the total energy intake should also controlled. This is the key factor to maintain good weight.

The roles of food additives in life

Food additives are indispensable ingredients in food processing, almost all processed foods with additives. Such as cola color is toned by caramel; sweet relies on cyclamate; pure fermented beer relies on the carbon dioxide to have preservative effect. Even the cooking oil inseparable from our daily lives contain antioxidants, salt contains anti-caking agent, soy sauce, vinegar and preservatives; cookie has bulking agents; ice creams have emulsifiers; acidity regulators in cola; etc.

Abuse of food additives have hazards. Food additives are not terrible, but illegal to add and the abuse of food additives is terrible. Yes, we know additives in food can improve the stability of food quality, effective in preventing food spoilage and improving food properties, but it should not be excessive. For example, preservatives have chemical interactions of killing microorganisms or inhibit their reproduction, although most preservatives are nontoxic and low toxicity, but excessive doses is harmful. Therefore, food safety problems are due to overweight, exceeding scope use and the use of unqualified food additives. They are considered to be safe as long as the manufacturers use food additives in the context of national standard.

Food coloring, as the name suggests, is to change the color of the material. Dyes can be divided to natural food dyes and synthetic food dyes. Some foods in the process need to be heated, which led to its original color lost. In order to make it themselves, you need to add a certain amount of food colours in food. Currently water soluble pigments are used mostly. It is a kind of synthetic synthetic food dyes. There are also contained special colouring of the pigment itself in these allowed to use synthetic pigments. These special food colorants are deposite, known as Lake. It has self-limiting features. So too much quantities make the colours not natural.

Commonly used food sweeteners are: sodium saccharin, cyclohexyl-amino-sulfonic acid (sodium cyclamate), maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, etc. Sweeteners are popular in a lot of food, such as beverages, pickles, bread, pastries, cookies, ice cream, preserves, sweets, condiments, canned meat and almost common food in the daily life are combined with different kinds of sweeteners.

Enzymes are used mainly in the food industry of meat flavor. And proteases is the more widely used one. Protease's primary role is to improve the quality of the meat flavor.