Food additives and its Categories

Journal of Food and Clinical Nutrition is a peer reviewed open access journal. Food additives and its Categories are described below.

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste, appearance, or other qualities. 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 with wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the twentieth century, many more additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin. Food additives also include substances that may be introduced to food indirectly (called "indirect additives") in the manufacturing process, through packaging, or during storage or transport.

Categories

Food additives can be divided into several groups, although there is some overlap because some additives exert more than one effect. For example, salt is both a preservative as well as a flavor.

Acidulents

Acidulants confer sour or acid taste. Common acidulents include vinegar, citric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, fumaric acid, and lactic acid.

Acidity regulators

Acidity regulators are used for controlling the pH of foods for stability or to affect activity of enzymes.

Anticaking agents

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

Antifoaming and foaming agents

Antifoaming agents reduce or prevent foaming in foods. Foaming agents do the reverse.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants such as vitamin C are preservatives by inhibiting the degradation of food by oxygen.

Bulking agents

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

Food coloring

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

Fortifying agents

Vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements to increase the nutritional value

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.

Flavors

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

Flavor enhancers

Flavor enhancers enhance a food's existing flavors. A popular example is monosodium glutamate. Some flavor enhancers have their own flavors that are independent of the food.

Flour treatment agents

Flour treatment agents are added to flour to improve its color or its use in baking.

Glazing agents

Glazing agents provide a shiny appearance or protective coating to foods.

Humectants

Humectants prevent foods from drying out.

Tracer gas

Tracer gas allow for package integrity testing to prevent foods from being exposed to atmosphere, thus guaranteeing shelf life.

Preservatives

Preservatives prevent or inhibit spoilage of food due to fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms.

Stabilizers

Stabilizers, thickeners and gelling agents, like agar or pectin (used in jam for example) give foods a firmer texture. While they are not true emulsifiers, they help to stabilize emulsions.

Sweeteners

Sweeteners are added to foods for flavoring. Sweeteners other than sugar are added to keep the food energy (calories) low, or because they have beneficial effects regarding diabetes mellitus, tooth decay, or diarrhea.

Thickeners

Thickening agents are substances which, when added to the mixture, increase its viscosity without substantially modifying its other properties.

Journal of Food and Clinical Nutrition invites articles for the upcoming issue of our journal.

Interested can submit their manuscript through online portal. Submit manuscript at https://www.pulsus.com/submissions/food-clinical-nutrition.html or through mail at foodclinnutri@eclinjournals.com. For membership contact:

Media contact:

Maegan Smith           

Managing Editor

Journal of Food and Clinical Nutrition 

Mail ID: clinicalnutrition@emedicalsci.org

Whatsapp no: + 1-504-608-2390