Food additives.docx

Why food additives are importantIntroductionIn 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:l 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. l 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.l 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.l 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. (Environmental Health and Safety Online, 2006)l Provide leavening or control acidity and alkalinity.Acids can be delivered when heated leavening agents react with baking soda, this can help baking goods, such as bread, cake and biscuits to ferment during baking. Some other additives can help to change the acidity and alkalinity of foods in order to change the flavour, taste and colour.What are the disadvantages of food additives?Although food additives can lead to a lot of benefits to people, they have some disadvantages. As a result of the fact food additives are not natural component in foods, if they cannot be used reasonably, alternatively, they are contained some harmful substances, some damages will be caused to some extent. The major disadvantages of food additives are these three points:l Sometimes destroy vitamins in foods.Some chemical preservatives are used in food production. It is true that preservatives are often used in meats, sausages, smoked meats or cured fish to maintain the freshness and fix the colour of foods but some toxic substance can be caused and destroy nutrients and vitamins in food.l May be used to make bad quality food look good.In recent years, many food processing factories appeared in cities, so the competitions among these factories have become more and more strong. In order to gain more profit, some evil-minded factories sell bad quality food to people. They added a lot of chemical additives, such as colouring, flavouring and preservatives, into foods to make them look beautiful and attract people to buy their production. These food are very bad for peoples health, even they can lead to some serious illness.Introduce two familiar food additives.Food additive has become an indispensable part of food industry. Different food additives are used for different purposes, some particular additives can implement more than one function. Therefore, they are grouped on the basis of their essential functions. (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008) The followed content will introduce two categories food additives and give some example to explain their usages.l PreservativesPreservatives are the most important kind of food additives, because they play a vital role in safety of the food supply. In despite of this fact, fresh food will become inferior or unsafe when they are added chemical in order to offset the perish ability of food. However, the Royal Society of Chemistry(2008) claim that the use of chemical preservatives, such as sulphur dioxide and sulphites, is a continuation of the age-old practices of using salt, sulphite and spices to preserve perishable foods in the days before refrigeration and modern processing techniques. Preservatives are used to prolong the shelf life of food and make sure their through that expanding period. Most importantly, they can stem bacterial degradation which will result in the production of toxins and attract food poisoning but they can also lead to some illness. The previous research shows that some modern synthetic preservatives can causerespiratoryor other health problems. For example,sulfitesare commonly used in wines and some dried fruits or vegetables, they are known as possible irritants to people withasthma. l AntioxidantsAll the living beings need oxygen to metabolize in order to produce energy for survival. Therefore, oxygen plays a vital role in peoples lives. However, Mandal, A (2013) argue that oxygen is a highly reactive atom that is capable of becoming part of potentially damaging molecules commonly called “free radicals”. The healthy cells of the body may be pelted by these free radicals. This may lead to damage, disease and severe disorders. Cell damage caused by free radicals appears to be a major contributor to aging and diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, decline inbrainfunction and decline in immune system. Antioxidants are the substances to prevent food from the bad influence caused by oxygen, and it can capture and neutralize free radicals in order to eliminate the damage for human beings.ConclusionNowadays, food additives have become indispensable substances in food industry. Although they may cause some disadvantages if people cannot use them in a suitable way, they have ma