Pros And Cons Of Food Additives In Food Biotechnology

By the end of the 21st century, biotechnology is likely to touch the lives of most peoples through its application in areas such as food production and medicine. Food biotechnology as applied to food production in most developing countries makes use of microbial inoculants to enhance the characteristics such as the taste, aroma, shelf-life, texture and nutritional value of foods. This fascinating changes process in food matters is known as fermentation which broadly applied in the production of microbial cultures, flavours, fragrances, food additives and other high value-added products. Food additives are substances added to the food that become part of the food and affect its texture and taste. Additives may be natural which can be found naturally in foodstuff as beetroot juice with its bright purple colour can be used to colour other foods such as sweets and it also can be found in nature identical which is copies of substances that made by human that occur naturally. For example, benzoic acid that found in nature but is also made synthetically and used as a preservative. Furthermore, there’s also artificial additives that not naturally present in foods and are made synthetically. For instance, azodicarbonamide, flour improver that is used to help bread dough hold together.

Nowadays, food additives have become essentials to all types in food products. Actually without additives, many foods we take for granted just wouldn’t be there, food also would immediately become contaminated due to decomposition of poisonous chemicals. Most food additives are harmless and from natural substances that can be received from plants and animals or minerals, and also they can be synthetic, but some people are too worried about the use of additives in food because they think it’s dangerous. Safety of food additives are considered to be unsafe until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proves it by write a regulation, allows a food contact substance notification to become useful or writes an exemption. Regulations, effective notifications and exemptions, all stipulate an identity, specifications, and conditions of safe use for that food additive. Two amendments to the Federal Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1938 - the Food Additives Amendment (1958) and the Color Additives Amendment (1960) specify that the FDA must allow the safety of all food additives. After the amendment was succeed, the manufacturer’s take the authority to assure the FDA on the safety of additive through extensive testing on laboratory animals. However, FDA never gives permanent license to food additives to decide whether to modified the approval or withdrawn it. The approval should be continue to review to check whether food additives affect life span, cancer rates, incidents of birth defects, allergies or other health outcomes.

Nevertheless, about the allergies in additives, if you are allergic to pollen or aspirin, it’s likely you might also be sensitive to one of the additives used in food but it’s not just additives that can cause them. In fact, most foods allergies are provoked by chemicals which occur quite naturally in foods as peanut allergy. As for the cancer rates that might effect from additives, the Department of Health and Human Services has predicted that only 1% of food additives influenced all cancers because over the past 50 years, rates of death from all cancer except lung cancer have remain constant or either slightly drop off. Thus, if additives really link to cancers, surely the cancer rates will rise drastically and have been documented. Therefore, food additives are thought to be safe in amounts that are usually eaten, this was checked by Health Canada due to only additives that are approved can be used in food production. Any new food additive is tested for safety before it is added to the approved list. Food additives have been classified into four main categories which are flavouring agents, nutritional additives, texturing agents and preservatives. These are not accurate groups as many additives can be classified into more than one group. Flavouring agents are one of the biggest single groups in food additives because flavours utmost importance in the food industry as it is what makes the food sensational. Food and beverage applications of flavours include dairy, fruit, nut, seafood, spice blends, vegetables and wine flavouring agents. They may complete, amplify, or alter the taste and aroma of the foods. Sweeteners are under flavouring agents. Sweeteners can sweeten the food without adding many calories. As example in fat-reduced ice cream and sugar-free candies, sweetener that had been used is aspartame. Next, as for the nutritional additives such as vitamins and minerals, the function of using it in food production are to recover nutrients wasted or destroyed during production, fortifying or enriching certain foods in order to amend dietary deficiencies or adding nutrients to food substitutes.

In order to increase nutritional value in many foods, usually the food productions will add vitamins into it. For example, for dairy and cereal products use vitamins A and D while several of the vitamins B are added to flour, cereals, baked goods and pasta, and vitamin C is also for cereals and dairy products, fruit beverages and confectioneries. Nutritional additives include minerals such as calcium and iron, and dietary fibre. Besides that, another group of food additives is texturing agents. Texturing agents are used to modify the texture of food products and these are added to food to change completely the texture and bring change in the mouthful of foods. Stabilizers are one of the texturing agent. Stabilizers, as the name signify to stabilize the food products such as frozen dessert. Frozen dessert contains gelatine as a stabilizer. Lastly, substances that have in all food products except for the one growing in your garden which is preservatives. In simple term, preservatives have become an indispensible part of the food production today. It can be divided into two groups which are natural and artificial preservatives. Natural preservatives are come from natural food such as sugar and salt. Sugar and salt are used in pickles and jams to preserve the appearences of foods in a natural ways while artificial preservatives from chemical substances like antioxidants and antimicrobials. Antioxidants to detain or avoid the decomposition of foods by oxidative mechanisms as in dried fruits and antimicrobial agents hinder the growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in foods as in cakes. Therefore, food additives can be classified into many groups but the main groups are flavouring agents, nutritional additives, texturing agents and preservatives. Food additives designed for use in food product must have an intention. The purpose of food additives is to conserve or enhance nutritional value of the food to make up for those likely to be lacking in a particular diet or lost in processing. It also provides aids in manufacturing, processing, preparation, packaging, transport or storage of food.

The food additive is not used to cover the effects of flaws or unsavory raw matter but to bring essential ingredients or constituents for foods manufactured for consumers having special dietary right and expedite alteration of food products to offer convenient foods. Hence, food additives control physical, chemical and microbiological changes to protect quality, palatability, wholesomeness, lessen waste and reduce health hazards. Not only that, it also improve the keeping quality or stability of a food or enhance its sensory properties but not to lie the user. Food additives perform a variety of useful functions in foods that are often taken for granted. Since, most people no longer live on farms, additives help keep food wholesome and appealing while en route to markets sometimes thousands of miles away from where it is grown or manufactured. Thus, food additives really bring a lot of useful things to us not only in the quality of product but also for our health.