chemistry of food additives and preservatives

Chemistry of Food Additives and Preservatives

Food additives are chemicals or ingredients that are added to food during processing to improve quality, flavour, appearance or nutritional value, or to prevent chemical or microbial spoilage. The most common types of additives are preservatives, colourants, sweeteners, flavourings, emulsifiers, thickeners and stabilisers. Adding new ingredients to a food has an effect upon its chemistry and structure as well as its sensory characteristics. Additives are usually characterised by where they come from (for example, whether they are natural or synthetic), by their purpose (such as improving shelf life) and the risks associated with them (such as their toxicity, and any side effects upon the consumer). Although in recent years the trend in consumer marketing has been to trumpet a lack of additives and preservatives, with ’artificial ingredients’ commonly seen in a negative light, there nevertheless remains a wide variety of additives and preservatives that are crucial both to producers and consumers, without which the quality of the food would suffer.

Chemistry of Food Additives and Preservatives is an up-to-date reference guide to the wide range of different types of additives used in the food industry today. It looks at the processes involved in adding preservatives and additives to foods, and the mechanisms and methods used. The book provides full details about the chemistry of each major class of food additive, showing the reader not just what kind of additives are used and what their functions are, but also how they work, and how they may have multiple functionalities. This book also covers numerous new additives currently being introduced, how the quality of these is ascertained, and how consumer safety is ensured.

Chemistry of Food Additives and Preservatives is an ideal reference for food chemists, food safety specialists and agencies, food processors who are working with additives and preservatives, and food regulators and policy makers. Written in an accessible style and covering a broad range of food additives and preservatives, the book offers an in-depth analysis of the chemical interactions of food additives and preservatives with the natural composition of the foods to which they are added. It is a unique and ground-breaking treatment of a topic vital to both the food industry and the researcher.

Dr Titus A. M. Msagati is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Chemistry at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.