It is important to understand both Food Additives and Adulterants for a better understanding.
Food Additives
People keep finding new ways to prolong food’s freshness after harvest and slaughter, so that it can be used at a later time. Food additives were in use since centuries, our ancestors used to preserve fish with salt, fruits with sugar, onion with vinegar, etc.
The basic purpose behind processing food is not only to make it safe to eat at a later date but also to preserve its look, taste, smell as close to freshly prepared food as possible. Food additives are one of the many things that allow users to enjoy crunchy cookies, moist bread, tender pot roast, and refrigerated fresh salad.
In simple words, a food additive is any substance which is added in the process of production, processing, treatment, packaging, transportation or storage of food to keep it fresh and ready to eat at a later time.
Benefits of Additives in Food:
- To maintain or improve safety and freshness
- To maintain or improve nutritional value of food
- To improve taste, texture, and appearance
Food Additives can be divided into the following groups:
- Acids
- Acidity regulators
- Anticaking agents
- Antifoaming agents
- Antioxidants
- Bulking agents
- Food colouring
- Colour retention agents
- Emulsifiers
- Flavours
- Flavour enhancers
- Flour treatment agents
- Humectants
- Preservatives
- Stabilizers, thickeners and gelling agents
- Sweeteners
- Thickeners
Food Adulteration
Food adulteration in simple words is the mixing of non-edible or harmful items into food to lower the cost price. Inferior products are usually harmful or do not have equal nutritional value like the original. In order to curb the threat from food adulteration, the Government of India introduced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 with the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955.
Food adulteration often leads to economic food fraud — substituting items of lesser value for something of higher value and then passing off the final product as one of higher value.
Most Common Food Adulterants:
| Food | Adulterant |
|---|---|
| Orange Juice Olive Oil Apple Juice Dairy Cream Maple and Sorghum Syrups Honey Scallops Horseradish Milk Ginseng | Beet Sugar, Corn Syrup Canola Oil Sugar, Water, Flavouring, Hydrolyzed Inulin Syrup Corn Oil Corn Syrup Corn Syrup Water, Sodium Tripolyphosphate Potato Starch Salt, Water Sawdust |