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Direct and Indirect Food Additives
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Tuesday, 17 November, 2020, 14 : 00 PM [IST]
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Sagar Neve
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For centuries, ingredients have served useful functions in a variety of foods. Our ancestors used salt to preserve meats and fish, added herbs and spices to improve the flavour of foods, preserved fruit with sugar, and pickled cucumbers in a vinegar solution. Today, consumers demand and enjoy a food supply that is flavourful, nutritious, safe, convenient, colourful and affordable. Food additives and advances in technology help make that possible.
There are thousands of ingredients used to make foods. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains a list of over 3000 ingredients in its data base "Everything Added to Food," many of which we use at home every day (e.g., sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla, yeast, spices and colours).
Still, some consumers have concerns about additives because they may see the long, unfamiliar names and think of them as complex chemical compounds. In fact, every food we eat - whether a just-picked strawberry or a homemade cookie - is made up of chemical compounds that determine flavour, colour, texture and nutrient value. All food additives are carefully regulated by federal authorities and various international organisations to ensure that foods are safe to eat and are accurately labeled.
Additives perform a variety of useful functions in foods that consumers often take for granted. Some additives could be eliminated if we were willing to grow our own food, harvest and grind it, spend many hours cooking and canning, or accept increased risks of food spoilage. But most consumers today rely on the many technological, aesthetic and convenient benefits that additives provide.
Following are some reasons why ingredients are added to foods:
To Maintain or Improve Safety and Freshness: Preservatives slow product spoilage caused by mold, air, bacteria, fungi or yeast. In addition to maintaining the quality of the food, they help control contamination that can cause foodborne illness, including life-threatening botulism. One group of preservatives -- antioxidants -- prevents fats and oils and the foods containing them from becoming rancid or developing an off-flavor. They also prevent cut fresh fruits such as apples from turning brown when exposed to air.
To Improve or Maintain Nutritional Value: Vitamins and minerals (and fiber) are added to many foods to make up for those lacking in a person's diet or lost in processing, or to enhance the nutritional quality of a food. Such fortification and enrichment has helped reduce malnutrition in the U.S. and worldwide. All products containing added nutrients must be appropriately labeled.
Improve Taste, Texture and Appearance: Spices, natural and artificial flavours, and sweeteners are added to enhance the taste of food. Food colours maintain or improve appearance. Emulsifiers, stabilizers and thickeners give foods the texture and consistency consumers expect. Leavening agents allow baked goods to rise during baking. Some additives help control the acidity and alkalinity of foods, while other ingredients help maintain the taste and appeal of foods with reduced fat content.
In its broadest sense, a food additive is any substance added to food. Legally, the term refers to, "Any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result -- directly or indirectly -- in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food." This definition includes any substance used in the production, processing, treatment, packaging, transportation or storage of food. The purpose of the legal definition, however, is to impose a premarket approval requirement. Therefore, this definition excludes ingredients whose use is generally recognised as safe (where government approval is not needed), those ingredients approved for use by FDA prior to the food additives provisions of law, and colour additives and pesticides where other legal premarket approval requirements apply.
Direct food additives are those that are added to a food for a specific purpose in that food. For example, xanthan gum -- used in salad dressings, chocolate milk, bakery fillings, puddings and other foods to add texture -- is a direct additive. Most direct additives are identified on the ingredient label of foods. Indirect food additives are those that become part of the food in trace amounts due to its packaging, storage or other handling. For instance, minute amounts of packaging substances may find their way into foods during storage. Food packaging manufacturers must prove to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that all materials coming in contact with food are safe before they are permitted for use in such a manner.
A colour additive is any dye, pigment or substance which when added or applied to a food, drug or cosmetic, or to the human body, is capable (alone or through reactions with other substances) of imparting colour. FDA is responsible for regulating all colour additives to ensure that foods containing colour additives are safe to eat, contain only approved ingredients and are accurately labeled.
Today, food additives are more strictly studied, regulated and monitored than at any other time in history. FDA has the primary legal responsibility for determining their safe use. To market a new food additive (or before using an additive already approved for one use in another manner not yet approved), a manufacturer or other sponsor must first petition FDA for its approval. These petitions must provide evidence that the substance is safe for the ways in which it will be used. As a result of recent legislation, since 1999, indirect additives have been approved via a premarket notification process requiring the same data as was previously required by petition.
When evaluating the safety of a substance and whether it should be approved, FDA considers:
1) the composition and properties of the substance,
2) the amount that would typically be consumed,
3) immediate and long-term health effects, and
4) various safety factors. The evaluation determines an appropriate level of use that includes a built-in safety margin - a factor that allows for uncertainty about the levels of consumption that are expected to be harmless. In other words, the levels of use that gain approval are much lower than what would be expected to have any adverse effect.
Food ingredients have been used for many years to preserve, flavour, blend, thicken and colour foods, and have played an important role in reducing serious nutritional deficiencies among consumers. These ingredients also help ensure the availability of flavourful, nutritious, safe, convenient, colourful and affordable foods that meet consumer expectations year-round. Food additives are strictly studied, regulated and monitored. Furthermore, all additives are subject to ongoing safety review as scientific understanding and methods of testing continue to improve. consumers should feel safe about the foods they eat.
(The author is owned of Mondo Fine Dine. He can be reached at sagar@nevehospitality.com)
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