Food additive can be divided into two major groups: intentional additives and incidental additives.
Intentional additives are chemical substances that are added to food for specific purpose, including improving, maintaining, or stabilizing some characteristics of food.
Therefore intentional food additives include preservatives, antioxidants, sequestrants, surface active agents, stabilizers and thickeners, bleaching and maturing agents and starch modifiers, buffers, acids and alkalis.
Incidental additives are environmental chemicals of known origin and anticipated use: for example, pesticides, antibiotics and growth stimulants.
Incidental additives may be transferred to foods by contact such as ingredients of packaging or of equipment surface coating. They are really contaminants from some phase of production, processing, storage, packaging or consumer preparations.
Currently, more than 2800 different substances are intentionally added to foods. As many as 10,000 other substances enter foods as contaminants.
Although there are controls over intentional or incidental additives, intentional additives are regulated by strict government controls.
Food additive grouping
