Intentional food additive

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling with vinegar, salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines.

Sometimes additives are divided into two categories:
1. Intentional or direct
2. Incidental or indirect

Intentional or direct food additives are commonly those that have been deliberately added for some special function by the food processor (usually the company), while indirect additives are usually those that may have drifted into food products in minute quantities due to e.g. growing, processing, or packaging phase during the food production process.

Intentional additives have been purposely added to foods to achieve specific effects during production or processing or to impart or retain desired characteristics.

Today, more than 2500 different additives are intentionally added to foods to produce a desired effect. The use of these additives is a well-accepted practice but is not without controversy.

A food additive may only be authorized if:
• Its safety has been evaluated on the basis of the available scientific evidence
• On the basis of this evaluation, it is considered to present no hazard to the health of the consumer at the level of use proposed
• There is a technological need for its use that cannot be achieved by other economically and technologically practicable means
Intentional food additive

Food additive grouping

Food additive is a substance or mixture of substances, other than basic food stuff, which is present in food as a result of any activity of production, processing, storage or packaging.

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

Definition of Food Additive

Definition of Food Additive
Contrary to popular believe, the word “food additive” refers to a use and not a class of substances. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines food additive as follows:

"...the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, either in their becoming a component of food or otherwise affecting the characteristics of food.

A material used in the production of containers and packages is subject to the definition if it may reasonably be expected to become a component, or to affect the characteristics, directly or indirectly, of food packed in the container.

‘Affecting the characteristics of food’ does not included such physical effects as protecting contents of packages, preserving shape, and preventing moisture loss. If there is not migration of a packaging component from package to the food, it does not become a component of the food and thus is not a food additive.

A substances that does not become a component of food, but that is used, for example, in preparing an ingredient of the food to give a different flavor, texture or other characteristic in the food, may be a food additive.”

Sometimes additives are divided into two categories:
1. Intentional or direct
2. Incidental or indirect

Intentional or direct
These are the additives of known composition that have been purposely added to foods to achieve specific effects during production or processing or to impart or retain desired characteristics.

Incidental or Indirect
These are chemical which have no planned function in food, but become part of it during some phase of processing, packaging, or storing.

For most part, additives perform a necessary function on food. The amount of most additive consumed on a yearly basis is relatively small: hence, additives pose a minor health risk.

There are over 2,000 additives, many are common chemicals, and all are continually scrutinized by any adverse effects on the health of people. But, to enjoy the benefits from any technology carries as certain degree of risk.
Definition of Food Additive