Health effects of food additives

Pesticides and additives have been prominent subjects for the media, which may lead some people to focus on those hazards more than others.

Food additives are an integral part do modern foods. Food additives make possible year-round safe, convenient and tasty foods.

People do die from microbial hazards, but deaths due to consuming pesticide residues or food additives are rare.

Excessive levels of an additive or inclusion of an undeclared additive may be directly dangerous in some instances, but food additives themselves, when used properly, pose little health risk given current scientific evidence.

Today manufacturers use more than 3000 food additives. Food additives are those substances that are intentionally added to food for maintaining or improving its appearance, texture, flavor and nutritional value, as well as for the prevention of microbial spoilage.

Despite benefits attributed to food additives for several years there have also been a number of concerns regarding the potential short and long term risks of consuming food additives.

Critics of additives are concerned with both indirect and direct impacts of using additives.

The indirect health effects are the opposite of some of their beneficial effects. The use of additive had led to a wider food assortment, but also increased availability of food with a low nutrient content including junk food.

The direct effects include short-term as well as long term toxic effects.
Health effects of food additives

Biological Hazard of Food Safety

A biological hazards is an agent in food with potential to cause human illness. It is the most significant hazards in our food.

Biological hazards involve mainly living organisms, implying strong growth, no growth or death depending on the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of the food matrix.

Intrinsic factors are mainly related to the structure and composition of the foodstuff, while extrinsic factors are related to some environmental parameters that affect the food.

Biological hazards include disease-causing micro-organisms, certain plants and fish that carry toxins (poisonous). Or it can be referred to as microbial contaminants, microorganisms or pathogens.

Once a biological hazard is in the food, it may be very hard to kill or control.

It should ne noted that biological hazards pose the greatest public health threat at the pre-harvest stage since the chemical and physical hazards do not reproduce and increase in the food and in the environment with time, as do microbiological hazards.

Some micro-organisms can survive freezing temperatures. Bacteria and the toxins they produce do not have an odor or taste to help you detect them. Bacteria can be a silent killer in foods.

Some bacteria produce spores. Spores are thick-walled, protective structures that allow bacteria to survive cooking, freezing temperatures, and some sanitizing mixtures.

Microorganisms grow when they have the right nutrients and conditions for growth. Bacteria need these conditions to grow:
Food
High protein foods are often contaminated at the time of purchase. Using safe food practices destroys the bacteria. Acidity: bacteria prefer low-acid environments. Some bacteria do survive an acidic environment.

Bacteria use an enormous range include various sugars and either carbohydrates, amino acids, sterols, alcohols, hydrocarbons, inorganic salts and carbon dioxide.

Time
Potentially hazardous foods should not remain in the danger zone for more than four hours during the entire food handling process.

Temperature
The temperature danger zone is 40 degrees F to 140 degrees F.

Oxygen
Many bacteria grow bets in the present of oxygen (aerobic organism). Some bacteria grow without oxygen- anaerobic. However, both types of bacteria cause foodborne illness.

Others grow equally well under either aerobic or anaerobic conditions.

Moisture
Bacteria grow best in a moist environment.
A high proportion of the mass of a bacterium is water, and during growth, nutrients and waste products enter and leave the cell. Bacteria can grow only in or on materials which have adequate free or available water.

pH
Most bacteria grow best at near pH7 (neutral), and the majority cannot grow under strongly acidic or strongly alkaline solution.
Biological Hazard of Food Safety