Gelatin

Gelatin is a pure, natural protein made from animal raw materials that contain collagen. It consists of 84 to 90 per cent protein and 2 per cent mineral salts, with water making up the rest.

Gelatin is a multifunctional ingredient used in foods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and photographic films as a gelling agent, stabilizer, thickener, emulsifier, and film former. Gelatin is a major ingredient in some popular foods, including desserts, candies, stock, consommé, and aspic.

Gelatin has the properties of strong water-binding capacity, good film-forming ability, high viscosity of solution, low gelling and melting temperatures, and high reactivity of its side chain group. It is used to enhance food texture or enhance taste. Because gelatin has a neutral taste profile, it can be combined with countless flavors.

It is also used, as well, in fat-reduced foods to simulate the mouthfeel of fat and to create volume.
Gelatin quality is industrially determined by gel strength, viscosity, melting or gelling temperatures, the water content, and microbiological safety.
Gelatin

The importance of additive in food

The term does not include chance contaminants. An additive may be reactive or inactive; it may be nutritive or nonnutritive; it should be neither toxic nor hazardous.

Additives are substances, or a mixture of substances, other than basic foodstuffs, that are present in food as a result of any aspect of production, processing, storage or packaging.

The importance of food additive includes:
*To maintain product consistency
*To improve or maintain nutritional value
*To maintain palatability and wholesomeness
*To provide leavening or control acidity/alkalinity
*To enhance flavor or impart desired color

Food additives has important role in the production of processed meats and sausages, where it solubilizes muscle protein, which contribute to meta binding, moisture and fat retention and the formation of desirable gel texture upon cooking.

Coloring and dyes, preservatives, emulsifying and stabilizing agents, antioxidants, synthetic, a natural flavoring agents, additives improving specific sensory characteristics, bleaching agents are among the most popular food additives.

Before World War II there were relatively few food additives for functional purpose. The revolution in food technology in the 1940s and 1950s brought proliferation of new additives.

Moreover changes in demographics, particularly the migration of the population from farms to the cities fueled a growing need for additives such as preservatives.
The importance of additive in food

PH Control Substances

PH Control Substances
Natural or synthetic acid or alkali ingredients change or maintain the initial pH of a product.

For example, acidulents flavor, preserve and regulate pH.

The acid ingredients regulate by lowering the pH and preserve foods by inhibiting microbial growth.

Regardless of the acid level of food ingredients, food acids are incorporated into foods in order maintain a constant acid level.

Natural acids include the following acetic acid or vinegar and citric acid from citrus, which control unwanted trace metals otherwise catalyzing oxidation reactions; malic acid (an organic acid from apples and figs); and tartaric acid (a weak acid).

These acids may be added to foods to impart flavor and control tartness.

Lactic acid present in almost all living organisms, is an acidity regulator and is used in balancing the acidity in cheese making, as well as adding tartness to many other foods.

The acid salt calcium propionate is added to control pH of breads.

Sodium lactate (the salt of lactic acid) may be used in processed meat and poultry products.

Examples of alkaline ingredients include sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), an ingredient that balances the acid component of baking powder, sodium hydroxide, used in modified starches, and potassium hydroxide.

Alkaline compounds are used to neutralize excess acid that otherwise could produce unwelcome flavors. In food they leaven and soften hard water.
PH Control Substances

Labeling of Food Additive

Labeling of Food Additive
The risks or benefits of food additive and ingredients must be clearly displayed for consumers. The FD&C Act requires, in virtually all cases, a complete of all the ingredients of a food.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act which amended the FD&C Act requires most foods to bear labeling and requires food labels that bear nutrient content claims and certain health massages to comply with specific requirements.

Two of the exemptions from ingredients labeling requirements have resulted in special product labeling efforts to protect the health of consumers.

First, the act provides that species, flavorings, and colorings may be declared collectively without naming each one.

One exception is the artificial color additive FD&C Yellow #5. This chemical must be specifically identified in the ingredients statement of finished foods because a small percentage of the population may be allergic or sensitive to the additive.

Second, FDA regulations exempt from ingredient declaration incidental additives, such as processing aids, that are present in a food at insignificant levels and that do no have a technical or functional effect in the finished food.

One of important example of an incidental additive is peanuts. An increasing number of products are identified that they “may contain peanuts.”

While peanut-derived ingredients were not intentionally added to these products, residues from peanut use in processing on nearby equipment or previous production runs may have contaminated these products with peanut residues.

Since peanuts are one of the leading causes of allergic responses to foods, many companies have chosen to label some product with “may contain peanuts.”

Some foods may be identified or labeled to contain additives that can improve public or individual health.

Many ready to eat breakfast cereal products are fortified with several vitamins and minerals.

A quantity of these substances is added to the cereal so that a consumer may expect to consume 25 to 100% of the recommended daily intake of that nutrient from a defined size serving.

Additives that can improve human health are sometimes advertised elsewhere in finished product packaging besides the ingredients list and nutrition label.
Labeling of Food Additive

Alkaline Compounds as Food Additive

Alkaline Compounds as Food Additive
Alkaline compounds are compounds that raise the pH. Alkaline compounds, such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, may be used to neutralize excess acid that can develop in natural or cultured fermented foods. Thus, the acid in cream may partially neutralized prior to churning in the manufacture of butter. If this were not done, the excess acid would result on the development of undesirable flavors.

Sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate are used to refine rendered fats. Alkaline compounds are also added to chlorinated drinking water to adjust the pH to high enough levels to control the corrosive effects of chlorine on pipes, equipment, and so forth. Sodium carbonate is also used in conjunction with other compounds to reduce the amount of hardness in drinking water.

Sodium hydroxide is used to modify starch and in the production of caramel. Sodium bicarbonate is used as an ingredient of baking powder, which is used for baked products. It is also a common household item used in a variety of cooking recipe. Alkaline compounds are used in the production of chocolate and in the adjusting of acidity levels in grape juice and other fruit juices that are to be fermented in the production of wine.

Some alkaline compounds, such as sodium bicarbonate are relatively mild and safe to use, while others, such as sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide, are relatively powerful reagents and should, not be handled by inexperienced people.
Alkaline Compounds as Food Additive