Riboflavin as food coloring

Riboflavin is a nutrient necessary for maintaining good health in humans and animals. It is also commonly referred to as vitamin B2.

Riboflavin occurs as a yellow to orange-yellow, crystalline powder. Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is a water-soluble vitamin. It is synthesized by all plants and many microorganisms, but it is not produced by higher animals.

Riboflavin is widely used as an additive to foodstuffs and feedstuffs. It is used in foods predominantly for fortification. It has E number 101. Riboflavin has a distinctive yellow color and it fluoresce's when exposed to ultraviolet light. However, riboflavin is degraded by both ultraviolet and visible light, so food supplements colored with riboflavin should be protected from light.

Riboflavin can be used to color convenient foods, soft drinks, cheese and cheese products, dairy products, bakery goods, fish products, canned fruits and vegetables, confectionery, desert powder, sherbets, jams and jellies, soups, mayonnaise and salad dressing, fats and oils, mustard and flavorings.

Riboflavin is important for the growth, development, and function of the cells in human body. It also helps turn the food eaten into the energy needed.
Riboflavin as food coloring

Vitamin D as food additive

Many foods contain added vitamins and minerals that might not be in a person’s diet or that have been destroyed or lost in processing. Common nutritional additives include vitamin D in milk, vitamin A in margarine, vitamin C in fruit drinks, and iodine in salt.

Vitamin D is a nutrient found in some foods that is needed for health and to maintain strong bones. It does so by helping the body absorb calcium (one of bone’s main building blocks) from food and supplements.

The main sources of natural vitamin D are fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel or tuna, mushrooms and also egg yolks. Vitamin D can also be obtained from food fortified with vitamin D, such as cereal products, bakery products, baby food, butter, and margarine. The most commonly used vehicles for vitamin D fortification are dairy products (milk, cheese and yogurt). Bread fortified with vitamin D could serve as a good source of vitamin D due to its common consumption.

Such fortification has helped prevent nutritional deficiency diseases that were once common, such as rickets (due to deficiency of vitamin D).
Vitamin D as food additive

Food colorant of carotenoid

The carotenoids, particularly their nature-identical synthetic counter parts, beta-app-8’-carotenal,beta-carotene ash canthaxanthin, are popular food colorants.

The carotenoids add yellow, red and orange pigmentation to foods. Beta-carotene and beta-apo-8’-carotenal have vitamin activity but canthaxanthin does not.

Federal regulations permit addition of beta-carotene to foods at any concentration but specify maximum limits for beta-app-8’ carotenal (1.5 mg/lb or pinto food).

Beta-carotene is used to colour margarine, shortening, butter, cheese, baked goods, confections, ice cream, egg nog, macaroni products, soups, juices, and beverages.

Beta-apo-8’-carotenal may be used to colour juices, fruit drink, soups, jams, jellies, gelatine, processed cheese, margarine, sale dressing and fats and oils.
Carotenoid as food colorant

Food uses of ascorbic acid

Ascorbic acid is a widely used food additive with many functional roles, many of which are based upon its oxidation –reduction properties.

It is the naturally occurring L-ascorbic acid. It is freely soluble in water and sparingly soluble in ethanol.

Its functional roles include its uses as a nutritional food additive, antioxidant, browning inhibitor, reducing agent, flavor stabilizer, modifier and enhancer, color stabilizer, dough modifier and many other capacities.

Ascorbic acid is used as an antimicrobial and antioxidant in foods. It is preferentially oxidized in place of other substrates and complements very well as a synergist to other antioxidants, such as BHA and BHT in polyphase food systems.

Ascorbic and its sodium and calcium salts are used as nutritive additives. Whenever there is a need to preserve the vitamin content in fortified foods, the D isomer of ascorbic acid, isoascorbate or eyrthrobate, is incorporated with ascorbic acid.

Ascorbic acid is very widely used in bread making, where it is present as a ‘flour improver’. In practice, this means that the addition of ascorbic acid improves the bread texture and the size of the resulting loaf, the dough has greater elasticity, increased gas retention, and improved water absorption.
Food uses of ascorbic acid

Nutritional food additives

Nutrients functions are to improve or maintain the nutritional quality of foods. Many food additives, including vitamins and minerals, serve nutritional functions. Other nutritional additives include amino acids, fatty acids as well as other pure chemical compounds.

Vitamins and minerals added to many common foods such as milk, flour, cereal, and margarine to make up for elements likely to be lacking in a personal diet, replace those lost in processing or improve shelf life.

Most salt contains iodine to prevent goiter a condition resulting for iodine deficiency. It was one of the earliest used of nutritional additives to correct dietary deficiencies. In 1833, the French chemist Boussingault recommended the addition of iodine to table salt to prevent goiter.

Nutritional additives can be used to restore nutrients to levels found in the food before storage, packaging, handling and processing.

Other example of nutritional additives is fluoride may be added to drinking water to supply the mineral fluorine, required for normal tooth development in children.

Margarine, for example, is used as substitute for butter for economic reasons, Vitamin A and D thus need to be added to margarine to raise it nutritional value equal to that of the butter.
Nutritional food additives

Vitamins as Food Additive

Vitamins as Food Additive
Oxidation, a series of chemical reactions yielding undesirable and products (off odors, colors, and flavors), may occur in many fruits and vegetables and foods high in fat and oil during exposure to air, light, heat, heavy metals, certain pigments or alkaline conditions. Enzymatic browning may occur in some fruits and vegetables, particularly apples, banana, peaches, pear, and potatoes, which contain phenolase enzymes. When these fruits and vegetables are cut or sliced and exposed to air, the phenolases catalyze oxidation of phenolics compounds to ortho-quinone compounds, which then polymerize, forming brown pigments.

Oxidation in lipids (autoxidation) and in fat and oil containing foods, on the other hand, occurs as a result of the susceptibility of fatty acids (building blocks of fats and oils) to oxidations and subsequent formation of reactive compounds referred to as “free radicals”.

The free radicals promote the development of a series of chemical reactions which lead to the production of off-flavors, colors, odors, and rancidity. While both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids are susceptible to oxidation, unsaturated fatty acids are significantly more susceptible than their saturated counterparts at room temperatures and at elevated temperatures.

Antioxidants, as defined by Food and Drug Administration are “substances used to preserve food by retarding deterioration, rancidity or discoloration due to oxidation.” Some oxidations have more than one function. For example, Ascorbic acids may function as a free-radical chain terminator, and oxygen scavenger, or a metal chelator. Under certain conditions, it may act as a promoter for oxidation.
Vitamins as Food Additive

Nutrients Additive

Nutrients Additive
The need for a balanced and ample nutrient intake by the human body is well known. Although nutrients are available in foods, losses of fractional amounts of some of them through processing, and increasing frequencies of improper dieting, have led to the practice of adding minimum daily requirements nutrients to popular foods, such as breakfast cereals, baked goods, pasta products, and low calorie breakfast drinks. Nutrients additives include mainly vitamins, proteins, and minerals.

Vitamin D is an exceptional example of the value of the food additive concept. The major source of vitamin D for human lies in the existence of a precursor compound lying just under the skin that converts to the vitamin form when we are exposed to the radiant energy of the sun. However, in many cases, exposure to the sun is sporadic and insufficient, especially in areas where there is normally insufficient sunshine or in cases where outdoor activities are of sufficient duration. Thus, vitamin D is added to nearly all commercial milk in a ration of 400 U.S.P units per qt (0.95).

The additive of protein concentrate to components of diet of inhabitants of underdeveloped countries has been used successfully to remedy the high incidence of protein malnutrition. It should be noted that soybean is incomplete and requires the addition of some amino acids in which it is deficient. Children, especially, succumb in large numbers to the disease, kwashiorkor that results from insufficient protein intake.

Among minerals, iron has received major attention as a food additive, mainly because of its role in preventing certain anemias.
Nutrients Additive