Food Additives

Food Additives is a substance that are added to food to maintain or improve the freshness, taste, aroma or even texture of the food. Many additives has been developed over time to meet the needs of food production. Additives are needed to ensure the food processed remains in good condition throughout its journey from factories to the consumers. This substance can be derived from either plants, animals, minerals or even synthetic.

How Food Preservation Works (Chemical Preservation)?

Chemical Food Preservation are compounds that either inhibit the growth of microorganisms under certain conditions without actually killing them or avoid quality of degradation during production and distribution. The former group contains certain natural constituents of foods that slow or prevent the growth of microorganisms when introduced to foods. Partially, sugar is used to make jams, jellies, and marmalade and sweet fruits for this purpose.

There are three types of chemical preservatives frequently used in foods:

1. benzoates (such as sodium benzoate) 
2. nitrites (such as sodium nitrite) 
3. sulphites (such as sulphur dioxide)

When you look at the ingredient labels for different foods, you sometimes see these different types of chemicals being used. Sorbic acid is another common preservative you can commonly see on food labels. Either all these chemicals hinder bacteria's activity or destroy the bacteria.