Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Food Additive

Edited by Yehia El-Samragy, ISBN 978-953-51-0067-6, Hard cover, 256 pages, Publisher: InTech, Chapters published February 22, 2012 under CC BY 3.0 license
DOI: 10.5772/1521

A food additive is defined as a substance not normally consumed as a food in itself and not normally used as a characteristic ingredient of food whether or not it has nutritive value. Food additives are natural or manufactured substances, which are added to food to restore colors lost during processing. They provide sweetness, prevent deterioration during storage and guard against food poisoning (preservatives). This book provides a review of traditional and non-traditional food preservation approaches and ingredients used as food additives. It also provides detailed knowledge for the evaluation of the agro-industrial wastes based on their great potential for the production of industrially relevant food additives. Furthermore the assessment of potential reproductive and developmental toxicity perspectives of some newly synthesized food additives on market has been covered. Finally, the identification of the areas relevant for future research has been pointed out indicating that there is more and more information needed to explore the possibility of the implementation of some other materials to be used as food additives.