Food Additives

Food additive is any substance added to food to enhance the food flavor, taste and appearance, to preserve the food or to improve the food nutritional value. For centuries, our ancestors used salt for meat and fish preservation, herbs for food flavoring, vinegar for vegetable pickling and sugar for fruit preservation. Nowadays, people enjoy a more flavorful, colorful, nutritious food, and the development of food additive technology makes that possible.

There are thousands of ingredients that can be used as food additive. In fact, people also have concerns about the use of food additive, as some of them coming with unfamiliar name and complex chemical structures. In addition, there are certain group of people have allergies with specific food additive substance while the rest do not. Therefore, the analysis of food additive is an obligatory foundation of food manufacturers to ensure the safe use of food additive to consumers.

In this book, we will discuss general aspects of food additive and the analytical methods for such compounds. Starting by presenting an overview of food additive and the intolerance value of them to people, the book will unveil the theory, parameters and practical methods for food additive analysis and regulations in food processing.

Methods of food additive analysis will be the main theme of this book. Some of the most advanced technology in food additive analysis such as high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), high throughput screening program, voltametric techniques, mass spectrometry (MS) and more will be presented. Each of the method will contain protocol to a specific food additive group, pros and cons of that method compared against others that can be a great reference to any scientist and food producers.

Advances on food technology have created hundreds of new food additive substances every year. The last part of this book will discuss about those compounds and their medical and nutritional value. On the other hands, diseases related to food additive consumption, such as autoimmune, will be also discussed.