What are preservatives?

What are preservatives?

The food that we consume might not always be fresh. Unlike the olden times the food that we consume is not always home made and fresh, While out of home and on the go, we often pick up a pack of chips, snacks, cold drinks and other beverages. To prevent these foods from spoiling, preservatives are added to them. Preservatives are used for almost all the packaged foods to increase their shelf life. Apart from the packaged foods, preservatives are also used for foods prepared at home. They are often required for products like pickles, concentrated drinks, etc. prepared at home.

Preservatives, just like any other food additive, can be divided into two broad categories:

• Natural Food Preservatives
• Artificial Food Preservatives

Natural Food Preservatives
The natural food preservatives refer to food additives that are not artificially prepared. Rather they are naturally available. The commonly found natural food preservatives are the ones that are easily found in the household kitchens, for example, salt, sugar, vinegar, onion, rosemary extract, etc. All of these are used for different preserving methods like pickling and marinating. Sugar syrups are used to preserve fruits and vegetables, salt is used for meats and non vegetarian food items. Vinegar is used for making pickles and preserving fresh vegetables for shorter spans like two to three days. Since all these are natural food products they do not have any adverse effects like their artificial counterparts.

Artificial Food Preservatives
Artificial food preservatives on the other hand are the produced artificially using chemicals that are known to increase the shelf life of the food products. Artificial or chemical food preservatives are mostly used for commercial food packaging. The list of the preservatives included is clearly mentioned on the food packaging boxes and containers. Commonly used artificial food preservatives are the benzoates, nitrites, sulphites and the sorbates. Chemical food preservatives are often harmful food preservatives and should be avoided as far as possible, Though we consume most of them on a daily basis, still some people might develop some allergies to a few of them, which should not be ignored.