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.

Chemicals In Food

With coming up of restaurants and chain food joints, the culture of eating out and consuming packaged food has become not just a necessity but a habit. The habit has grown into addiction to such levels that consumption of outside food is common even among kids, leave alone the young and adults. Such high intake of junk food is exposing the our body system to a number of unwanted chemical foods. Chemical foods do not necessarily imply food products with higher quantities of harmful food chemicals and additives. It refers to all those foods that use chemical food additives in whatever quantity, in some way or the other.

Some of the main chemical foods are potato chips in the market, pizzas, burgers, fries, ice creams, packaged drinks, foods with longer shelf lives and other foods that are a part of the daily consumption of many. Let's understand some of the main categories of chemicals in foods that are harming our bodies in a major way.

Anti Caking Agents

Anti caking agent is an additive that performs functions as per its name. Its prevents caking of powdery and liquid substances. Some of the popular products that use these anti caking agents are salt, milk powder, tea, coffee, sugar, etc. Anti caking agents are added to such products to prevent from coagulating and allow free flow and mix. Icing sugar, soups, coffee and baking powder are a few of the food products that use anti caking agents.

Lake Food Dyes

Lake food colors are also known as lake pigments. Lake pigments are oil soluble colors that are used in a lot of industries. Some of the examples pf lake colors are allura red, amaranth, tartrazine, brilliant blue, etc. Though lake colors do not have any side effects in general, but they should be consumed with care, anyways. The common chemical foods that consist lake colors in the name of chemicals in food are, pet food, medicines and and other drugs, cosmetic products, can linings, packaged products, and bakery and dairy products.

Preservatives

Preservatives are substances that are added to food additives with an aim of increasing the shelf life of the food products. Sugar, salt and lemon are some of natural food preservatives, but apart from them, synthetic food preservatives like benzoates, nitrites, sulphites, sorbates and others are also common in our everyday packaged foods consumption.

The main idea communicated here is that chemical foods have become an unavoidable part of our everyday lives, and the only way to stay away from them, as far as possible, and stick to home made and home cooked foods.

Food Additive Allergies

Food additives are of many types and differ in their usage. Each category of food additives amongst the popular and unpopular ones, has a special offering of its own, which is used to enhance the food products in some way or the other. Be it the basic food preservatives, emulsifiers, thickeners and stabilizers, vegetable gums, flavorings, colorings, etc. Though all of these additives are added in very small quantities, they are still capable of having allergic reactions in certain cases. Let's have a look at a few of these food additive allergies in detail, and understand what additives cause what allergies.

Colorings Agents

A number of natural and artificial coloring agents are used in cooking. Some of the allergy causing coloring agents are annatto, saffron and carmine. Annatto extract is known to cause allergic reactions alike anaphylaxis and urticaria. Saffron again causes anaphylaxis. Just like saffron and annatto, carmine is also capable of allergic reactions. All of these can cause adverse reactions, even after being natural food colorants. Apart from these, even tartrazine is also notorious for common allergies.

Vegetable Gums
Vegetable gums are used just like food emulsifiers. Amongst the popular gums used in cooking. Many of them are infamous for aggravating breathing problems like asthma and bronchitis.

Emulsifier

Food emulsifier are used as thickening agents to make the food more viscose and thick. All the natural emulsifiers like egg, yolk, honey, etc use a common constituent lecithin that causes allergies to many. Check by having a small quantity before adding it to the complete meal.



Preservatives
Natural food preservatives are usually harmless food additives. Allergy causing preservatives are sulfites, benzonites and nitrates, all of which are artificial food preservatives. The commonly caused preservatives allergies are urticaria, anaphylaxis, asthma, allergic rhinitis, itching and flushing.

Popular Permitted Food Additives

Food additives simply refer to ingredients that are put into the food for a specific purpose like preserving, adding a flavor, color, aroma or essence. Each food additive might have more than one of these qualities. According the use of these additives they are categorized separately under various heads. Some of the popularly used and permitted food additives are food preservatives, food flavors, food dyes and colors, food aroma additives and essence additives.

A number of natural and synthetic permitted food additives are used for serving the above mentioned purposes. The popular food additives that we have heard about are the food preservatives, sweeteners and color enhancers. Natural preservatives are vinegar and salt which are easily available in any household kitchen. Artificial preservatives in pickles and sweeteners are also used.

Other permitted food additive lot if that of food dyes that allow for easy and quick food coloring. But natural food colors can also be made at home. The only problem with natural food colors is that they are tedious to prepare at home. Otherwise, daily use vegetables like beetroot, carrot, turmeric and green vegetables are boiled in water to form a thick color concentrate. To know in detail about the above mentioned permitted food additives, read the complete article.