What is a food additive?

The definition of food additives in the “National Standard for Food Safety Standards for the use of food additives” (GB 2760-2014) is: artificial or natural substances added to food for the purpose of improving food quality and color, aroma, taste, as well as for the needs of anti-corrosion, preservation and processing technology.
By definition, food additives play an important role in food processing. However, when it comes to food additives, many consumers will smell the color change and have doubts.
This is mainly due to the lack of scientific understanding of food additives by consumers, who think that substances added to food (especially illegal additives such as “melamine” and “Sudan red”) are food additives, resulting in misunderstanding of food additives. Everyone knows that food additives are not “terrible”.
Food additives ≠ illegal additives
In recent years, from “melamine” to “Sudan red”; From “clenbuterol” to “hanging white”… Food safety incidents occur from time to time, which damage the health and rights of consumers and cause bad social impact. However, most consumers do not know that these harmful substances are not food additives, but other illegal added substances that are expressly prohibited in Article 34 of the Food Safety Law.
Food additives are safe as long as they are used within the prescribed range and prescribed limits. In addition, there are some false and exaggerated advertising campaigns on the market such as “this product does not contain any additives” and “zero addition products”, which also makes consumers mistakenly believe that “no addition” is “safe”.
But in fact, the food that does not contain additives is prone to discoloration, taste deterioration and even spoilage, which affects the quality of food. Food additives ≠ illegal additives! The “National Standard for Food Safety Standard for the use of food Additives” (GB 2760-2014) strictly stipulates the type, scope of use and safe dosage of food additives in China.
Therefore, as long as it is approved by the state and allowed to be listed, the type and amount of food additives contained in it meet food safety standards, consumers can be assured to buy.
Types and functions of food additives
At present, China’s food additives have 22 categories, such as preservatives, leavening agents, thickeners, colorants (pigments), nutrition fortifiers, and a total of more than 2,000 types. And each food additive often has one or more functions, playing an important role in the food processing and production process:
One is to control the reproduction of microorganisms in food to prevent food spoilage. For example: in order to prevent the long-term pickles, juice, jam, preserves, soy sauce and other deterioration, often need to add preservatives, otherwise these foods have not yet left the factory or factory soon will deteriorate;
The second is to prevent food from discoloration, stale taste and affecting quality during preservation. For example: oil is easy to rancid produce rancid taste, adding antioxidants can delay this process;
The third is to meet the needs of food processing technology. Such as: do tofu need to add coagulant; The production of jelly and ice cream needs to add thickening agent; In order to maintain or improve the nutritional value of the food itself, nutritional fortification agents are added to high-calcium biscuits and zinc-added milk powder.
Food additives use and labeling requirements
First, the use of food additives should meet the relevant national safety standards, and the use of food additives should not exceed the scope and exceed the limit, and should not cause any health hazards to the human body.
Second, food additives can not be used to cover up food spoilage.
Third, food additives can not be used to cover up the quality defects of the food itself or the processing process, or to use food additives for the purpose of doping, adulteration, counterfeiting.
Fourth, the use of food additives should not reduce the nutritional value of the food itself and the quality and hygiene requirements.
The fifth is to reduce the use of food additives in food as much as possible under the premise of achieving the desired effect.
Sixth, according to the “Food Safety National Standard pre-packaged food labeling General Rules” (GB 7718-2011) requirements, the direct use of food additives should be in accordance with the decreasing order of the amount added, marked with its generic name in GB 2760. Food additives contained in compound ingredients containing less than 25% of the total amount of food, if they comply with the introduction principle specified in GB 2760 and do not have a technical role in the final product, do not need to be labeled.