What Food Additives Are Used For?

You’ve probably heard the expression, “You are what you eat.” Well, let’s take that a step further — What you eat is more than what you see.

This is especially true in foods that have been processed in some way. Many of them have what are known as food additives.

That might sound scary, but food additives aren’t meant to be that way. They’re simply extra ingredients that companies will put into certain foods for a variety of reasons.

Top Reasons Particular Food Additives Are In Processed Foods

Different additives do different things to your food. Here are some of the main reasons you’ll find them in your food products.

Nutritional Value

Some types of food additives actually make your food healthier when you eat it. This is needed because sometimes in the process of producing your food for mass consumption, nutritional value is taken out of it. So other food additives are put in to ensure you get what you need out of your meal.

Here are some of the nutritional food additives that we sell at M&U:

Lycine Hydrochloride

Lycine hydrochloride is an an amino acid that helps your cells build proteins. It’s rumored to prevent herpes, cold sores, and even diabetes, but there isn’t a lot of evidence to support this claim.

Glutamic Acid

Glutamic acid is another amino acid, which can become glutamate. Glutamate is known to help the neurons in your brain receive information and send it off to other parts of your body.

Threonine

Threonine is an essential amino acid. This means your body doesn’t actually produce it. The only way for you to get it is by eating food. It’s known to help your metabolism and your gut microbiome. There is evidence that getting threonine as a supplement can boost your metabolism.

Food Safety

One big challenge in the manufacturing process is food tends to spoil over time. When this happens, bacteria and fungi start infesting it, making it unsafe for human health. While it’s possible to eat this kind of food without getting sick, a basic risk assessment would tell you that it’s not worth trying.

Certain approved additives act as processing aids that address this problem. Here are a couple that we sell at M&U:

Sodium Nitrate and Nitrite

Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite are food additives that you generally find in cured meats like hot dogs, deli meats, bacon, and even jerky. They serve two different purposes:

  1. They are preservatives that keep the food fresh for a longer shelf life.
  2. They add a salty flavor to the meats.

These additives are partly what give certain meats that signature pink color that many of us have come to expect.

Unlike a lot of food additive chemicals, these aren’t created from a man-made chemical composition. They are naturally occurring chemicals that you can find as regular food components in vegetables, including spinach and celery.

There is some controversy over sodium nitrate and nitrite. Some people are concerned that it’s not very healthy. However, the human body actually needs these chemicals. They can be converted into nitric oxide, which lowers blood pressure, protects against cardiovascular disease, and improves blood flow.

Aiding In Fermentation

b2d3e5af 1471 4aa7 9575 c4edef1306d9

Whether you are baking bread, brewing beer, or making wine, you need yeast for the fermentation process. Yeast is a living organism, and certain chemicals can affect it in positive ways. For this reason, some food additives are used for providing nutrients to the yeast, making it more effective. A couple of these additives include ammonium sulfate and ammonium chloride.

Certain Food Additives Are Just for Taste

Some additives are basically just extra ingredients that make everything taste better. You may have added a type of food additive yourself — table salt or any other kinds of herbs and spices.

However, there are also different chemicals you can add, which can give food a specific flavor. Some of the ones we sell are known as heterocyclic compounds. This means they are made up of molecules that have a circular shape and are made up of at least two different elements.

Here are a couple examples of heterocycle food additives that we sell:

Pryazines

Pryazines are known to add a sweet, nutty flavor. They’re often formed while foods like cocoa, coffee, seeds, roasted nuts, and wine are being heated during processing. These chemicals are often used in baked goods, and they can play a role in sweet cocoa aromas.

At the most basic level, pryazines have the chemical formula C4H4N2, but there are a bunch of variations. For example, we also sell dimethyl pryazine — C6H8N2 — and tetramethyl pryazine — C8H12N2. In other words, they all have at least four carbons, eight hydrogens, and two nitrogens.

Thiazoles

Like Pryazines, thiazoles generally have a “nutty” flavor, but the type of thiazole can determine what the flavor actually is. This type of chemical is often found in more bitter-tasting foods and drinks, such as beer, leafy green vegetables, and black tea.

The most basic form of thiazoles has the formula C3H3NS, but here are some other variations and the flavor profiles you can expect from these food additives:

  • 2-Methyl thiazole (C4H5NS) adds a nutty, yet earthy smell and flavor.
  • 2-isobutyl thiazole (C7H11NS) adds a meaty flavor.
  • 2-acetyl thiazole (C5H5NOS) adds a flavor that tastes like popcorn.

Other Food Additives For Taste

26cfcde1 e5bd 436e 8218 4854b358178c

Not every food additive that we use for taste are considered heterocycle compounds. Some of them are considered 15N chemicals. These are chemicals that contain nitrogen-15. The number is simply an indicator of its atomic weight. It has seven protons and eight neutrons, and it’s considered a stable chemical.

Here are a couple of our tast-enhancing food additives in the 15N category:

Glutamic Acid

Does that name sound familiar? That’s because we discussed it above. Glutamic acid can become glutamate, but it can also become something called monosodium glutamate (MSG) which is commonly used in Asian cuisine. It adds an umami — or meaty — flavor to food.

MSG is simply glutamic acid with sodium attached.

Alanine

Alanine is another amino acid. It has a sweet taste and is used for both food and medication.

Not Every Food Additive is Intentionally Added

The additives we sell are known as direct additives. People will put them in for a specific purpose. However, that’s not the case for all types of food additives. In the food packaging process, you might end up with at least one new food additive that wasn’t there before. These are called indirect additives, and they can include adhesives, parts of paper or cardboard, or plastics that were used in the manufacturing process.

In United States food, there are regulations on these kinds of additives to ensure that the food is safe. The substances added cannot be a carcinogen. The food must also contain so little of these types of additives that they shouldn’t make any difference to human health. They cannot exceed 0.5 parts per billion, and they have to be below 1% of the daily recommended intake according to standards from the Food and Drug Administration.

Are Food Additives Safe?

The answer to this question is, “It depends.” It’s not a very black-and-white issue. Some of them need to be reviewed by the FDA, and others have so much evidence for their safety that they are “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). If you need a food additive that isn’t considered GRAS, the additive might have to go through some kind of review or safety test.

Get Food Additives For Your Business

If you’re a business owner who needs additives for any kind of food product that you are manufacturing, you should consider M&U.

We’re a multi-national chemical company that specializes in all sorts of different products. A big part of our business is supplying additives to companies that manufacture food.

We have a long list of chemicals that you can choose from. If you aren’t quite sure what you need, talk with one of our sales representatives. They’re highly knowledgeable about our offerings and business practices. They’ll point you in the right direction.

Contact us today to get started!

Scroll to Top